Two Plus Two Older Archives - 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.

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Although your points are certainly logical, there have been numerous players who have had great back to back runs recently in the main event. Ivey in 2003 came in 10th after suffering the infamous bad beat to Moneymaker, and now Ivey in 2005 finishes 20th, Marcel Luske finished just shy of the final table in both 03 and 04, and of course Harrington placed top 5 in both 03 and 04, and a year after Raymer wins the ME he finishes in the top 25 in a field twice as big as the year before. No individual player is even money to win any large tournament, but 500-1 is stretching it a bit. I think you're underestimating the skill factor a bit here, in a No Limit hold em event the cards sometimes don't even matter. If you can execute enough blind steals, steal enough small pots, and occasionally doubling up or winning a large pot you have a shot at winning it, some more than others. I would take Phil Ivey 5-1 to make it deep in the Main Event (50th or better). Winning it does take more luck than just getting deep, but there are a couple special players who are easily capable of making a final table in a huge field.