How come so many of the name pros busted out the first day?

[TM1212]

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I don't know where they got their seat, but there were a ton of very weak and very inexperienced players in this event. I'm sure many of them won their seat online, but I'm also sure that some of them got in via other routes. As Mike described at his table, there were plenty of players like that at every table, as far as I could tell.

It doesn't mean that they're bad players, and it certainly doesn't mean that I assume somebody is not a good player just because they won their seat online. However, with no further information, I will have to assume that the player who paid $10,000 cash is going to be a lot stronger than the player who won his seat online. On average, the difference will be huge.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

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Uh, didn't you win your seat online last year?

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I think that was his point...

LOL j/k

Most internet qualifers as he said got lucky at many points to win there crap shoot of a tourt. People who dont have a bankroll for the 10,000 dollar event or the 1,000 qualifers live, are usually the ones playing online to qualify. Now most of the time (not always) there playing this crapshoots because they dont have the roll to play the real tourts, and are jsut trying to get a seat because its a dream to play in the wsop to them.

(its late im not editing)

[MicroBob]

a few comments -


almost 2/3 of the field was eliminated on day 1. this is a lot. I suspect greg is correct when he says about half of the pros survived this cut to day 2 and that would be about how one would it expect it to go.



i was one of those internet qualifiers who got lucky to just be there.
in a pokerstars double-shootout i hit a major suck-out heads-up against a very good player named JC Tran (who I believed finished in the top 60 in the main-event so he certainly had the last laugh even though I won the seat from him).


I thought the competition was fairly soft at the WSOP although my table was a bit trickier with a couple of opponents making some pretty sharp raises. But 4 or 5 of the players there did not impress me AT ALL. 2 or 3 were really quite bad.


I could have had a decent chance of 'just surviving' day 1 if that was my only goal. but i obviously wanted some chips too and you can't just sit there and let yourself get blinded away.

If you're down to $6k or $7k in chips and the blinds are 150/300, ante 25 and then 200/400, ante 50 then you HAVE to hit a hand or two in there at some point or you won't be sticking around.
I think they got to the 300/600 limits on day 1.
It was a 15 hour day and that's a lot of poker!!!


no matter how good a player you are, sometimes you just don't get action on your big hands and you draw action when you really don't want it.


I was on the same table as Johnny Chan throughout my whole day 1.
He busted out about 10 minutes after I did (around 9:30pm I think).
He just wasn't getting any cards.
And when he did he wasn't getting action (folded around to him in the BB when he showed his KK for example).


A different player who was playing pretty recklessly had accumulated 60k in chips by the time I had gotten knocked out.
He busted the same guy's AA 2 different times (although the AA guy slow-played it pretty miserably).

He was catching some big hands and thus piiing up the chips even though some of his plays just weren't very good.


The play overall was not very strong.
Not too unlike what you would expect from a bunch of online-qualifiers and other mostly-amateur players.

A bunch of guys who were mostly kind of nervous in their first big event.
The guy on my immediate right was an absolutely terrible player but he still had some chips when I busted out. It happens.
It wasn't THAT unexpected....but this guy was significantly worse than I expected to see at the main-event.


I also played on the PPM IV cruise last March. Out of 735 entrants, 90% qualified online.
I learned at that time that just because you could make it to a big event via online qualifiers did NOT mean you were necessarily a good player.

Some of the players there were just plain awful (and I was truly frightened at the number of people who truly believe in such things as 'action flops' and rigged decks and cash-out curses at party poker).

[Saddlepoint]

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almost 2/3 of the field was eliminated on day 1. this is a lot. I suspect greg is correct when he says about half of the pros survived this cut to day 2 and that would be about how one would it expect it to go.

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I have an interesting comment regarding this, and a possible answer to the OP's question.

I had some money riding on the success of the "name pros" in the WSOP Main Event this year, and was following their results from day to day. Counterintuitively, these names actually busted out at a much faster rate than the field overall on Day 1 (meaning the combined Day 1a/1b/1c). Don't recall exactly, but I believe somewhere between 70 and 75% of these "names" actually busted the first day. Needless to say I was a little surprised! I'd actually have been doing better in my wager had I selected completely random players.

However, upon further analysis, I discovered something interesting. While these names had busted at a faster rate than the overall field, their average stack at the start of Day 2 was considerabely higher. Don't remember exactly, but I think it was close to twice the average stack of the field overall. Though they'd been busting faster individually, they had also been "consolidating" chips as a group. While it would be irresponsible to come to a conclusion based on analysis of this one tournament, it would be reasonable I think to postulate that the names were more willing to gamble than the no-names in the field, who were perhaps more interested in surviving to Day 2 at a cost to their EV.

