Why do the pros show up to major tournaments late?

Phil was late in 89' when he won the ME so he decided to show up late every year.

[send_the_msg]

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My suspicion, and this is only a newbie guess, is that it's part image, part being just plain late, and part confidence. I've noticed that as I have gotten better, it doesn't matter too much how many chips you have when you start to play. For example, and I'm sure the veteran poker players here understand, there have been many times I've been short stack and have come back to place or win a small tourney. Pros figure, I'm assuming, that the majority of players at the WSOP aren't even remotely as good as them, so they take their time, lose a couple hundred (heck, maybe even thousand) bucks off their stack, then proceed to win it back with expert play...

That's my guess.

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are you sure this makes any sense? they play expertly by getting into hands, more hands = more wins

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God-awful? Did you even do any research on this, or is this just another off-the-cuff opinion based on a couple of episodes on ESPN? I'm not particularly a huge fan of Hellmuth, but "God-awful" is just a bit extreme, don't you think?

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You are correct. God-awful is extreme. However, given Phil's constant self-inclusion of himself as one of the top ten players in the world, my extremism is not so bad.

Phil Hellmuth POY standings
2004- 286
2005 - 1761

Not exactly God-awful but far from top shelf.

[nanoCRUSHER]

I remember scouring Usenet articles by pro players and found the following thread (read "apryllshowers" post and paulp's reply, the last two messages in the thread)

[jwvdcw]

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An online pro like Thomas Keller probably averages over $1K per hour that he plays on the internet (and possibly a lot more than that as he 3 or 4 tables nosebleed games like 300/600). If he is in a tourney that costs $5K to enter, if he comes 2 hours late he has effectively slashed the entry fee dramatically. Starting a tourney with 95% of your chips but "paying" only 50% or 60% of the entry fee is a solid tradeoff. I'm not saying that they're actually playing online poker instead of showing up, it's just a thought.

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I understand what you're saying, but I really doubt that is the reason why, and it still wouldn't explain a lot because many of the big name pros seem to care more about the prestige of the WSOP than the money.

[jwvdcw]

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I remember scouring Usenet articles by pro players and found the following thread (read "apryllshowers" post and paulp's reply, the last two messages in the thread)

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very interesting read...thanks for the link.