Is Phil Gordon really any good?

[Daliman]

Ok, i know he's pretty good, but it seems to me he has no more poker sense than any other decent tourney player, but can be more aggressive/take more chances since the money means next to nothing to him. Easy to call 300K more with A7o to a reraise for the titlewhen you're not worried about feeding the kids or paying the mortgage with your winnings. I Feel the Same about Ron Rose, (and have posted smae before), and to a VERY SLIGHT extent, Paul Phillips, bu tI think paul has a lot of game though. Not that a 10K buyin or even a million dollars means a hell of a lot to guys like Brunson, Greenstein, Reese, and Ivey, but at LEAST they usually play as if the money means somehting to them.
His K3 bluff looked brilliant, but, in context, wasn't that hard to see as the right play. THe hard thing is pulling that trigger and, since the money means little, it's that much easier. If I'm in that situation, I probably have to check, as I'm still chip leader and cant see bluffing 400K or so more that would bump me to like 3rd chip position. I'd be kicking myself if i'd tried it been called. Not that he doesn't care about he title, but this makes 3 straight WPY events I've seen him in that he's made a lOT of amateurish plays in. If this guy didn't have a big BR, I don't think he could make a living playing tourney poker, and I can guarantee he wouldn't have the same amount of success. He and Ron Rose are what i call "Bankroll Pros". I really don't even consider them professional players, as professional denotes doing it as a means of income, and they do it strictly for the competition. MAn, it realy sounds like i think PG and RR suck; I don't. I just don't think either one of them are any better than you average decent tourney player. I've seen both of them make some plays that could at BEST be described as weak. I know both of them know the game, but sheesh, enough with the rolling of the dice in poker, guys.

Also, he normally seems like a real nice guy, but I did'nt really care for some of his comments;i.e. " I knew you were on a steal" when MM had AQh which he Re-Reraised with.
#1 Shorthanded, in that case, AQh isn't a monster, but it's solid, and i'd HARDLY call it a steal hand, ESPECIALLY if I only have 99. Not like he has JJ-AA/AK or anything.
#2 MAN was that AJ call HORRENDOUS! He called like 300K more with a RERAISER BEHIND LEFT YET TO ACT! What did he put MM on? AT? Even if he put him on 99 or TT(below 99 just isn't feasible, as 99 BARELY is), hes on the wrong side of a coinflip.
Not that he hasn't had great luck in the past, but MM had some fairly crappy luck in the 1.5 hours I saw. He played better than everyone there in my opinion, and deserved to win.

P.S. It seems the WPT cant mention WOrld Series. Seemed funny them calling him "major tournament winner CHris Moneymaker". "THE major tournament winner Chris Moneymaker" would have been better. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[brassnuts]

He's decent. But man does he have a death stare when he gets ticked off, looks like he's plotting the deaths of his opponents' family.

[mtdurham]

I really disagree with his call on the A7 as well.

Here's my thoughts:

When Chris said "Unless I have pocket aces I'm folding" it told Phil a lot. Now I wouldn't put Chris on pocket aces, but it is apparent that he understood he'd need a very strong hand to make a move at this pot.

From Phil's perspective I think the only hands you can put Chris on are AA,KK,QQ,JJ, or AK. AA and AK Phil is practically drawing dead to and KK-JJ make him a decent sized underdog.

Top this off with the fact that the other guy in the hand made an all-in raise when he really wasn't all that short stacked which would often indicate a pocket pair or a hand like A-10. Phil was very lucky that he was even a 25% favorite to win the hand by my estimation.

I know he already had ~200,000 invested in the pot but I think folding and then facing Moneymaker with a small chip lead or facing two opponents (with a large chip lead over both of them) would have been a better proposition.

I do like Moneymaker's play however. He has to figure he has a better hand than the third guy because if the other guy had a monster he probably wouldnt have made such a large raise preflop. He knows Phil is likely to be calling with a hand like Ax or Kx. He has a decent chance of getting Phil to lay down his hand and putting a lot of dead money in the pot. On the other hand, if Phil calls he creates a huge potin which he's the favorite. If he loses to the third guy but beats Phil in the side pot he's still very much alive and if Phil wins he's guaranteed 2nd place money. I like this much more than the alternative of letting the two go heads-up in what he has to assume is roughly a 50-50 hand.

