Before we start here, I'll acknowledge that pokernews.com notoriously draws the ire from players by failing to report hands correctly. Most of them are reported well, but occasionally, some details are wrong. That may be the case with a hand or two on this list. Still, it's a useful exercise to point out what the bad play is (the goal isn't to make fun of the pros, but to get better by learning about the wrong way to play hands). Hand 1: Erik Seidel minraise/tanks with A2o for 12.5bb.In this hand, we're just 12.5bb deep, and the champion (and a very good player) decides to minraise A2o, then is in pain when Moneymaker jams, before finally calling it off. Different reports of this hand have it as short as 10bb deep. In my mind, this is a pretty clear error from Seidel.First of all, let's address the tank. There's 4bb in the pot with 10.5bb left to call, which means Seidel needs 42% equity to make a call profitable. A jamming range of something like 22+,A2s+,K6s+,Q8s+,J8s+,T9s,A2o+,K9o+,QTo+ makes the call breakeven, so Seidel should believe that Moneymaker is jamming wider than that for a call to be profitable. Moneymaker, a player who 3bets fairly frequently and knows the theory behind 3bet jamming wide in HUSNGs, almost certainly has a jamming range this wide. In reality, it's going to be a pretty rare opponent where folding is good with A2 here, and Moneymaker is certainly not thay opponent. However, we certainly don't love our life with A2 - other than K2 or maybe Q2s, there isn't a single hand we're thrilled about him flipping up. This is probably the pain Seidel felt.However, that pain is evidence of how there's a much better way to play the hand: Openjamming. We successfully managed to induce a jam here from a worse hand (T9), but our expectation from the hand is about +1bb - the exact same equity from openjamming! Moreover, something even worse could have happened when Seidel minraised: Moneymaker could have flatted. If he had done so, Seidel certainly would have had much worse than +1bb in the hand, and would have much preferred openshoving. That's not to say Moneymaker's jam was an error: If Seidel was considering minraise/folding A2, he certainly may have minraise/folded Kx and Qx (not to mention some junk hands), which makes the jam better than flatting.Now, it's true that if Moneymaker never flats, there's no downside to Seidel minraising (see Chapter 7 in the recommended reading list for more about this). However, I very much doubt that this was Seidel's reasoning for minraising, because if it were, he wouldn't have taken so long to call the shove. He would have known Moneymaker was jamming wide enough to make the call correct.In summary, small pairs, weak Ax/Kx: These are much better served as openjamming hands <15bb deep, not minraise/calling hands (minraise/folding or limping is often this best option with Kx when jamming is not best). Seidel, the beast that he is, managed to take down the tourney anyway. Hand 2: Chris Moneymaker flats KTdd, check/jams 955 flop.In the final hand of the match, effective stack sizes are somewhere between 20-23bb deep (depending on reports), and Moneymaker decides to call a preflop raise with KTdd. On the 955 flop, he checks and then jams over Seidel's continuation bet. Unfortunately, Seidel has 54o, and Moneymaker is left with 5% equity.There are a few things to talk about there. First of all, we have Moneymaker's preflop decision. In my mind, against a player like Seidel who likely isn't calling a shove with a hand like QT or folding a hand like A9 (so not far too loose or far too light), our options are either flatting, or 3bet/calling.It's going to be best to 3bet/call against an opponent with a wide opening range preflop. There's a ton of value in winning 2bb preflop out of position with no contest. The reason why we 3bet/call instead of jam isn't because we're hoping to induce from worse hands (although that may happen occasionally), but because there's also a ton of value in getting him to put more money into the pot with a lot of dominated hands: KTdd plays really well against all of that K9/QT/Q9/JT/T9/T8/J9/98 type of stuff that is prime material for calling 3bets. If we get jammed on, there's too much in the pot to fold and we have decent equity, so we call it off (and remember that jamming does just as bad against his monsters). Against good, adaptive players, it's best to build a balanced non-allin 3betting range with monsters like AA, solid 3bet/calling hands that flop well like KTdd, and some bluff hands (like 95s) to take advantage of the strength of this range (against fish who are too loose, don't bother with this). Hands like low pocket