Is Phil Gordon really any good?

[mrbaseball]

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Phil Gordon's conduct was good compared to almost everyone who comes onto that show

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I thought the female player last night was a breath of fresh air. She just seemed extremely happy to be there. She laughed and had fun and was a great sport. I thought she played well too. She was in a couple of close races and just seemed to be enjoying the moment instead of fretting over the cards. I try to approach the game in a similar manner.

[Cornbread Maxwell]

The female player was kind of weak I thought, albeit unlucky. She fell victim to the popular style of play where the player believes the 'opening raiser never has an overpair'. The fact that it was 5 handed and she was on the short stack made it a little more excusable, I guess, and she probably got unlucky more so than anything. However, the worst player definitely was Masoud (it cringed for me to watch him play), and then probably the Canadian guy Scott.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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Phil Gordon's conduct was good compared to almost everyone who comes onto that show

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I thought the female player last night was a breath of fresh air. She just seemed extremely happy to be there. She laughed and had fun and was a great sport. I thought she played well too. She was in a couple of close races and just seemed to be enjoying the moment instead of fretting over the cards. I try to approach the game in a similar manner.

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I agree. My fiance was watching with me last night and got pissed when they kept calling her Suzie Homemaker. They're just calling it how it is, though. She definitely was a welcome addition to the show. Those two canadians could've sucked an egg as far as I'm concerned - Scott was especially tool-ish. I was impressed with Moneymaker and felt Phil was being a bit of an ass with the comments he was making. They were definitely all true, but he was just being an ass making them the way he did. He was very patronizing whenever someone was knocked out and I don't think he was really doing anything special - just playing the big stack and being aggressive.

[Ulysses]

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The female player was kind of weak I thought, albeit unlucky.

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I dunno. Spiking the 8 vs. the 9's moved her up a couple of notches, right?

[el_grande]

I used to like Phil Gordon, but after last night I'm not so sure.

He was so condescending to everyone. "You played excellent the whole tournament" Give me a break. I think his head has swollen up now that he is a host of that joke show on Bravo.

[Hiding]

In my opinion Phil conducted himself better than most people you see on the show. (Except Suzie, she definitely was having fun) Any time someone was knocked out he stood up, shook their hand, told them they played great throughout the tournament and congratulated them. Its a lot more than I've seen a lot of players do.
And I like his props, anyone who is going to pull out the tourist hand ranking card against Phil Helmuth is okay in my book.
I'd like to know why when Gordon plays something like K3o its just loose and reckless, but when Gus hansen does it's genius and good strong aggressive play by a guy who likes to see a lot of flops? (granted I think he is a better player than Phil)

[wayabvpar]

Fun episode...finally got to watch one with my poker buddy, and we had a blast kibbitzing about all the play. IMHO, the 2 Canadian guys were terribly weak tight in the hands they showed on TV. When they tried to run bluffs, the tiny bets they made just screamed "I hate my hand, but am trying to pretend I don't" to me. I would have played back at them a lot (and probably gone bust when they actually HAD a hand [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] )

Definitely thought MM outplayed everyone else (of course, we only see a few hands; Phil Gordon had to be doing some things right to keep his stack so large).

Add me into the group who was surprised by Gordon's angry reaction when he saw MM's AQ (did you see Moneymaker's face? He was shocked). I think he was madder at himself for not pulling the trigger than anything else (although I thought it was MM's most questionable move of the night).

[adios]

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Also, he normally seems like a real nice guy, but I did'nt really care for some of his comments;i.e. " I knew you were on a steal" when MM had AQh which he Re-Reraised with.

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Not exactly, he stated that he knew Moneymaker was putting a move on. He may actually have been more worried about the guy who was born in Iran that Moneymaker. Anyway he totally intimidated that guy who was born in Iran which IMO led to his winning that one pot with the K3. Gordon was aggressive and took some very good risks from what I saw. I agree with those who stated Moneymaker played well too. He was a thorn in Gordon's side. Good show last night.

[jwvdcw]

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I really disagree with his call on the A7 as well.

Here's my thoughts:

When Chris said "Unless I have pocket aces I'm folding" it told Phil a lot. Now I wouldn't put Chris on pocket aces, but it is apparent that he understood he'd need a very strong hand to make a move at this pot.

From Phil's perspective I think the only hands you can put Chris on are AA,KK,QQ,JJ, or AK. AA and AK Phil is practically drawing dead to and KK-JJ make him a decent sized underdog.

Top this off with the fact that the other guy in the hand made an all-in raise when he really wasn't all that short stacked which would often indicate a pocket pair or a hand like A-10. Phil was very lucky that he was even a 25% favorite to win the hand by my estimation.

I know he already had ~200,000 invested in the pot but I think folding and then facing Moneymaker with a small chip lead or facing two opponents (with a large chip lead over both of them) would have been a better proposition.

I do like Moneymaker's play however. He has to figure he has a better hand than the third guy because if the other guy had a monster he probably wouldnt have made such a large raise preflop. He knows Phil is likely to be calling with a hand like Ax or Kx. He has a decent chance of getting Phil to lay down his hand and putting a lot of dead money in the pot. On the other hand, if Phil calls he creates a huge potin which he's the favorite. If he loses to the third guy but beats Phil in the side pot he's still very much alive and if Phil wins he's guaranteed 2nd place money. I like this much more than the alternative of letting the two go heads-up in what he has to assume is roughly a 50-50 hand.

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I disagree. I think he read him perfectly. I think he put him on anywhere from pocket 9s-pocket Ks or maybe A-K. Either way it gives him 3 outs. He already had a lot invested in the pot, and he thought it was worth the gamble to win it right there. Maybe not the greatest play in the world, but not terrible either imo.

[HajiShirazu]

What was with those minimum raises? This isn't a party 10/1 sng, is it?