Why I think Raymer's suckouts were perfectly fine

[durron597]

First of all, he was the big stack, so raising with TT is not a terrible play. When McClain moves allin, he has to call 300,000 more into a 1,000,000 + antes/blinds pot, so this is an easy call. The fact that he won a suckout is just part of poker.

Also, Raymer said it himself on the AT hand: He said he thought Mattias Andersson would make raise with any ace there, a reasonable assumption with the antes, blinds, and Mattias's stack. He put Mattias on a (very likely correct) range of hands, and called based on that. Mattias just happened to be in the "ahead" part of the range, which is again part of poker.

For those who say he would not have won without those two suckouts, perhaps it would have been harder for him but he still would have been the chip leader with 1/4 of the chips in play, so it's hard to say.

[Jake (The Snake)]

agreed, he never really made a poor play. Sure, he got lucky. But you have to if you expect to win the big one. Think about it this way. If you had AA against KK over and over again in the WSOP, you would still be a heavy underdog to win the tourney with that many people.

[Moovyz]

Agreed. He lost a couple where he should have won as well.

[The Ocho]

Sucking out is always perfectly fine.

Unless you're Chris Moneymaker, in which case it earns you endless scorn and hatred from millions of mediocre poker players/fans.

[Stew]

[ QUOTE ]
Sucking out is always perfectly fine.

Unless you're Chris Moneymaker, in which case it earns you endless scorn and hatred from millions of mediocre poker players/fans.

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting all your money in with the worst of it when it would end your tournament will generally promote that reaction, yes indeed.

[jwvdcw]

I think that the A-10 call was poor. What do you expect him to have? Even if he has a hand like QKs, you're still a very small favorite only, and there are many hands which make you a huge underdog.

[Army Eye]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sucking out is always perfectly fine.

Unless you're Chris Moneymaker, in which case it earns you endless scorn and hatred from millions of mediocre poker players/fans.

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting all your money in with the worst of it when it would end your tournament will generally promote that reaction, yes indeed.

[/ QUOTE ]


Hi, when was Moneymaker all-in with the worst of it?

[durron597]

He called an allin preflop (or was it on the flop? I don't remember) with 88 and was up against AA. He spiked his set to double up. I believe this was against Humberto Brenes, but again I'm not 100% sure.

[Dynasty]

I think Army Eye's point was that even in that hand against Brenes, Moneymaker wasn't the one who was all-in. Brenes was all-in and got eliminated when he lost the hand.

And, of course, it has to be pointed out that Moneymaker did not call all-in. He check-raised Brenes all-in on a King-high flop. Moneymaker was betting that Brenes couldn't beat top pair.

[Army Eye]

[ QUOTE ]
He called an allin preflop (or was it on the flop? I don't remember) with 88 and was up against AA. He spiked his set to double up. I believe this was against Humberto Brenes, but again I'm not 100% sure.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, but you're off on a lot of stuff here. It was on the flop, he raised Humberto and put him all-in, and he had Humberto covered (pretty clear since Humberto was eliminated on the hand)

So, Moneymaker was not all-in with the worst of it here.

[cowpie]

[ QUOTE ]
Sucking out is always perfectly fine.

Unless you're Chris Moneymaker, in which case it earns you endless scorn and hatred from millions of mediocre poker players/fans.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget about all the Gus hating threads.

[kgrad5]

money maker against phil ivey.. trips against full house,(9s full i believe) although moneymaker had him covered since ivey was eliminated in that hand, he got his money in with an inferior hand.. but i like moneymaker

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
money maker against phil ivey.. trips against full house,(9s full i believe) although moneymaker had him covered since ivey was eliminated in that hand, he got his money in with an inferior hand.. but i like moneymaker

[/ QUOTE ]

1 - Name one good player who wouldn't have called Phil's all-in bet there.
2 - Moneymaker was not all-in (as you yourself pointed out), so it's not a valid hand to bring up in this discussion.

[B Dids]

Two points.

Anderson's stack was SMALL. Greg could call that and still have a HUGE chip lead.

Greg said he thought that because of the size of Anderson's stack, that he may push with any Ace.

That's a very easy call. If you can't make that call in that spot, you're just not playing solid poker.

[Gatts]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that the A-10 call was poor. What do you expect him to have? Even if he has a hand like QKs, you're still a very small favorite only, and there are many hands which make you a huge underdog.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or he could have A2-A9. Or he could have 22-99 and it's a race.

[MtSmalls]

Of course all of this discussion is largely limited to the hands that we see on the ESPN shows and maybe a few more from some other sites. However, what I saw in almost every case, was Greg having a decent hand and a big (monster/ginormous) stack and using it. On every hand that I can remember (and my memory isn’t the best) Greg had a hand, that given the situation, was either a decent favorite or a slight underdog. Harrington sucked out on him, hitting a 9 on river to make a set, there were a few others that we saw, and he hit a couple of suckouts as well.

In most cases he either called another player’s all in for less than 15% of his stack, and/or re-raised a smaller stack all in, again, not for a significant amount of his pile. Classic big stack, NL poker.

[Riddik21]

[ QUOTE ]

So, Moneymaker was not all-in with the worst of it here.

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference people are referencing is that if Moneymaker lost any of his 'big suckout' hands he woulda been very crippled, if not out. While Raymer was risking like 1/15th his stack to 'suckout' on people. The difference is HUGE.
So whether he was technically all-in or not really isn't the issue.

However with 2600 people and probably 2x that next year...I doubt we'll ever see a champion that doesn't have some nice suckouts =)

[srblan]

Ivey screwed himself by calling a flop bet IIRC. Yeah, he caught up on the turn, but if he had folded on the flop in the first place, he'd have been better off...