Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

I agree w/Trupoker- WITH ENVY - REAL LEGENDS!!
how many more bracelets will Varcone win, or Moneymaker for that matter

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

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What an awfully designed poll

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More proof this is the worst forum ever.

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

one could arge that beatin ga field of say 70 very very good top pros is more impressive than beating a field of 70 top pros, 500 decent players, and 4000+ complete retards.

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

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Winning one today is tough because the fields are larger, but the fields are much weaker. Winning one back in the day was tough because even though the fields were small a bigger % of the field were good players. So on balance I think these factors cancel each other out.

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Exactly. They mean the same to day as they did 20 years ago.

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No and it's not close.

WSOP bracelets of the past are not completely worthless, but they are worth far less.

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You're all wrong.

The concept of any achievement in poker being "impressive" is fundamentally flawed. Poker is a game of long-term results, so any short-term achievement is almost entirely due to luck. I don't really understand where you're all coming from, and I suspect you haven't really thought it through. Dan Harrington, for example, did not do anything impressive - he was just the recipient of extraordinary positive variance. That's just as true for winning any one bracelet.

The fact that a great player has to play, on average, a greater number of tournaments to win one creates the illusion of them being more "difficult," but that's not the case.

Now, big-field tournaments might require a different set of skills than small-field tournametns, I really don't know, and someone who has experience with both might argue that the former is more difficult than the later. If so, fine. But just because it takes 50 tries to win the latter, and 500 tries to win the former, doesn't in and of itself make it "harder" or more "impressive."

I mean, seriously guys: when someone wins the lottery, are you impressed? How "hard" do you think it is to do that?

Edit: About Dan Harrington. I said he was "was just the recipient of extraordinary positive variance." That doesn't mean I don't think Dan Harrington is an incredible player, he clearly is. I'm just saying that many, many other pros, if they got his exact cards and his exact situations, would have been just as capable of equalling his achievement. What he did was 99% luck.

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I don't nessicarily agree with that, poker is a lot of luck, obviously. But short term results in poker are skill and luck. Nobody wins a tournament without making solid fundamental decisions throughout the majority of the event. Not "any" pro can do what Dan Harrington did, he plays very dissimilar to most players, so to say that anybody can do what he did is just not true. Yes you need to win a couple coinflips, hit a couple lucky draws or what have you, but Harrington is not your average pro. And your average pro can't play as well as DH neither. I think you're accrediting luck to winning more than it ought to. Players can lose on their own bad luck, but they certainly can't win with just good luck.

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

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Winning one today is tough because the fields are larger, but the fields are much weaker. Winning one back in the day was tough because even though the fields were small a bigger % of the field were good players. So on balance I think these factors cancel each other out.

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Exactly. They mean the same to day as they did 20 years ago.

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No and it's not close.

WSOP bracelets of the past are not completely worthless, but they are worth far less.

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You're all wrong.

The concept of any achievement in poker being "impressive" is fundamentally flawed. Poker is a game of long-term results, so any short-term achievement is almost entirely due to luck. I don't really understand where you're all coming from, and I suspect you haven't really thought it through. Dan Harrington, for example, did not do anything impressive - he was just the recipient of extraordinary positive variance. That's just as true for winning any one bracelet.

The fact that a great player has to play, on average, a greater number of tournaments to win one creates the illusion of them being more "difficult," but that's not the case.

Now, big-field tournaments might require a different set of skills than small-field tournametns, I really don't know, and someone who has experience with both might argue that the former is more difficult than the later. If so, fine. But just because it takes 50 tries to win the latter, and 500 tries to win the former, doesn't in and of itself make it "harder" or more "impressive."

I mean, seriously guys: when someone wins the lottery, are you impressed? How "hard" do you think it is to do that?

Edit: About Dan Harrington. I said he was "was just the recipient of extraordinary positive variance." That doesn't mean I don't think Dan Harrington is an incredible player, he clearly is. I'm just saying that many, many other pros, if they got his exact cards and his exact situations, would have been just as capable of equalling his achievement. What he did was 99% luck.

