Doyle's Win More Impressive Than His Two Championships

[David Sklansky]

Back then there were 50 or so players rather than 300. Most, though good poker players, had not had much experience in holdem or in tournaments. This time he beat a field comprising almost all experts, since the 5K buy in deterred most others. In fact almost eveyone in the field had played a lot more tournament holdem hands than Doyle.

[TheJackal]

Wouldn't it be a feat inself back when he won his championships, since the game (tournament-wise) was new to everyone, including Doyle Brunson? I'm not in disagreement, it seems he is naturally gifted at poker.

[boondockst]

I think just the stamina for someone to play winning poker until into the early morning hours at that age is simply incredible.

[Bulldog]

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In fact almost eveyone in the field had played a lot more tournament holdem hands than Doyle.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Even with the online play, I'm finding it hard to believe that I wouldn't find ~60 players in that field that had fewer tournament holdem hands. I know he plays primarily cash games, and had for many of his years, but just in the WSOP and WPT alone, he has to have a large number of hands. What numbers or estimates could you provide to support this statement?

[Jordan Olsommer]

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What numbers or estimates could you provide to support this statement?

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's an extremely rough estimate:

Say Doyle played every world series of poker and each lasted for four days, twelve hours a day, and he saw the last hand at each one (ie he played all the hands in the tourney). At a live game rate of about 40 hands per hour, that's 67,200 hands over 35 years of the WSOP.

Now just to cover ourselves, multiply that by 3, because Doyle didn't just play the WSOP (say the WPT and Amarillo Slim's Superbowl of Poker, even though neither of those went on for 35 years ). That's a very liberal estimate of 201,600 tournament hands Doyle has played.

At a rate of 60 hands per hour online, one would have to play 3,360 hours of tournament poker to reach that number, which an expert player is most certainly capable of, especially when combined with some additional live tournament play at the slower rate, and of course multitabling. (to give a specific example, there was a guide floating around about a pretty much formulaic approach to beating Party 10+1 SNGs, which the author prefaced by saying he had become sort of an SNG expert, since he had played about 500 of them in the past 3 months - at one hour per SNG, that's about 1/6th of the 3,360 hour total; he'd have a number of hands equivalent to our estimate of Doyle's [which took him 35 years to acquire] in 18 months).

So it seems to me entirely possible.

[betgo]

Those were 50 tough players when Brunson won his WSOP MEs. It may be true that they didn't have the tournament experience of players today and some of them didn't have that much NLHE experience. Also the $10K buyin was in real terms 5 times the $5K buyin for this event.

I am sure that 6-max tournament is tougher than the main event and the $1.5K and $2K side events. There may be fewer weak players than in the WPT championship, but I am not sure it is as tough as the WPT championship.

Brunson seems to do fine against top players with his aggressive style and craftiness. Of course he plays stronger competition every day in cash games.

[MicroBob]

Hi David - I'm in Vegas now.
busted out 200th out of 1010 in the $3k event today.


when I arrived I saw some of the tables for the 6-max event. Didn't stop to watch...just saw a crowd and swung by to take a gander.
Think they had 3 or 4 tables left....and the field looked to be VERY impressive.

Men, Scotty, Jesus, Layne, Doyle, and a couple others I'm forgetting.
These are no push-overs.


I was playing a WSOP single-table satellite towards the 'front'. In the back I think they were down to one table and there were occasionally some decent ovations.
I immediately thought, "That sounds like a Doyle-ovation" as he's obviously a fan-fave.


I didn't know he won the event until earlier today when it was mentioned at my table.

I was sitting next to Huck Seed who seemed legitimately impressed.


Anyway - having seen a few of the tables and the big-name players he was up against I think I tend to agree with your assessment.
That looked like a pretty freaking tough field to me.

I wasn't around for the earlier days...but today's extremely intelligent players like Lederer, Ivey, Ferguson, Greenstein etc...many with mathematics backgrounds like yourself...just have to be so much sharper than the 1970's players who didn't have that kind of knowledge.



Other gossip overheard at the table - McEvoy told Seed that Phil Ivey thought he was good enough to win 30 bracelets in his career. McEvoy scoffed at such egotism and Seed kind of laughed too.
I found it pretty interesting. McEvoy seemed to act like Ivey had told him this directly.

Isn't Ivey playing FEWER events these days??


Doyle's 10th bracelet just blows my mind though.

Also - I have learned in my very first WSOP event that sitting right in-between two champs is NOT the most ideal of situations.

While my experience is still VERY limited I think I got a taste of what it's like to go up against a couple good players who know what they're doing.
They just wouldn't let me get my feet moving.

The difference between these guys and the less experienced players is VERY noticeable.
I think I have a better understanding the significance of Doyle grinding his way through an entire field of bracelet winners and experienced players like that.

It's just not very freaking easy.

So that means every big tournament win now is more impressive then his 2 championships? Sounds like a backhanded compliment to me.

[tdizzle]

[ QUOTE ]
So that means every big tournament win now is more impressive then his 2 championships? Sounds like a backhanded compliment to me.

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I know DS did not mean to trivialize Doyle's accomplishments because Doyle is by far the most respected player/person in poker...and well deserved. But like stated before 25-30 years ago when Doyle won these events the fields were much much smaller and like DS said most people did not have a lot of tournament experience in hold'em. These days when there are 1000+ people in a tournament to be able to win these takes incredible skill as well as luck. The players these days have seen many many hands thanks to online poker where people can play dozens of tournaments a day and get the valuable experience under their belt. On top of that the man is 70 years old and he overcame such a large and strong field. Impressive indeed. Congratz Doyle.

[shaniac]

Would it be fair to say that his ability to persevere, adjust and remain sharp over the course of decades of action are the qualities that make him an amazing poker player?