Nine WSOP Bracelets

[Al Mirpuri]

As you all know, we currently have three men each possessing nine WSOP bracelets: Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Inevitably, Chan and Hellmuth will overtake Brunson as the WSOP was invented late on in his career and before the other two began to play poker, so Doyle will not get the chance to win as many events as the others as he will be unlkely to compete in the events as long as the others in the coming years.

Question: was the WSOP more competitive in the beginning with its quality composition or is it more competitive now with its increased fields?

The answer will either demean or exalt Brunson's achievement (and that of Johnny and Phil for that matter).

[Jim Kuhn]

I think bracelets were much easier to win ten years ago then today. I think it will be much harder two years from now. The internet poker boom in two years has developed thousands of super competitive poker players. Ten years ago there were probably less than 200 players in the world that played more than 40,000 hands per year. Next year there will probably be several thousand players playing that many hands.

I think the new internet players will need to make adjustments when chasing the bracelets. They will need to concentrate more on reading players and not revealing any tells of their own.

There are also many very good poker books today that were not present ten years ago. Players used to have to invest many hours to learn the hard way what you can read in a book prior to starting out today. The internet also lends itself very well to 'on the job schooling'. There is not a one person per hand rule and your 'teacher' can stand over your shoulder and critique your play as situations develop.

[Michael Davis]

I think even if players were much better in the past (which I doubt), it would be tougher to win nine bracelets amongst groups of 800+ morons.

-Mike

[Nottom]

There are also a lot more events now than before, most of which don't have "800 morons"

[RollaJ]

If you want to win a bracelet learn how to play lowball /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Look at it this way. Is golf more competitive now than it was 50 years ago? Of course it is. Does that demean Snead and Nelson? I don't think so.

I think the increased WSOP fields mean more quality. Tournament poker is its own animal, and the internet players get to play vastly more tournament hands per year than the live tourney pros. That competition leads to better quality play. As recently as 10 years ago, true dead money as a proportion of field size was probably much higher than today. Now there's a lot more people who know how to play.