PokerStars Invitational: who couldn't see a sucker?

[top2pear]

This tournament is also trying to prove the old poker adage, "If the 10th best player in the world sits down to play with the other 9, he's gonna lose his shirt."

But what interests me is the psychology of the men at this table. If another old poker adage is true that "If you can't spot a sucker at your table in the first 10 minutes...you're the sucker," then who at the Poker Superstars tourney can't find a sucker? Do you think each player believes he's significantly superior to at least one other player?

[maurile]

There were no suckers, which would have made them all suckers if they had to buy in with their own cash.

[lolita16]

It seems to me that all of the players have great respect for each other with the exception of Gus. Howard specifically isolates him a couple of times apparantly believing that he held superior cards (which he did). Chip seemed to be specifically isolating him with the AK hand seemingly knowing that Gus was likely to have a hand that was dominated (which he did).

I have noted watching Gus in the WPT events that he gets extraordinarily lucky frequently to win these events. Fully realizing that some luck is required to win these events, on has to admit that the suck out against Hoyt when Gus was all in with the dominated pair only to come back and win it was tremendously lucky. I believe that when his results come back to aproaching normal, we won't be seeing him win so many finals.

Regards-

[durron597]

I'm going to agree with the poster that I'm replying to... I think Gus is the only person at that table who couldn't see a sucker; it seems that Howard and Chip Reese both made very blatant attempts to exploit Gus's loose play (and probably some others that I can't remember), and it was just unfortunate that Howard lost that first hand with his cowboys. (Of course, he did come back with some lucky weak ace/paired kicker hands, but that's besides the point.) It seemed to me that the other players for the most part did not want to tangle with each other in the second episode until Gus busted.

[Stew]

[ QUOTE ]
There were no suckers, which would have made them all suckers if they had to buy in with their own cash.

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They did buy-in with their own cash, 400K of it.

[Joe_d72]

Chris Ferguson said "You show me the player that everyone thinks is the luckiest poker player and i will show you the best poker player." I think Gus is going to show everyone that he is not just lucky and win the PokerStars Invitational.

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems to me that all of the players have great respect for each other with the exception of Gus. Howard specifically isolates him a couple of times apparantly believing that he held superior cards

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Everyone, including gus, knows that gus has loose preflop standards. That doesn't make him a sucker at all. Even if the other players reraise him constantly attempting to isolate him, he still may be the best player at the table.

[ohgeetee]

I think that if this is true, gus will drastically change his style of play somewhere down the line. If he can go the first 4 rounds being a maniac and getting 4th place or so, then when the big one rolls in he can change it up and be a bit more by the book.

[Smasharoo]

I have noted watching Gus in the WPT events that he gets extraordinarily lucky frequently to win these events. Fully realizing that some luck is required to win these events, on has to admit that the suck out against Hoyt when Gus was all in with the dominated pair only to come back and win it was tremendously lucky. I believe that when his results come back to aproaching normal, we won't be seeing him win so many finals.


Yeah, it's luck.

Alternately it could be that his post flop play is amazing normally, allowing him to play more hands than other top pros and that you don't see the hundreds of small pots he picks up on TV, not to mention how more action he's going to get with premium hand holdings.

It's not luck. It's talent. The fact that most people (myself included) can't comprehend how he can play that way is a good indication of this.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that if this is true, gus will drastically change his style of play somewhere down the line. If he can go the first 4 rounds being a maniac and getting 4th place or so, then when the big one rolls in he can change it up and be a bit more by the book.

[/ QUOTE ]

The way he talked in his post-game interview, he seemed to indicate that this was part of his plan. Either that or he was just planning on being ultra aggressive in the play-in rounds in order to give himself a good chance at a big stack in the finals.

[lolita16]

How could I have been so mistaken?! You are right sir; it takes an extraordinary amount of *skill* to catch a three outer against Hoyt when all in, only to come back and win it. What was I thinking???????

[slogger]

Settle down, buddy. No need to get sarcastic just because someone disagrees with you.

The fact is that Gus Hansen is a world class player. There are times when he appears to play like a maniac fish, but you need to realize that we probably get to see almost every hand where that happens. Almost every time somebody snaps off one his his bluffs or he sucks out on someone, the TV producers will deem it worthy of making the final cut. It's good television (or so they think), so those are the hands we see. We don't see him picking up hundreds and hundreds of small pots where his opponents are too conservative/tight/afraid to invest a large percentage of their chips. We don't see the hundreds of times he folds garbage hands preflop. We don't see all of the hands where he milks his opponents, who are over-playing their hands against a monster of his own.

As an example to support your premise (that GH is just lucky), you say that he once sucked out on Hoyt Corkins on TV - caught a 3-outer. Dude, that is one hand. One. If Gus is so damn lucky, how the hell does he make the final table 3 or 4 times a year in the WPT?

And as for the hand that you cite as proof of his luckiness, it wasn't even that lucky. These kinds of suckouts happen all the time. Did you know that a pre-flop 3-outer will hit almost 29% of the time? If you take into account that his opponent will also hit his kicker some of the time, that means almost one of every four times that hand occurs, Gus will end up winning it.

No doubt, Gus was in a bad spot there, and it was his loose aggressive style/image that got him there. But it's not like he was drawing dead when the money went in. He made a play and got caught. He also ended up winning the hand, which is not as rare of an occurrence as you make it out to be.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
Chris Ferguson said "You show me the player that everyone thinks is the luckiest poker player and i will show you the best poker player." I think Gus is going to show everyone that he is not just lucky and win the PokerStars Invitational.

[/ QUOTE ]

RPatterson, is that you?

[citanul]

no

Erostratus is the former rpatterson