A World Class Player, indeed!

[wray]

I was fairly surprised to see Ellix Powers name in a Card Player paper. I think he came in 7th or 8th in a limit hold em tourney.

Not a big big one. I think he got 3 or 4 grand for it.

[jakethebake]

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these seemingly bright guys

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Are you kidding? Affleck?

[J.R.]

it was an open 2K buy-in tournament.

[Masquerade]

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I'd like to hear about Toby and Ben from Stan Goldstein. 9th here and 2nd to Affleck. I sat next to him once and wanted to ask about losing to Ben, but thought better of it. Figured the other pro's probably ribbed him enough.

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The fact that Affleck got past Goldstein in a long heads-up session without any ridiculous bad beats or freak hands surely settles the question as to whether he is a very good player or not. Maybe he had slightly the better of the luck, I dont know, but what winner doesnt?

[SossMan]

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The fact that Affleck got past Goldstein in a long heads-up session without any ridiculous bad beats or freak hands surely settles the question as to whether he is a very good player or not

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Not that I necessarily agree or disagree with your conclusion, the above statement is pretty silly. It would be equivilent to saying that a player that led the league this week in field goals (who didn't miss any field goals) is a great kicker in the game.

[Masquerade]

No, it's not equivalent to saying that. I assume what youre trying to say is that in a large field someone is going to perform flawlessly in any given week and you cant extrapolate the fact that theyre a great player from that. However winning a poker tournament is inherently more skillful than just being the best performer in a given week.

[Asufiji2004]

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No, it's not equivalent to saying that. I assume what youre trying to say is that in a large field someone is going to perform flawlessly in any given week and you cant extrapolate the fact that theyre a great player from that. However winning a poker tournament is inherently more skillful than just being the best performer in a given week.

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No it's not. I think being a professional poker, NFL, NHL, chess player...you get the idea...takes a certain amount of skill. To say winning a poker tournament is inherently more skillful than kicking the most field goals in a week, or throwing the most TD's or whatever..is kind of retarded. Poker is not the only "skill" game out there. I think it's possible for any given player to win a tourney. Look at the WSOP will a pro ever win that tourney again? To consistently win is skill. I mean Affleck won a big tourney....call him good...calling him great is a little off...and calling him world class is obsurd.

[JalKelly]

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these seemingly bright guys

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Are you kidding? Affleck?

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Actually Affleck IS intelligent. I saw him being interviewed by Bill O'Reilly at the Democratic National Convention and he came off extremely well spoken and had some quality things to say.

[Masquerade]

You couldnt be more wrong.

Kicking the most field goals etc is an example of a linear performance. A players performance will be some sort of bell-curve distribution. Better players will have slightly higher performance means but in a sample of roughly evenly matched players anyone can hit an outlier and be the "best" that week.

However winning a poker tournament requires repeatedly making good decisions with incomplete information. This decision making extends over several days and hundreds of hands. Luck plays a part, sure, but noone can win a tourney by luck alone and the structure greatly magnifies skill differences in a non-linear way. Your choice of chess to support your argument is particularly bogus. There are many top GMs who have never beaten Kasparov, nor even finished ahead of him in a tourney and never will. By contrast look at golf where any top 20 player would have a good chance against Woods over 18-holes and would have finished ahead of him in many tourneys.

[SossMan]

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I assume what youre trying to say is that in a large field someone is going to perform flawlessly in any given week and you cant extrapolate the fact that theyre a great player from that.

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Be careful when you put words in people's mouths. I never said winning a tournament requires flawless performance...or even good performance, for that matter. There is much, much, much more luck involved in the short run in poker than many, many, many people want to admit. Also, people's notion of "short run" is much, much, much too short, especially in tournament poker.

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However winning a poker tournament is inherently more skillful than just being the best performer in a given week.

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OK, now you are just being silly.