[Cornbread Maxwell]

Phil Gordon is fine as a player, and even if he were bad, there is no way he could possibly be any worse than Masoud, the guy who finished 3rd. If I wanted to watch a player of his caliber I'd hover around the Party Poker $25 NL tables.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

I spent a few hours with Phil during the Foxwoods $10,000 event last year, and I spent most of Monday at this year's WSOP with Phil. He is a very good player. Very aggressive, and good at putting opponent's on a hand. He probably plays a bit too loose, but who am I to say that's a bad thing in a big NLH tourney? ;-)

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[southerndog]

Moneymaker looked like he lost weight, and his dad gained it tenfold. His dad's pretty annoying too. He's no Ron Rose, but he's annoying.

[twomarks]

Hey Daliman,

I thought some of the same thing, but his looks seemed more like - "Man, I just can't get anyone to fold and I have everyone outchipped...NOW what do I do?!?"

Also - you mention Phil Ivey - does anyone know his background? Did he build his bankroll from scratch or was he able to start at higher limits due to a successful venture in another field? Or maybe he was successful in my current plan - win the lottery and then play poker and golf full time;)

Thanks,

twomarks

[namknils]

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Also, he normally seems like a real nice guy, but I did'nt really care for some of his comments;i.e. " I knew you were on a steal" when MM had AQh which he Re-Reraised with.

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He always seemed like a nice guy to me too (and still does), but when I saw his reaction after Moneymaker turned over AQ I was really surprised. He did look very pissed off, I thought he would normally just shrug that off.

[theBruiser500]

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Also, he normally seems like a real nice guy, but I did'nt really care for some of his comments;i.e. " I knew you were on a steal" when MM had AQh which he Re-Reraised with.

[/ QUOTE ]

Notwithstanding this comment, Phil Gordon's conduct was good compared to almost everyone who comes onto that show.

[BettnTibetn]

i've played with him before. really nice guy and a great player. Like Greg said he was great at putting people on a hand.

[mrbaseball]

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Phil Gordon's conduct was good compared to almost everyone who comes onto that show

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I thought the female player last night was a breath of fresh air. She just seemed extremely happy to be there. She laughed and had fun and was a great sport. I thought she played well too. She was in a couple of close races and just seemed to be enjoying the moment instead of fretting over the cards. I try to approach the game in a similar manner.

[Cornbread Maxwell]

The female player was kind of weak I thought, albeit unlucky. She fell victim to the popular style of play where the player believes the 'opening raiser never has an overpair'. The fact that it was 5 handed and she was on the short stack made it a little more excusable, I guess, and she probably got unlucky more so than anything. However, the worst player definitely was Masoud (it cringed for me to watch him play), and then probably the Canadian guy Scott.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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Phil Gordon's conduct was good compared to almost everyone who comes onto that show

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I thought the female player last night was a breath of fresh air. She just seemed extremely happy to be there. She laughed and had fun and was a great sport. I thought she played well too. She was in a couple of close races and just seemed to be enjoying the moment instead of fretting over the cards. I try to approach the game in a similar manner.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree. My fiance was watching with me last night and got pissed when they kept calling her Suzie Homemaker. They're just calling it how it is, though. She definitely was a welcome addition to the show. Those two canadians could've sucked an egg as far as I'm concerned - Scott was especially tool-ish. I was impressed with Moneymaker and felt Phil was being a bit of an ass with the comments he was making. They were definitely all true, but he was just being an ass making them the way he did. He was very patronizing whenever someone was knocked out and I don't think he was really doing anything special - just playing the big stack and being aggressive.

[Ulysses]

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The female player was kind of weak I thought, albeit unlucky.

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I dunno. Spiking the 8 vs. the 9's moved her up a couple of notches, right?

[el_grande]

I used to like Phil Gordon, but after last night I'm not so sure.

He was so condescending to everyone. "You played excellent the whole tournament" Give me a break. I think his head has swollen up now that he is a host of that joke show on Bravo.

[Hiding]

In my opinion Phil conducted himself better than most people you see on the show. (Except Suzie, she definitely was having fun) Any time someone was knocked out he stood up, shook their hand, told them they played great throughout the tournament and congratulated them. Its a lot more than I've seen a lot of players do.
And I like his props, anyone who is going to pull out the tourist hand ranking card against Phil Helmuth is okay in my book.
I'd like to know why when Gordon plays something like K3o its just loose and reckless, but when Gus hansen does it's genius and good strong aggressive play by a guy who likes to see a lot of flops? (granted I think he is a better player than Phil)

[wayabvpar]

Fun episode...finally got to watch one with my poker buddy, and we had a blast kibbitzing about all the play. IMHO, the 2 Canadian guys were terribly weak tight in the hands they showed on TV. When they tried to run bluffs, the tiny bets they made just screamed "I hate my hand, but am trying to pretend I don't" to me. I would have played back at them a lot (and probably gone bust when they actually HAD a hand /images/graemlins/blush.gif )

Definitely thought MM outplayed everyone else (of course, we only see a few hands; Phil Gordon had to be doing some things right to keep his stack so large).

