Normally, I'm a BIG fan of Paul Phillips, from his poker ability, to his humor, to his poker dickhead exposing ability. But his most recent blog
entry I have a few problems with.
Now, in a blog
entryfrom earlier this week, PP makes a case that Todd Witteles/"Dan Druff" assumed an alias on Negreanu's site to "defend Todd". Then in the most recent entry given at the top of this post, he mentions how Todd is "about as easy to read as the big E on the eye chart" and that, regarding the QJ vs AA hand where Todd made the straight on the turn and Peter Costa made a crying call with AAA, that "he would have made at least one and almost certainly two more bets."
OK, first off, it's well known I'm not much of a limit player, but exactly where are these extra bets coming from? Unless it's from Todd betting out on the turn,(which is a GREAT strategy if you KNOW he has a set, but has its drawbacks otherwise), I don't see how he gets 2 more bets from "likely the best limit hold'em player in the world" (really?). Because if you can figure PC would normally reraise the turn, you also have to figure that he can fold the river, 11-1 or so to call be damned,(another "Math guy" logic hole, as Negreanu calls PP and some others?). And how is the hand played "superhumanly well" by PC? He pays off the river AFTER TW says, "If you don't call, you'll always wonder" when there is an easy and obvious 4 card straight on the board.!?! Then, when Todd chimes in on the subject, giving a well thought-out explanatory post, PP essentially dismisses him like an annoying puppy, since TW, of course, isn't in PP's REALM as a poker player, even though TW now has 2 WSOP events played, with a 3rd and a bracelet to his name(small sample size, doesn't prove anything, yadda yadda.....) No one will deny Paul's intelligence, or his poker skill, but I think very few would put him in the top 10 of ANY poker discipline, as he did for himself in ( I believe, but can;t find the link) NL hold'em.
Secondly, considering the fact that this guy has never been on television before, was encouraged to be boisterous by ESPN, and was obviously very excited to be where he was with the opportunity to make that kind of $$$, to come off badly under those circumstances is hardly something that should be held against him. It ain't like he pulled a Fischman or anything. The fact he is being nominated as "wsop lamer of the year" for coming off badly on TV by a guy whose earliest TV appearances either were described as "Smug", "Stupid"( his play, not him), or "gay", (which he still gets, and deservedly so.) is beyond laughable.
Paul will probably read this, because he misses NOTHING on the internet, and he may or may not reply, and may or may not be snidely funny(I'm hoping for may [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]), but you'd think someone that lives in a glass house would not only not throw stones, but also wouldn't walk around naked in it.