Raymer and BIG STACK poker...

[IHateCats]

So many of these posts dwell on those hands where Greg got lucky at last years final table which makes me assume that they only watched the ESPN episodes and didn't follow it via Gutshot or Stars. The ESPN version of that final table was pathetic, they only showed 1/10th of the hands, it didn't show the climatic showdown between Raymer and Arieh and you didn't get any impression of how relentlessly aggressive he was about bullying the short stacks that showed weakness, about the only guy he steered clear of reraising was Harrington for obvious reasons and his being on Arieh's immediate left for most of the session was terrible luck for Josh. It pretty much was textbook final table big stack play, much more so than Moneymaker's 2003 performance.

[TheHip41]

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At the final table last year the other players repeatedly got all their chips in as favorites against Greg preflop and Greg sucked out. His stack going into the final table was impressive, but his final table play was nothing special.

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This is completely untrue. only twice at the final table did this happen, and once he called a small all in bet with AT, which he can as a huge stack.

[Clarkmeister]

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At the final table last year the other players repeatedly got all their chips in as favorites against Greg preflop and Greg sucked out. His stack going into the final table was impressive, but his final table play was nothing special.

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This is completely untrue. only twice at the final table did this happen, and once he called a small all in bet with AT, which he can as a huge stack.

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Paluka's a hater. I wouldn't worry about it. Astro had the best post in the thread.

[benfranklin]

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If you believed most of the posters in this thread, skill at poker is measured by getting your money in with the best of it. Once the cards are flipped up, if the worse hand wins it's a bad beat.

Let's try looking at it another way. Say you raise all-in and I correctly deduce that you would only do this with AA-99. I have KK so I call. It turns out you have AA, but I flop a king and win.

Anyone discussing this hand would say that I got lucky. But almost no one would point out that I got very unlucky when you turned out to have AA, out of the range of hands I correctly put you on. But just because you had AA doesn't change the fact that my call was correct. And if I go on to win the tournament, people would talk about how I got lucky on that KK v. AA hand, but considering I made the right decision, was it really "luck" that I won? Heck, if the other guy won the hand, I'd say he was "lucky" to be dealt AA when someone else had KK!

Whoever wins the WSOP is going to be very, very lucky, even if he never makes an incorrect decision for the entire tournament. Sometimes he will be lucky to get good cards, and sometimes he will be lucky to suck out when he gets his money in with the worst of it. So please understand that it's meaningless to talk about how "lucky" someone was when they won, unless you can point to actual bad plays that they made and got away with.

It's complicated to talk about luck and skill in this way, since we never really know what range of hands one player puts another player on, and we can argue all day about what range of hands he SHOULD put the other player on. But it's important to understand that talking about luck and skill in any other terms is virtually meaningless.

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Exactly. In his ESPN commentaries, Greg spends some time talking about a specific hand with Al Krux. I forget the details, but to the uninitiated, Al "sucked out" at the end (I think he caught his 3rd 6 on the river, but I may be wrong). Greg shows that every decision that he and Al made in that hand was correct, that either could have won, and that it should not have been be a big surprise no matter which of them won.

P.S. A beat is when a big dog wins a hand. A bad beat is when it happens to you.

[kyro]

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revots-the thing is he hardly lost any coinflips. I can't tell you the number of coinflips i've lost in tournies. he hardly lost any. yes he could afford to get into those situations which was part of the big stack theory, but he only got busted once, with AK vs 66s that I can remember. how hard is it to win a tourney when you win 80%+ of your coinflips? I know i'm exaggerating with 80%, but I'm pretty sure he won a lot more than 50% of his flips.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa...whoa.

You're telling me that the winner of the WSOP won more coinflips than he lost????!!!!???

Get outta here.

[Paluka]

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Paluka's a hater. I wouldn't worry about it. Astro had the best post in the thread.

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Honestly if someone told me Clarkmeister had an IQ of 74 I'd believe it.

I'm not a "hater". I have repeatedly said I think Raymer is a tremendously strong player. I have said he seems like a really good guy. My only point was that last year's final table was not that impressive. He played solid poker with a big chip stack. People keep asking me to point out the hands where he got lucky, and a few have been pointed out. Where are all the hands that are supposed to impress me? Where is this poker greatness you guys all have a big boner about? I'm quite certain Raymer's best poker was played acquiring that giant stack rather than sealing the deal at the final table. His posts on 2+2 are always enlightening. At no point did I say he made a bad play. I just didn't think the final table really created that many interesting situations where I thought he made great plays. Most of that was because he had all the chips the whole time. I could be forgetting some hands.

As for Astroglide's post being great, I guess the only thing cooler than the contrarians are the endless stream of people who dismiss people's opinions based on the theory they are just being contrarian.

[Myrtle]

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Paluka's a hater. I wouldn't worry about it. Astro had the best post in the thread.

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Honestly if someone told me Clarkmeister had an IQ of 74 I'd believe it.

I'm not a "hater". I have repeatedly said I think Raymer is a tremendously strong player. I have said he seems like a really good guy. My only point was that last year's final table was not that impressive. He played solid poker with a big chip stack. People keep asking me to point out the hands where he got lucky, and a few have been pointed out. Where are all the hands that are supposed to impress me? Where is this poker greatness you guys all have a big boner about? I'm quite certain Raymer's best poker was played acquiring that giant stack rather than sealing the deal at the final table. His posts on 2+2 are always enlightening. At no point did I say he made a bad play. I just didn't think the final table really created that many interesting situations where I thought he made great plays. Most of that was because he had all the chips the whole time. I could be forgetting some hands.

As for Astroglide's post being great, I guess the only thing cooler than the contrarians are the endless stream of people who dismiss people's opinions based on the theory they are just being contrarian.

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Paluka,

Part of the problem here is that one only gets to 'see' what ESPN wants us to see, so given that you're judging Greg's play based soley upon what was telecast of the Final Table, I can certainly understand what you're saying.

However, please be aware that there were lot's of hands that we never got to see in the broadcast that I'm sure you would have enjoyed had you (or any of us) been privvy to seeing them.

[astroglide]

you honestly think i was trying to be cool or party lining it?

[Paluka]

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you honestly think i was trying to be cool or party lining it?

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Honestly, I don't know what you were doing.

[capone0]

The guy lost 1 coinflip that they showed on TV. Of course winning a major tourney your going to have to win a lot of coinflips, I wasn't making any major insight. Thing is, the guy was invincible. I've played many tournaments, I've won a few, but I can't remember just losing 1 coinflip over a several day period. I guess they didn't show any that he lost, he probally lost a couple over the span.

Did I say Raymer was bad, I just said to win he was lucky at coinflips, so is every other major tourney winner.

I guess in order to post on 2+2, you have to be obnoxious to the max.