Add me into the group who was surprised by Gordon's angry reaction when he saw MM's AQ (did you see Moneymaker's face? He was shocked). I think he was madder at himself for not pulling the trigger than anything else (although I thought it was MM's most questionable move of the night).

[adios]

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Also, he normally seems like a real nice guy, but I did'nt really care for some of his comments;i.e. " I knew you were on a steal" when MM had AQh which he Re-Reraised with.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not exactly, he stated that he knew Moneymaker was putting a move on. He may actually have been more worried about the guy who was born in Iran that Moneymaker. Anyway he totally intimidated that guy who was born in Iran which IMO led to his winning that one pot with the K3. Gordon was aggressive and took some very good risks from what I saw. I agree with those who stated Moneymaker played well too. He was a thorn in Gordon's side. Good show last night.

[jwvdcw]

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I really disagree with his call on the A7 as well.

Here's my thoughts:

When Chris said "Unless I have pocket aces I'm folding" it told Phil a lot. Now I wouldn't put Chris on pocket aces, but it is apparent that he understood he'd need a very strong hand to make a move at this pot.

From Phil's perspective I think the only hands you can put Chris on are AA,KK,QQ,JJ, or AK. AA and AK Phil is practically drawing dead to and KK-JJ make him a decent sized underdog.

Top this off with the fact that the other guy in the hand made an all-in raise when he really wasn't all that short stacked which would often indicate a pocket pair or a hand like A-10. Phil was very lucky that he was even a 25% favorite to win the hand by my estimation.

I know he already had ~200,000 invested in the pot but I think folding and then facing Moneymaker with a small chip lead or facing two opponents (with a large chip lead over both of them) would have been a better proposition.

I do like Moneymaker's play however. He has to figure he has a better hand than the third guy because if the other guy had a monster he probably wouldnt have made such a large raise preflop. He knows Phil is likely to be calling with a hand like Ax or Kx. He has a decent chance of getting Phil to lay down his hand and putting a lot of dead money in the pot. On the other hand, if Phil calls he creates a huge potin which he's the favorite. If he loses to the third guy but beats Phil in the side pot he's still very much alive and if Phil wins he's guaranteed 2nd place money. I like this much more than the alternative of letting the two go heads-up in what he has to assume is roughly a 50-50 hand.

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I disagree. I think he read him perfectly. I think he put him on anywhere from pocket 9s-pocket Ks or maybe A-K. Either way it gives him 3 outs. He already had a lot invested in the pot, and he thought it was worth the gamble to win it right there. Maybe not the greatest play in the world, but not terrible either imo.

[HajiShirazu]

What was with those minimum raises? This isn't a party 10/1 sng, is it?

[Peter_rus]

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In my opinion Phil conducted himself better than most people you see on the show. (Except Suzie, she definitely was having fun) Any time someone was knocked out he stood up, shook their hand, told them they played great throughout the tournament and congratulated them. Its a lot more than I've seen a lot of players do.

[/ QUOTE ]
I thought Phil was pretty gracious also. It reminded me a lot of his comments on CPS, especially the comment to the Suzie Homemaker girl about how she played well the whole tourney. He's the professional, she's just an amateur, but he thinks she played well. I don't see anything wrong or arrogant about that.

I was a bit shocked at how much he let the Iranian dude bother him though. It really showed when he won with the big K3 bluff and how he threw the cards down. I think he was just irritated at the guy's stupid plays and reraises with crap hands.

I was wondering the whole show...how does Phil Gordon not get "Bounty" status, yet James Woods does? I'd say Phil is one of the top pros out there, he certainly deserved to get a t-shirt.

[Burno]

Anybody catch the tell Gordon gave off last night when he got 99 the second(?) time? He looks as if he's still thinking about the previous 99 hand, sees he has 99, and noticeably smirks.

[daryn]

weak.

i think you're looking for that sort of thing because you know he holds 99 both times. first of all, who knows that those hands even took place back to back?

and ok let's say they did. i'd like to see the guy who looks at him and says.. "whoa, he looks like he's thinking of the previous hand... he must hold 99!"

he could easily have picked up another playable hand, but still be thinking about the previous hand, just because it was an interesting hand.

[JustPlayingSmart]

Wasn't there also a hand where Moneymaker had 99 and he shot Phil Gordon a smile after raising all-in. One of the Canadians called with 55, and before the cards turned up, Phil goes "9's baby!" Do we think Phil said this because of the look Moneymaker gave him (that could be fancy editing by the producers too) or just because he figured someone had to have 99?

