Phil's soooooooooo lucky

[ElSapo]

In the hand when Phil had A club against Sam, who was short stacked, why did Phil not go all in?

I kind of felt he did it to jerk the guy around and leave him an almost insignificant amount of chips. I think he knew he had the best hand. Just my take on it...

[banditbdl]

I agree, Phil just wanted to rub Sam's face into the dirt for a little longer before he was put out of his misery.

[MMMMMM]

I'm more or less with rigoletto and Jimbo on this one.

How about crunching some numbers so we can see just how unusual Phil's performance has really been? Get some data: approximate number of tourneys entered, approximate size of the fields, finishes, net playing tourney profit (prizes vs. total entry fees ignoring other expenses)...at least that much.

Maybe his record, viewed statistically, isn't nearly as outstanding as the general impression created by a number of wins.

I think it's likely Phil does have, at least at times, a special talent which stands him well in tournaments. However before we worship it or dismiss all as luck, how about some data and SD's etc.? This should be right down your alley;-)

My guess is that he's better than the average tourney player but that his luck factor has been very significant too.

There's also clearly a lot more luck in poker than in hitting baseballs or golf balls.

[sleepyjoeyt]

Sure there's more luck. I could beat Phil (or you) in a poker game, if the stars lined up for me that day. But I couldn't beat Tiger unless his arms were broken (and then it would be close).

An earlier poster had written that we would not be able to quantify Phil's "luckiness" or "skillfulness" because even his whole lifetime would not be enough for us to enter the "long run". That argument gets us nowhere, unless you want to say that we cannot accurately judge anything.

We measure golf by championships and $ won. We measure baseball players by either individual records or world championships.

In poker, specifically tournament play, we measure by how much $ and how many championships. And Phil's record, in my opinion, is driven much more by skill than luck, but certainly both are involved.

29 WSOP events this year (exclusing ladies and seniors) I think. He placed in the money in 5, winning 2.

Made about $520,000.

If this was lucky, we wouldn't expect him to have similar success again. But I expect him to have similar results most years.

Only 10 more months and we'll know.

[MMMMMM]

So you are saying his net profit from tournaments so far this year (all prizes minus all entry fees) is about $520,000?

Now how long has he been playing major tournaments, how many major tourneys has he entered lifetime, and net profit of these events? Also how much of that net profit is due to a few mega-bucks finishes? If the variance hit a decent player with the deck on say 2 huge events, that could be enough to skew the total $ results hugely.

You really aren't addressing the issue of SD's here. You're more or less skirting it--not having sufficient hard data.

I agree it looks like there is a good bit of skill at work herem, but what appears very vague and intuitively correct is not, as you know, necessarily even close to what is actually statistically meaningful.

If you feel so inclined feel free to do a little more research, and post the data you come up with, and explain the meaning of it in statistical terms. Then we can get Mason involved in this discussion;-)

In the absence of sufficient hard data this entire discussion is so general as to be able to be summarized thus:

"It certainly looks, intuitively speaking, that Phil Hellmuth is onto something. But looks can be deceiving. And even if he is onto something (meaning he has special poker tournament skills), there is the question of just what the skill/luck ratio has actually been regarding his lifetime tournament results."

Well I think damn near everyone would agree with that assessment (except perhaps those who think Phil just plays awful;-)). But until it is somewhat more precisely quantified and analyzed, it just doesn't say very much.

[sleepyjoeyt]

I'm saying that his net at the WSOP this year is somewhere around +$520,000. I have no stats on any other tourneys.

I'm not going to do any further analysis. I pretty much agree with your post, except I think your comment regarding a couple of big wins skewing the analysis is more pertinent to Moneymaker or Varkonyi. Phil has 9 world championship bracelets.

My point is that it is possible (and I think you would agree) to write a bad book and act like a child and still be good at poker. Many people have commented something to the effect of "Have you read his book? This guy knows nothing about the probabilities / mathematics involved with poker decisionmaking. He's been very lucky to be as successful as he has been." The presence of a bad book does not make a bad player.

I also believe you'd agree that there is at least a good chance that his results have something to do with poker skills and not just the random distribution of cards and his good fortune (luck).

That's my main point.