So i'm thinking about something i saw on TV the other day....

[elmitchbo]

i thought about posting this in the WPT forum, but i decided that i would get more responses here. i think there is enough theory to be topical.

a few nights ago i saw the Travel Channel re-air the first WPT tourney. i believe it was from early '03. that was before my entry into the poker world, so it was the first time i'd seen it. the final table was made up of people i'm familiar with now, some of them might even be recognized by casual poker fans at this point. at that time they were probably unknown to most everyone outside the serious poker world..... scotty nguyen, john juanda, freddy deeb, gus hansen, chris bigler, and john hennigan.

first of all... poker has changed alot in the few short years since then. the flow of play was much different from what i'm used to seeing now. very interesting.

but to my main point. this was very early in gus' career. i believe they said it was his first major tournament. the final three were John, gus, and freddy, sitting in that order. gus was being as aggressive as we have now come to expect. the annoucers seemed a little stunned by the way he was raising, and the hands he was playing. he busted out freddy in third place, and in the post match interview freddy was down right derogatory. i'll parapharse... "the guy that just beat me... he played very bad. i would like to play poker with him everyday if he plays like that. he could never beat me in the long run."

of course gus went on to win. since then he's been one of the most (if not the most) succesful players on the WPT. it was interesting to take a look back at how his first appearance was viewed by the other players, and how much the accepted style of play has changed in just a few short years. now at every final table you see 2 or 3 guys that play an uber-aggressive style. last weeks episode had phil ivey, daniel n., and josh arieh all playing crazy aggressive. it was like one big 'who can steal the pot with the biggest bet' competition.

i have no way to prove this, but i think the conservative players that make the final table at these things are just lucky. and the uber-aggressive guys that make the finals earn it.

i say that because week after week the tight player is a different person... sometimes an amateur, sometimes a lesser known pro. that's the one and only time they'll make the final table, because they turned out to be the tighty that got the best cards that week.

on the other hand, the same uber-agressive players keep making the final table over and over again. i think the tighter style of play requires more luck to be succesful, despite people saying that it is a higher percentage/ higher EV style.

[danzasmack]

I like gus, think he is interesting to watch. The thing I have come to understand about his play style is that it has a great deal to do with the reads he makes. One hand I recal reading about was when gus raised 8d10d and a guy pushed all in on him, with 66 or 77, gus, knowing he had 2 overs to a small pp (49-51) made a great call. I don't know anyone who could make that call and feel good about it. Strong evidence against the tight player = luck statement is obviously dan harrington, who final tables 2 conecutive WSOP main events. If you consider a tight player someone who plays a tournament like one giant cash game - then yes, it is "luck". I'd love to play against players like that any day of the week in a tournament.

However, with tournaments of those size, i'd say it is 99% skill, and though the final table may occasionally be sprinkled with a lucksack or 2, the final table players who get there are more often than not there because of how they played the cards they got.

[tek]

You need to play tournaments looser in general than you would a cash game. However, there are distinct phases in tournaments where you vary between loose and tight.

[johnc]

It seems to me everything goes in cycles. Look at Doyle. Back in the day he was the man but everyone adjusted to his loose/aggressive style. Gus's style will, I'm sure, in time get "cracked". Maybe a kind of hybred ubber-aggro/tight-aggressive. Just a note: as everyone knows TV or shows a tiny # of hands played so you're not seeing all the "other" hands Gus played in (or folded).

[tylerdurden]

Keep in mind you're watching the final table, not the whole tournament. Strategy changes a LOT from the beginning to the end. Just because you see Gus (e.g.) playing hyper-aggressively doesn't mean that he played that way the entire tournament - changing gears is important, too.

IMO this is the best part about TV poker - the fish see it and think they should play that way in ring games. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Not only are you watching just the final table, but you're watching less than 10% of the hands, hands that have been chosen because they are "interesting."

Televised poker does not teach you how to play.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

i think the conservative players that make the final table at these things are just lucky.

ROFLMAO. Yeah. Dan Harrington's just lucky.

[waynethetrain]

I think the super aggressive style has a tendency to generate "all or nothing" type results. So if there are a dozen or so players in a tournament that play that style very well, a couple will get to the final table because they just happened to double up a few times. The rest will get busted out early.

The top level tight conservative players will tend to last longer but may not get to the final table because a couple of the successful hyper-aggressive players will eventually have them very outstacked and bust them out even if they were an underdog at the time.

I think it takes a good run of cards for a tight conservative player to build up a big enough stack to make to the end.

Now if a tight conservative player occasionally makes a well timed move....well then he's Dan Harrington. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]


Televised poker does not teach you how to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is correct for most people and in most situations. I have found that watching poker on TV has done a lot to improve my SNG play after the table is down to 2-3 players. It's probably not so much that it really taught me any new strategy, but it taught me emotional confidence in what I already knew intellectually was correct play.

[TStoneMBD]

my personal opinion as of late, is that gus hansen isnt nearly as good as most people credit him for. i used to think he was a very talented player, and still do, but now feel that he is not nearly as talented as most other named players. when playing against good players hes a fish. his strengths lie in beating noob no limit players.