What Tiffany Willaimson did right

[betgo]

It is easy to focus on her mistakes, since she is obviously not a skilled player. But how did she get as far as she did? I can't be all luck.

I noticed she said in the official WSOP ESPN thread that she played tight aggresive. What percentage of the nonpros at the WSOP can you say that about?

It seemed like in the later stages she was a loose reraiser preflop. She was trying to avoid postflop play at which she was at a major disadvantage. It is possible to steal a lot of decent sized pots with this approach. Plus she is likely to get action for her big hands. She also sets up big gambles which give her a chance to get lucky.

I know everyone thinks it's amazing that she took so long to fold KJs to a 3rd raise allin by the Shiek and call with AJo to a third raise allin by Raymer. However, we don't know what kind of pot odds she was getting. Plus she was making loose reraises and her strong aggressive opponents may not have had the monster hands they had.

It is probable that she did not play quite this way earlier in the tournament. Here reraise strategy was probably an adaption to play with strong opponents and relatively shallow money.

Sklansky in TPFAP indicates that going allin a lot is the best way for a weak player to finish well in the WSOP.

[Autocratic]

The reason she was calling/raising with so many weaker hands was so that she would lose a bunch of chips, and thus get more +EV opportunities.

Stop defending her. She is terrible, she sucks, everything she did right was done unintentionally.

[jojobinks]

there's no way she was getting pot odds to call a raise, reraise, third raise with KJ.

there's just no way.

if the blinds were a theoretical 1/2 and all raises were min-raises, then there'd be 3 in from the blinds, and raises of 4, 6, and 8. she'd need to call 8 to win 21, that's 2.5-1, with several left to act and 2 candidates for a call.

I can't find any way for her to rationalize how long she took there.

now, i switch sides. she finished in the top 20 out of 5600(is that right) by getting lucky, and only by getting lucky? i pass.

[Tilt]

[ QUOTE ]
there's no way she was getting pot odds to call a raise, reraise, third raise with KJ.

there's just no way.

if the blinds were a theoretical 1/2 and all raises were min-raises, then there'd be 3 in from the blinds, and raises of 4, 6, and 8. she'd need to call 8 to win 21, that's 2.5-1, with several left to act and 2 candidates for a call.

I can't find any way for her to rationalize how long she took there.

now, i switch sides. she finished in the top 20 out of 5600(is that right) by getting lucky, and only by getting lucky? i pass.

[/ QUOTE ]

She mucked, didn't she? Maybe she is a really good actress who took the whole "boy I'm laying down this time but you better watch it next time" agonizing act far enough to be believable for once.

After that performance, you would seriously worry about shoving in with a 99, knowing she might just call you with KJ.

[Miles Ahead]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
there's no way she was getting pot odds to call a raise, reraise, third raise with KJ.

there's just no way.

if the blinds were a theoretical 1/2 and all raises were min-raises, then there'd be 3 in from the blinds, and raises of 4, 6, and 8. she'd need to call 8 to win 21, that's 2.5-1, with several left to act and 2 candidates for a call.

I can't find any way for her to rationalize how long she took there.

now, i switch sides. she finished in the top 20 out of 5600(is that right) by getting lucky, and only by getting lucky? i pass.

[/ QUOTE ]

She mucked, didn't she? Maybe she is a really good actress who took the whole "boy I'm laying down this time but you better watch it next time" agonizing act far enough to be believable for once.

After that performance, you would seriously worry about shoving in with a 99, knowing she might just call you with KJ.

[/ QUOTE ]

She didn't show it. I think it's more likely that if she were acting she was trying to induce a bluff later on by convincing her table that she could be forced to lay down a monster hand.

[ QUOTE ]
there's no way she was getting pot odds to call a raise, reraise, third raise with KJ.

there's just no way.

if the blinds were a theoretical 1/2 and all raises were min-raises, then there'd be 3 in from the blinds, and raises of 4, 6, and 8. she'd need to call 8 to win 21, that's 2.5-1, with several left to act and 2 candidates for a call.

