2005 TOC Update *SPOILERS*

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Matusow apologizes to the crowd, because they won't be getting any Dom Perignon now that Hellmuth has been busted.

At the Poker Club site at ESPN, there's a lengthy write-up of the final table:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker...9654&num=0

(apologies if posting the link isn't kosher)

I especially liked the detail of Dannenmann's Christmas "gift" to Hellmuth at the beginning.

[Sykes]

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Between hands, Matusow remarks, "When I go home at night, I think to myself, "God I wish I was Phil Hellmuth.

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Most poker enthusiasts wish they were Phil Hellmuth.

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hey, he might have a big ego but after all is said Phil Hellmuth is still the best poker player in the world.

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ROFL, He's not even close to the best poker player in the world since all he can play correctly is NL HE MTT's.

[benkahuna]

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Phil Hellmuth has been talking to ESPN in his exit interview, and (not surprisingly) he's had plenty to say. He started out by talking about how freaking lucky Hoyt Corkins has been, because he was pushing all in, all in, all in, and the very few times Hellmuth calls him with premium hands, Corkins has aces or something. He also pointd out that Corkins must have won 70-80% of their blind vs. blind situations. He said the general public won't even be able to comprehend how unlucky he got at this final table.

Now I'm starting to see why Phil Helmuth thinks he's so unlucky.
- When Phil has the best of it and loses, he's unlucky cause his opponent sucked out.
- When Phil has the worst of it and loses, he's unlucky cause his opponent had better cards.

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The funny thing is, he's right. What he doesn't say is that other players are similarly unlucky to be in those circumstances as well.

[Daliman]

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I think Phil made a good job. Coming in 2nd last year and 3rd this year.

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Coming in 2nd in a sit and go is NOT impressive.

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But this was hardest SNG in the history of poker! This is very impressive. This is what I think.

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I can say with complete confidence that not only is this NOT the case, were it possible to measure such things, I would bet NONE of the participants would even be in the top 20 SNG players.

I would EASILY take only slightly favorable odds such as 12-1 in a winner take all vs any 9 of them with the same format. It was less about the greatness of the players and more about the deepness of the stacks, which didn't appear to be a heck of a lot.

[idrinkcoors]

I probably dislike Matasow more than anybody, but you have to hand it to the guy. Final table in Aubua (Oct 04), Final Table at WSOP main event, and now the TOC winner. All that in 13 months, even after a mandatory timeout from poker for a few months.