After Day 1, the name pros did considerably better. They continued accumulating chips, but also survived much more consistently. By Day 3, the "names" comprised a bigger fraction of the remaining field than they had at the onset of the tournament.

One tournament is obviously too few to come to any kind of statistical conclusion, but I thought this would be some food for thought. It certainly took me by surprise.

[niin]

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I don't know where they got their seat, but there were a ton of very weak and very inexperienced players in this event. I'm sure many of them won their seat online, but I'm also sure that some of them got in via other routes. As Mike described at his table, there were plenty of players like that at every table, as far as I could tell.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

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I'm by no means a pro, but even I could tell there were terrible players at my table this year (this being my second year). There were people there that simply had no business being there. They were clueless.

[betgo]

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I had some money riding on the success of the "name pros" in the WSOP Main Event this year, and was following their results from day to day. Counterintuitively, these names actually busted out at a much faster rate than the field overall on Day 1 (meaning the combined Day 1a/1b/1c). Don't recall exactly, but I believe somewhere between 70 and 75% of these "names" actually busted the first day. Needless to say I was a little surprised! I'd actually have been doing better in my wager had I selected completely random players.

However, upon further analysis, I discovered something interesting. While these names had busted at a faster rate than the overall field, their average stack at the start of Day 2 was considerabely higher. Don't remember exactly, but I think it was close to twice the average stack of the field overall. Though they'd been busting faster individually, they had also been "consolidating" chips as a group. While it would be irresponsible to come to a conclusion based on analysis of this one tournament, it would be reasonable I think to postulate that the names were more willing to gamble than the no-names in the field, who were perhaps more interested in surviving to Day 2 at a cost to their EV.

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This is probably the answer to my question. It is likely that the name pros were playing to win. They didn't want to waste time hanging around with a tiny stack. There were probably a lot of other players who wanted to survive as long as possible at the WSOP.

I did seem like more than 2/3 of the top contenders were knocked out on day 1, which is why I posed this question.

[the_joker]

Probably because most pros are playing to win. I was playing just to finish in the money because I only paid $300 to get in. Honestly with the correct strategy, I don't think it's that hard to do. I came in around 650th using a very tight (weak) conservative strategy. I never showed down a losing hand the whole first day. The second day I only showed down two losing hands, one of them being my last hand. Even when short stacked, I didn't go crazy trying to steal blinds, so that when I did go all-in, people would know that I wasn't pushing with garbage and fold. No pro would play like this, hence they have a greater potential to bust out earlier.

[Quicksilvre]

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Also there is a LOT of luck in individual poker tournaments, more than most people seem willing to admit. Not enough hands get played to even out the luck factor. Also plenty of the "non-name" pro's almost surely play just as well or close to the level of a lot of the "name" pro's.

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[Greg (FossilMan)]

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Uh, didn't you win your seat online last year?

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Yep. And I was part of a group that, on average, was worse than the average player who ponied up 10K in cash. Of course, averages don't mean much in poker. What matters is the exact opponent you're facing, not the fact that's he is part of a group who, on average, plays in a certain manner. It only matters how he, as an individual, plays.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[valenzuela]

Anyway isnt table selection a bit overrated?? I rather have cards than donks on my table.

[Teldar]

I played in the ME and I wondered the same thing. I personally think the pros must have taken too many risks to accumulate chips, which in my opinion is unnecessary on Day 1. The way I looked at it, you can't win a tournament on Day 1, but you sure can lose it. I was on two different tables on Day 1. The first table I was on had average skill (Tuan Le was on it and busted out early). The second table was one of the easiest I had ever seen. I heard that almost every table was "easy" on day 1, given the size of the field. On day one, I only had my chips all in once (I had QQ vs. 88). Other than that, I didnt have all my chips in the pot until I busted out on Day 3 (I finished 312). And that was a stupid move on my part. I also never had a huge stack. After day 1, I had 25k (below average), and on day two, I finished with 183k(66th of 568). Almost all of day 1, I was short stacked but still only had my chips all in one time. I focused on winnning medium sized pots. Also, if you look at how the eventual winner was on stack size throughout the tournament, he never had a big stack until close to the end. Just my two cents but I think a lot of the pros played too aggressive and it was really unnecessary..