[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
I feel players plucking down $10k to play are insane no matter how good you are (or think you are for that matter) are really throwing your money away.

[/ QUOTE ]


Not really.
Consider that many of the top-name players finished in the money and at least got their buy-in back (or maybe a little more).

Anyone who finished in the top 225 got their buy-in back I think.
If you finished high enough to 'only' got $10-$20k, well, that still isn't THAT bad for a week's work.

Plus the excitement of being involved in the biggest poker event EVER.

I just think it's wrong to assume that not reaching the final-table constitutes failure.


Other thoughts -

Paul - thanks for a very insightful post. I will also be checking out the linked article.

Cris - Great post regarding other sports. right on the money. The line between great and mediocre is much closer in most sports then many people imagine.
look at all the 95 win teams in baseball compared with all the 91 win teams.
etc etc etc. Your golf example is good too and probably slightly closer to the poker-tournament construct.



My own situation - As some of you know, last week I decided to enter a $50k guaranteed online tourney for $100 and I lucked my way into winning the whole thing for $12.5k.
Not too shabby for a guy who isn't that good of a tourney player who makes his living grinding away at the 3/6 tables.
I didn't have any major suck-outs until it was heads-up (where the river saved me a couple times) and I thought I played pretty well. But I also came back from the short-stack with 16 players left so there obviously had to be some luck involved.
My greatest amount of luck came from the fact that nobody delivered any significant bad-beats on me.
All my AQ's held up against AJ's and so on.


Am i improving as a tournament player? Heck yes. I'm much better now then I ever was before.
Is my win evidence that I am pretty damn good at this stuff?
Nope. Not by a long-shot.
I think I MIGHT be good enough to break-even on these things (or have slight positive expectation) in the long-run but certainly not much more than that.
At least not until Greg and Dan's 2+2 tourney-books come out!!