Watching this years WSOP the final straw.

[LuvDemNutz]

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I've been a cash game specialist since I started playing holdem but the donkfest that was this year's WSOP was more than enough to persuade me that the fields are now bad enough to justify the high entry fees.


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The players are certainly bad but with a field of 5600+ it's pretty much a lottery.

[Chaostracize]

Wow, after 3,000 posts you'd think your sarcasm meter would be even slightly tuned in, but it seems like you threw yours out the window.

[IHateCats]

Obviously I'm aware of this but the cash games that week must be wild as well so a few weeks are highly unlikley to be a total waste of time, especially since most tourney players can't play a 200x+ BB stack to save their lives. The overall level of play however seems to dropping faster than the learning curve of the average player is rising, particularly for the ME.

[Neurotoxin]

Black would have won the whole thing if he hadn't blown that set of 5s vs Kanter. He was so petrified of a draw that he just basically moved all in and did all he could to keep Kanter from calling. Loser poker.


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I felt sorry for Black. He played well and yet his monster stack got donked away. Barch played well and Hachem played well. I wasn't that impressed w/ the runner-up. The annoucers said he was the 5th best in his home game. My reaction was, "That High!".

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[IHateCats]

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Black would have won the whole thing if he hadn't blown that set of 5s vs Kanter. He was so petrified of a draw that he just basically moved all in and did all he could to keep Kanter from calling. Loser poker.



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I felt sorry for Black. He played well and yet his monster stack got donked away. Barch played well and Hachem played well. I wasn't that impressed w/ the runner-up. The annoucers said he was the 5th best in his home game. My reaction was, "That High!".

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What he said.

Getting at the final table is the problem.

[cero_z]

Hi IHC,

I guess you're serious. I thought you were going to talk about the play in general, leading up to the final table. Your final table assessments range from hasty to dead wrong, IMO. I have played against Barch, and he is very, very tough. Matusow is obviously skilled though emotionally fragile. Black appeared to play extremely well to me, with the exception of the set of 5s hand you mentioned. I address this below. Hachem seemed to play reasonably well, though too conservative to win without winning every big pot he played, often as a coinflip or as a dog, which was the case at least as far as the televised hands were concerned. Does anyone like his HU call in the BB with 73o against a player like Dannenman? Not me, and I'm one of the loosest out there.

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Black would have won the whole thing if he hadn't blown that set of 5s vs Kanter. He was so petrified of a draw that he just basically moved all in and did all he could to keep Kanter from calling. Loser poker.


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This was my response at first, too, but then I tried to think of why an otherwise very solid player would do such a thing. I suspect that he had been running over the game to accumulate and expand his chip lead when this hand came up, and was playing it fast, expecting someone to take a stand against him with a medium-strong or better hand. The youngster with a penchant for gambling seems like a good target for that move to me. Notice that Black also played his JJ very fast in a spot where it surely figured to be good, and got paid.

I don't know that the above scenario is accurate, but you don't know that it isn't. I believe that viewed through this lens, Black's play with 555 was a small mistake, though still probably wrong (these opportunities are so rare and big that you can't waste them). You must realize that we only see a tiny fraction of the hands played when we watch the WSOP on TV.

And finally,

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David Williams...decent to very good.


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This must be a joke.

[James282]

Just thought I'd contribute and say that I played a decent amount with Andy when he was in AC for the Borgata WPT and I believe he could hold his own with most twoplustwoers - this is both tournament and cash games. I also watched him play at the final table with our ActionBob in the tournament that Rob won and thought he played very tough then as well. Just my 2c.
-James

[IHateCats]

Firstly, I didn't say a single thing negative about Barch, his play seemed solid and very consistently good which considering the stakes is no mean feat, I'm not sure where you got the impression I said anything negative about him from. 2ndly of course my opinion is affected by the broadcast because that's the only way we see the hole cards but I've read the hand by hand posting numerous times as well, give me some credit. And yes Black had been agressive but on that dry of a board I still think putting someone else virtually all in, especially someone who was prone to vastly overplay his hand when allowed to be the aggressesor then chatting up a storm and generally looking pleased as punch is foolish. Say what you will about Moneymaker, at least he had brains enough to keep his mouth shut and not give off obvious tells.

Yes I though Hachem was somewhat conservative but with Kanter and Danneman behind him raising into him and a short stack I'm not sure he had much choice since those two seem like the most likely to give him the least fold equity with his relatively short stack.

And results aside, I HATE calling 73o there too.

Lastly, I was including David Williams in a GROUP that I rated as running from decent to very good, not saying David Williams in 2004 was at the better end of that group, I think Raymer and Arieh were clearly the class of the 2004 final table along with Harrington.

Finally, let me put it to you this way, if you had to pick one final table to compete against, which would it be, 2003, 2004, 2005?

[Python49]

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Arieh, David Williams, Raymer, Krux all decent to very good.

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lol as if you had any idea who these guys were at the time it aired. The reason you like them and think they're good now is because of how many times it aired. I thought andrew black, tex barch, joseph hachem, matusow were all good... which is about the same # as last year. Difference is you havent seen the reruns enough for them to not feel like "unknowns" anymore.