[sleepyjoeyt]

"The problem is that Phil has yet to enter the proverbial very long run and may never reach it during a lifetime of play."
So does this mean that everyone's only lucky at everything? Phil may not play enough cards in a lifetime to enter the proverbial "long run"? Conceptually, this may be true. But by this theory, we could never make comments about anyone's skill at anything.

Maybe Barry Bonds is just a lucky home run hitter.

Maybe Sklansky is really talking out his ass and doesn't understand anything, but has just gotten lucky to hit on some concepts and guessed at the right reasoning.

These things are certainly possible.

But God (or whatever you believe) gave us the ability to use common sense. And common sense alone says that maybe something that seems EXTREMELY lucky isn't lucky at all but might be based on something else.

And I'm not saying that Phil is the greatest player in the world. I'm just saying that his accomplishments make it hard for me to dismiss what he has done as simply dumb luck.

Here's another concept. We're only talking Hold'em tournaments at the World Series of Poker.

I'll take Phil H to win another championship before any single person that you name. Remember, we're only talking Hold'em tournaments at the WSOP.

So, who's your horse?

Another factor for me: I wonder what the boys in Vegas who set the lines would give on Hellmuth to win the WSOP championship next year? I'll give my left nut if they had 500 people listed as more likely winners than he.

But your probably smarter than those guys, too.