I am getting sick of my friends saying "Raymer just got lucky."

[Greg (FossilMan)]

or something? While it's true you've never said anything nasty or blatantly wrong about me, you sure give the impression that you'd love nothing more than to make everyone believe I'm a chump who just got lucky for a week, and who is likely never going to do anything much ever again.

While it is completely true that one cannot correctly say I'm a good player based upon the WSOP this year, every time somebody brings up another form of evidence, you put it down. They say I'm a respected player at Foxwoods, in cash games and tournaments, and you discuss why that's meaningless. They say I'm respected here on 2+2 for consistently giving good tournament advice, and you put that down, saying it only proves I can talk the talk, but not walk the walk. Apparently, the only evidence you'll accept is for me to go out and win a bunch of other big events. Of course, if I fail to do so in the next year or two, that doesn't prove I'm a flash anymore than winning this year's main event proves I'm not just a flash.

You or somebody pulled my record from the Hendon Mob website in another thread. Somebody said it looked pretty weak. I guess they don't understand much about the subject. I have historically entered 1-4 events in the WSOP for the past 4 years, about 4-7 events at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, and about 2-4 events at the New England Poker Classic. There have been very few other events I've entered that would be reported in this database, maybe another half-dozen total. So, in the last 4 years, I've played in maybe 60-80 reported tournaments. I've won 2, and made another handful of final tables. Since the average field in these events (discounting the 2576 in this year's WSOP) was well over 100, I'd say that's pretty good. It doesn't prove I'm world class, but, I'm not sure any record could prove that point, unless it was so extreme that there was no alternative explanation left.

You kept comparing me to pros, who are less well known (now), but who have better records. Well, that's not a reasonable comparison. They were playing up to double the number of events per year that I played in 4 years. I would hope that they won a lot more often, and made a lot more final tables. If they didn't, I doubt you would have 4 years of records of their results to report. ;-)

Anyway, I really don't care if I "prove" myself to you or anybody. However, I would love to know why you are on what appears to be a vendetta against me on this issue.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)