Professionals EV in WSOP ME

[Jedster]

My own boredom took over and I did a quick analysis of who won what in the 2005 WSOP ME. By my gorrila math, professional players won a little under $6.4 million.

My list of pros who cashed is below, feel free to argue with it, it's just players who I've heard of or who I know. I also may have missed some players who are pros, but that would make my analysis more conservative.

Who knows exactly how many "pro" players entered, but the estimates seem to range from 200-300. Let's use 250. Let's also assume that each pro bought in directly for $10k. That would mean that the pros paid $2.5 million to win $6.4 million collectively. For each $10k that's $15,600 profit.

Given the large field size, my guess is that these numbers are statistically significant, but I'd love to hear what some actual smart people have to say on the topic.

Assuming the numbers are statistically significant, then the average pro should expect 150% profit in the WSOP ME. It would stand to reason that the very very best pros should be more than that -- but of course the great mystery is, how much more?

I would also guess that the 150% figure is LOW since the event so still relatively top-heavy. Presumably one day a prop will win a huge WSOP ME event and then if we looked at the cash record of pros over the course of the large field WSOP history, the 150% figure would baloon.

Anyway, here is my list of pros (note that I am listing Andrew Black as a pro because they called him one on the cardplayer broadcast, I'm assuming they are right).

Andrew Black $1,750,000
Mike Matusow $1,000,000
Minh Ly $304,680
Phil Ivey $304,680
Tuan 'Tommy' Vu $304,680
Greg Raymer $304,680
John Juanda $274,090
Dustin Woolf $274,090
Farzad Bonyadi $235,390
Kenna James $235,390
Lee Watkinson $235,390
Hung La $173,880
Russ Hamilton $145,875
Jason Lester $107,950
Can Kim Hua $91,950
Justin Cuong Van 'J.C.' Tran $54,965
Howard Lederer $54,965
David Plastik $46,245
Paul Darden Jr. $46,245
Joe Beevers $46,245
Russ 'Dutch' Boyd $39,075
Layne Flack $39,075
James Meehan $39,075
Garry Bush $33,197
Mark Napolitano $33,197
Michael Mizrachi $33,197
Michael O'Malley $28,375
Bob Ciaffone $24,365
Barbara Enright $24,365
Corey Cheresnick $21,070
Sam Farha $21,070
Kirill Gerasimov $16,055
Clonie Gowen $14,135
Gavin Smith $14,135
Meng La $12,500