Doyle's Win More Impressive Than His Two Championships

[HighStakesPro]

In Harrington's first book, he talks about the "hidden luck factor" in no limit hold'em. I could not agree moore, because no matter how good you are, you could very easily be confronted with a situation where even making the absolute best play possible, you will still lose all of your chips. For example, you are in the cutoff with an above-average chip stack at the 9-handed final table of the WSOP, you get kings, there's a raise in front of you and a call, and because you are an expert hand-reader you have deduced that one of the players is raising with a small pocket pair and the other player is calling with a medium-to-big ace, like A9,AT,AJ. You certainly don't want action from both of these players, although you could manage with just one, but because the raise was to 25% of your stack, you decide that the best move is to go all in and hope that either both fold or just one calls, in which case you are a large favorite. But wait! The player in the small blind (who even chosen at random has a very good chance of being close or higher than you in chips) looks down to find pocket aces! He moves all in over the top, the others fold, you are dead to two outs and don't hit. You didn't get a bad beat, you were just unlucky that he acted after you and that the action in front of you forced you to raise all in.
There is literally nothing you can do to prevent something like this, although it is a sequence of events.

At one recent final table (I don't remember all of the details of this hand) on Pokerstars, I had KJ on the button when the action was 6-handed, There was a raise and a call in front of me, so I decided to call, although I was slightly below average in chips. The flop came QTx rainbow, and it was checked around. The turn was the ace, the first player checked, the second player made a bet, I smooth called, the first player checkraised all in, second player called, and I call with the nuts.

1st player: A8
2nd player: AJ

The river bought the case ace but my straight beat their trips and I tripled up, going on to win the final tble by virtue of my dominating stack. Hitting one of the two remaining aces is really no less lucky than Brunson hitting a two-outer against Flack, even though all the money was already in. There is no way I would have gotten all of that action if the 9 had hit, and if a king had come I surely would have busted because the AJ would have had the nuts. So there is a great deal of luck in No Limit Hold'em, even before all the money has gone in.

[psyduck]

[ QUOTE ]
In Harrington's first book, he talks about the "hidden luck factor" in no limit hold'em. I could not agree moore, because no matter how good you are, you could very easily be confronted with a situation where even making the absolute best play possible, you will still lose all of your chips. For example, you are in the cutoff with an above-average chip stack at the 9-handed final table of the WSOP, you get kings, there's a raise in front of you and a call, and because you are an expert hand-reader you have deduced that one of the players is raising with a small pocket pair and the other player is calling with a medium-to-big ace, like A9,AT,AJ. You certainly don't want action from both of these players, although you could manage with just one, but because the raise was to 25% of your stack, you decide that the best move is to go all in and hope that either both fold or just one calls, in which case you are a large favorite. But wait! The player in the small blind (who even chosen at random has a very good chance of being close or higher than you in chips) looks down to find pocket aces! He moves all in over the top, the others fold, you are dead to two outs and don't hit. You didn't get a bad beat, you were just unlucky that he acted after you and that the action in front of you forced you to raise all in.
There is literally nothing you can do to prevent something like this, although it is a sequence of events.

At one recent final table (I don't remember all of the details of this hand) on Pokerstars, I had KJ on the button when the action was 6-handed, There was a raise and a call in front of me, so I decided to call, although I was slightly below average in chips. The flop came QTx rainbow, and it was checked around. The turn was the ace, the first player checked, the second player made a bet, I smooth called, the first player checkraised all in, second player called, and I call with the nuts.

1st player: A8
2nd player: AJ

The river bought the case ace but my straight beat their trips and I tripled up, going on to win the final tble by virtue of my dominating stack. Hitting one of the two remaining aces is really no less lucky than Brunson hitting a two-outer against Flack, even though all the money was already in. There is no way I would have gotten all of that action if the 9 had hit, and if a king had come I surely would have busted because the AJ would have had the nuts. So there is a great deal of luck in No Limit Hold'em, even before all the money has gone in.

[/ QUOTE ]

<font color="blue"> Poker takes more skill than luck because you have to be skilled to get into situations where you can UTILIZE luck. Like the AJ vs A8 hand, you picked your spot to get lucky. That takes skill. </font>

[augie00]

The best part about this thread is thinking about how bad zaxx would have been flamed had he posted this.