pairs and Ax are often better to simply jam preflop, along with some bluff hands with decent equity but aren't that strong postflop versus a wide range (again, a hand like 47s can work well) against opponents who are raising preflop enough and tight enough against jams for that to be profitable (remember that we're trying to be better than flatting, not just better than folding).But flatting can also be fine. If Moneymaker believes Seidel is opening a tight range, for example, or has other postflop reads about how well he will get paid off if he hits top pair vs middle pair and those sorts of things, it can be better than 3bet/call. However, I hate Moneymaker's flop play. On the flop, there's 4bb in the pot with 16-19bb behind, and he decides to check/jam over the c-bet instead of just calling the c-bet, or even making a smaller raise. Let's talk about why I think either one of those is going to be better.To start, for this to be profitable, Seidel has to be folding a large percentage of his range. Given that Moneymaker represents very little for value (would he really overbet jam with 5x here? would A9 really just flat preflop?) I don't expect he's folding out much of Seidel's 9x, especially considering that even when Seidel is dominated with a hand like 97 against Moneymaker's 98, Seidel still has 42% equity because of how often the hand is chopped (and again, we're back to representing: Would Moneymaker really jam 98 anyway considering the poor equity he has versus Seidel's entire calling range?). So if Seidel is folding a wide range, it's because he has a lot of junk that KTdd is ahead of, anyway. In that case, not only does the preflop line not make sense (why not 3bet preflop if he's raising a lot of junk?), but on the flop, just calling the standard continuation becomes even more attractive. We're ahead most of the time, and while calling allows Seidel to suck out, it also keeps us from making a huge overbet raise when it's devastating versus his value hands and only serves as protection versus the majority of Seidel's range.Another option that's better than check/jamming and may be better than flatting the c-bet is check/raise/calling. This at least allows him to 3bet bluff with hands like 87 (we have 63% equity versus that hand) and gives us much of the same protective value of our equity as jamming does. We also can more competently rep 5x ourselves (this is what 5x usually does, make a small raise) and fold out 9x when some overcards hit (as well as hit our card and get value from 9x sometimes, too). With 9x, his life is a lot more difficult if we make a smaller raise, and it's a lot better than jamming and getting snapped off because we don't rep anything. Check/raise/folding can also be an option with additional reads that Seidel would not 3-bet bluff.As it played out, we note that Seidel had 54o - by now, Moneymaker should have picked up on whether Seidel was raising these types of hands, and 3bet preflop if so. On the flop, calling the c-bet or making a smaller raise would have done much better against Seidel's range. Hand 3: Vannessa Rousso raises the flop with top pair and no planThe reporting of this early day hand is a little less precise, but I think we can get the gist of it from what's there. After Michael Mizrachi bets a JT3 flop, Rousso decides to raise J8. When Mizrachi jams, she doesn't know what to do, eventually calling and losing to QJ.On this type of board with plenty of straight draws possible (AK/AQ/KQ/Q9/89), without reads that Mizrachi will play these draws passively, Rousso's flop decision is whether to raise and get it in versus further aggression, or flat and continue with the hand that way. In general, it is rather rare that raising top pair for value on a board with draws and then folding to further aggression is correct when stacks are reasonably short.Without more information, this hand was not necessarily misplayed, and perhaps the tank was just the live poker custom of taking longer with non-dominating hands even if she knew she was going to call in the end. Still, I think there's a lesson to be learned here: When you're deciding to raise or call a bet with top pair on a board with draws, you should already know what your plan is versus an all-in, because that will happen rather frequently at these stack sizes with draws out there. Almost always, when you make that raise with top pair, it's because you think it's good to get it in. Otherwise, it likely is best to just call, and get more value from his bluffs and be able to re-evaluate whether it is worth getting it in based on whether the turn card fills any of those draws. Feel free to post any questions.