I can't find any way for her to rationalize how long she took there.

now, i switch sides. she finished in the top 20 out of 5600(is that right) by getting lucky, and only by getting lucky? i pass.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know about you, but when I had been playing less than a year, I wasn't really thinking about pot odds at that point (in my play).

I was at that time, playing instead, more on gut instinct, more than anything else.

I think the same can be said for MOST new players out there. You don't start thinking about pot odds, or what hands you should lay down, until you gain enough experience and time in playing at the table, to be able to do such things.

Learning how to play poker is a LAYERED experience IMO. You learn/master one layer, then move onto the next.

Pot odds, and even picking up tells, is something that takes TIME to learn, and IMO, can't be taught by books either. It takes real life, (and in person) TABLE experience to learn these things.

[gobboboy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
there's no way she was getting pot odds to call a raise, reraise, third raise with KJ.

there's just no way.

if the blinds were a theoretical 1/2 and all raises were min-raises, then there'd be 3 in from the blinds, and raises of 4, 6, and 8. she'd need to call 8 to win 21, that's 2.5-1, with several left to act and 2 candidates for a call.

I can't find any way for her to rationalize how long she took there.

now, i switch sides. she finished in the top 20 out of 5600(is that right) by getting lucky, and only by getting lucky? i pass.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know about you, but when I had been playing less than a year, I wasn't really thinking about pot odds at that point (in my play).

I was at that time, playing instead, more on gut instinct, more than anything else.

I think the same can be said for MOST new players out there. You don't start thinking about pot odds, or what hands you should lay down, until you gain enough experience and time in playing at the table, to be able to do such things.

Learning how to play poker is a LAYERED experience IMO. You learn/master one layer, then move onto the next.

Pot odds, and even picking up tells, is something that takes TIME to learn, and IMO, can't be taught by books either. It takes real life, (and in person) TABLE experience to learn these things.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, it's the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you said that is usually how it works. New players should stick to exactly how the book says. Analyze the pot odds. Only when you have been in thousands of tough decisions should you start going on instinct, because you've played enough hands to judge how things are going to go.

The books are there to help new players, not help good players turn into androids playing the same way.

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
It is easy to focus on her mistakes, since she is obviously not a skilled player. But how did she get as far as she did? I can't be all luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes it can. Out of over 5,000 players it's no huge longshot that one will make the final few tables just by repeatedly getting lucky on all-ins. During her endless stall with the Shiek she even said she had doubled up with the the same hand (KJs) previously. Sounds like she probably got lucky on that one, my guess is her KJs wasn't ahead preflop that time either.

My problem wasn't with her good luck or her questionable calls. She just seemed really irritating, at least based on the hands they showed on espn. You could see the other players rolling their eyes during her stalling, and when she demanded a count of Raymer's chips after he had just told her exactly how many he had.

[swarm]

How she accumulated chips I am not sure. I know she won a big pot with AA over KK. My theory is that early on many viewed her as weak tight because she was a rookie woman. They mislabeled her as she really was a calling station which are very dangerous if they hit cards. I know Juanda bluffed off alot of chips to here on an outer table.

By the featured table Pro's had recognized that she was in push/fold mode preflop and was a bit of a calling station and thus any time she would enter a hand and they had a premium holding they would then overbet all in with because they knew she had problem folding any hand with an A or K in it and would get into the the pot as a huge dog. She wasn't getting pot odds, believe me.

Remember that part of her rationale for calling with KJ is that she had double up with it earlier on an all in call preflop. Which is complete rookie/favorite hand thinking.

The only thing she was doing right was attempting to play an all in/fold format later in the tourney because of her skill level. But I think that it can easily be argued that she didn't even know how to play that strategy correctly as she went all in as a dog with AQ, AJ, A7 and almost KJ, yet still lucked out and won 2/3. But at the very least by gambeling preflop she never got her money in drawing dead which many that got ousted from the WSOP did.