[Zetack]

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I was wondering the whole show...how does Phil Gordon not get "Bounty" status, yet James Woods does? I'd say Phil is one of the top pros out there, he certainly deserved to get a t-shirt.

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Somebody correct me if I'm wrong cause I very well may be...but I think they invite some "stars" to that tournament and give them free entry. So presumably they decide in advance on some players they would like to have come and make the invites and "bounty" status for those players, instead of seeing who shows up and then deciding which players get bounty's on their heads. How James Woods gets an invite I don't know...maybe he's friends with the tourney director or something.

Phil Gordon isn't as impressive as some of the other top players, but I reckon making two final tables (even if the first was something of a bogus tourney) shows you've got some skills. And I do think a lot of players would have gotten themselves in more trouble trying to boss the table with the large stack but not catching any hands against people who were...I thought he did very well to come out of that stretch without crippling himself.

--Zetack

[Burno]

I didn't say the tell revealed he held 99 again. I just said he noticeably smirks when he sees 99 again so soon. (You are correct, we don't know if this hand was exactly next) Watch it again on Tivo, and I think you can see it quite clearly. I'm not saying someone at the table could have seen it and known he held 99, but they definitely could've taken it as a clue to his holding.

[SossMan]

For 6 months, Bay101 said they were capping the tourney to 200 players (20 tables, 20 "stars" w/ bounties). But, demand was so high, that Matt Savage (the tourney director) decided to expand it by two extra tables and then had to add two more stars (Woods and it was supposed to be Ben Affleck, but I think it ended up being Jon Faverough (however you spell it, Mikey from swingers).

[Peter_rus]

[ QUOTE ]
For 6 months, Bay101 said they were capping the tourney to 200 players (20 tables, 20 "stars" w/ bounties). But, demand was so high, that Matt Savage (the tourney director) decided to expand it by two extra tables and then had to add two more stars (Woods and it was supposed to be Ben Affleck, but I think it ended up being Jon Faverough (however you spell it, Mikey from swingers).

[/ QUOTE ]
Jon Favreau? Give me a freaking break! Just because you're a C list celeb and happen to play poker, doesn't mean that you're a poker "star". I would have loved to sit at his table and win his bounty. $5000 to these megamillionaires is peanuts... they'd play in every single tournament around the country if they had the time. Phil Gordon certainly deserved to be a star over that fat pretender.

[Beavis68]

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Wasn't there also a hand where Moneymaker had 99 and he shot Phil Gordon a smile after raising all-in. One of the Canadians called with 55, and before the cards turned up, Phil goes "9's baby!" Do we think Phil said this because of the look Moneymaker gave him (that could be fancy editing by the producers too) or just because he figured someone had to have 99?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that is the one that go me. Phil looked right at moneymaker and said "Nines" right before Chris flipped them over. Moneymaker sure did look scared when Phil glared at him when he flipped over that A-Qss. I thought he was going to say he was sorry.

I was really happy with that tourney though. I thought Phil, Chris and the Iranian played well, those other two punks I did not like (calling all-in with 66?) Suzy was fun to watch - I like the homemaker vs moneymaker joke.

Phil is a total class act. I have seen him play on UB a bunch, and he is always chatting with people, even heads-up. He is lucky, but also has an incredible sense of timing and odds.

In retrospect, I agree with his A-7 call, he cannot just fold and my Chris into a monster. He wouldnt have been in too much worse shape by calling and losing.

Phil is a credit to the game.

[tewall]

When I was watching live I thought the A7 was a terrible call, but calculating it on twodimes it looks like Phil would be about a 4 to 1 dog. I don't remember what the pot sizes were, but he was probably getting something like. He appears to know the odds pretty well. That's one thing he seems to be good at.

I also have no idea why he'd be in such a hurry to call with 99. He's at best a coin flip and more than likely dominated.

The AJ call was by that other guy was by far the worst play. That was really clueless.

I didn't notice any mistakes by MM. It shows how important luck is in these things. Do suppose he'd exchange winning the WSOP for this WPT event?

[Daliman]

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I didn't notice any mistakes by MM. It shows how important luck is in these things. Do suppose he'd exchange winning the WSOP for this WPT event?




[/ QUOTE ]
Dude, seriously. Put down the crack pipe.

[Profit]

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didn't notice any mistakes by MM. It shows how important luck is in these things. Do suppose he'd exchange winning the WSOP for this WPT event?





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Dude, seriously. Put down the crack pipe.

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Too funny, i had to read that about 5x to see if i missed something.

[Philuva]

I met Phil last year when he played in a charity poker event. He seriously is one of the nicest people you will ever meet.