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I don't nessicarily agree with that, poker is a lot of luck, obviously. But short term results in poker are skill and luck. Nobody wins a tournament without making solid fundamental decisions throughout the majority of the event. Not "any" pro can do what Dan Harrington did, he plays very dissimilar to most players, so to say that anybody can do what he did is just not true. Yes you need to win a couple coinflips, hit a couple lucky draws or what have you, but Harrington is not your average pro. And your average pro can't play as well as DH neither. I think you're accrediting luck to winning more than it ought to. Players can lose on their own bad luck, but they certainly can't win with just good luck.

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No, and you're absolutely right to point out that it almost always takes a large degree of fundamental skill to win a poker tournament. I think that Dan Harrington is almost certainly a phenomenal player. But I still think you're underestimating the short-term luck factor. I think most people do.

Let me ask you a question. If we got 500 players together, and has them play exactly 1 poker tournament, what % of luck and what % of skill would you guess goes into how well they all finish, in this 1 particular tournament? Would you say it's 50/50, 60/40? 80/20?

The only point I'm trying to make is that great "achievements" in poker are taken out of context. You said,

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Nobody wins a tournament without making solid fundamental decisions throughout the majority of the event.

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Not true. Lots of bad players have won tournaments, it happens all the time.

Also, you said,

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Not "any" pro can do what Dan Harrington did, he plays very dissimilar to most players, so to say that anybody can do what he did is just not true.

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I didn't say anyone could. I certainly couldn't. I'm just saying that there are a lot of people who could. Hundreds, at least. They're all excellent players. But none of them have made back to back final tables like that.

Let me ask you another question. What would guess are the chances for Dan Harrington to make it to the final table of the WSoP Main Event in 2006 (if, let's say, the field is exactly the same size as it was this year)? 1%? 5%?

Dan Harrington is a world class player. He was a world class player in 2002, before he did what he did. The chances of him making those back to back final tables was probably 1 in 500.

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

Winning the 197x, 198x 199x WSOP took a shitload of skill. Winning 2003-> takes more luck than skill.

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

i actually think bracelets won in the past are MORE respectable. today it's almost like a lotto

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

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i actually think bracelets won in the past are MORE respectable. today it's almost like a lotto

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In the past, you'd in theory need less skill (to get through less tough players) and less luck (to get through smaller fields). But I can't see how it'd possibly be easier. Hell, a couple of lucky draws could have practically won if for you in '78.

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

I think everyone is severely over rating the level of play in the earlier tournaments. While most of these guys might have been professionals how many of them were excellent no limit holdem tournament players?

Re: How should we view pre-2003 WSOP bracelets?
 

To those that criticize the poll itself, you know that the answers are straightforward, but it makes some of you feel special to pick apart semantics. If that's your thing, by all means, continue to flame. But the fact remains that there are 3 simple responses: either you feel older bracelets are just as impressive as they are in today's larger and more amateur-filled fields, impressive but less than today's bracelets, or not even on the same scale. I guess I could have written 20 response options that captured every nuance of the debate, but I have better things to do.

My idea for this poll, btw, came after reading someone's post in another thread about Doyle's main event wins being "not a big deal." Do people truly feel that way, that all of those wins in the "old days" are no more impressive than winning a couple of Sit n Go's, or are the multiple bracelets won by some of the veteran pros in those much smaller fields just as impressive as the ones won in the giant fields of Internet qualifiers?

My own opinion is that while the bracelets won in those days are certainly impressive (you still have to play amazing poker to win a tournament at that level of any size), comparing bracelets won in those days to the ones won today is like comparing home runs hit during the "juiced" era to those hit in the 70s and 80s. Yes, records are records, but sometimes the nature of the game changes enough to warrant looking at the old achivements as being slightly different from today's.