Running 2006 World Series Of Poker Thread

It seems like that, but part of it is those are the only hands they are blogging about. Even so, that's tournament poker this late in the game. Once you get past the first four levels, the blinds move so fast that you have a limited number of plays, especially with a short or moderate stack. You make one bet at a pot and suddenly you are pot committed anyway.

You basically have to pick your spots. The big stacks will wait for the weaklings to do that so they can call and build up (like Rob did with the AK and it backfired). Honestly, that's why the internet players do so well. When you play turbo sit and gos online, it's the same mentality.

Every decent money tournament I've cashed in, I've either built a monster stack early and picked on the weaklings, or been shortstacked and sat there and waited for a monster to double up. The middle is hard, because you make a sensible raise, and suddenly you are facing an all-in bet and those pocket 10s don't look so good anymore.

Right now, the blinds are 15-30,000 with a 5K ante. That's 95K per round if you fold out. Even with $1 million in chips, that's almost 10 percent of your stack. If you don't see a card for an hour, you could lose 30 percent of your stack. And with a minimum raise, you are looking at committing perhaps 20 percent of your chips, and any re-raise might force you all in anyway.

That's what makes this thing so hard. My poker mentor told me before the tournament that to make it to the final table, I'd have to win 30 coin flips. I thought he was exaggerating, but that's probably pretty close.

When I made the final table of the pokerstars million (my biggest score to date), I was all-in six times and won five races. I had the best hand pre-flop in all six, although one was a true race (pocket jacks vs. a-q and I held up). There's more luck involved in that than skill when you get that deep. But you still have to pick your spots and play the percentages.

And A-3 would not be the hand I would choose...




 

 

Brother of Ari?

 

You just summed up my poker game nicely. No guts, no glory ... but I never go home too early.

 

I think that's why guys like Hellmuth and Negreanu are so great at tournament poker. They aren't afraid to go all-in, and they do it with big hands. It's also why they get donked and knocked out early a lot, too.

 

The genius makes a move:


Allen Cunningham Wins Huge Pot
On a flop of Q75, Allen Cunningham bets $125,000 from the small blind. Erik Friberg makes the call. The turn is the J and Cunningham bets $300,000. The river is the 6 and Cunningham bets $800,000. Friberg calls and mucks when Cunningham shows 55. After the hand, Cunningham is up to $3,300,000. Erik Friberg is down to $3,100,000.

 

It's strange ... The WSOP became a huge hit on television because no one had ever heard of Chris Moneymaker and he took an Internet buy-in all the way to the top. But now that it's big and attracting thousands of players, it kinda sucks to watch once all the big names are gone. ESPN would do well to create more tournaments where all the big names are sitting at a table, playing against each other. I'd like to see those guys play more.

 

That's why I love the new Professional Poker Tour (the Travel Channel one hosted by Mark Seif). Great players all the time.

Cunningham will have a gigantic cheering section behind him if he makes the FT.

 

Doesn't take a genius to play trips, but still a good hand nonetheless. You've gotta think Friberg probably had A-Q. If he had Q-7, Q-5, or 7-5, he likely never would have called Cunningham's preflop raise. There's a good chance he would have even folded K-Q. If he had aces or kings he would have probably re-raised. I guess he could have had 10s, 9s or 8s, but I can't think that he would have called all the way down with any of them. Guess we'll have to wait for ESPN to find out.

As I've been following it today, it seems like Cunningham was just sitting back for a long time and in the past three hours or so, he just decided to move up the rankings. Not sure if it's just that he's getting cards all of a sudden or if he just decided to make a move, but he has been steadily stacking for a couple hours now.

 

It will be interesting to see how many pros do it. I know some pros, like Phil Gordon (who is a self-described middle-of-the-road pro) don't like the WPT's setup, saying the blind structure increases so exponentially that it forces it to become an all-in fest. It makes for good TV, but elminates a lot of the skill.

I wonder if the Pro Poker Tour will have a similar structure, or if it will cater to the pros a little more.

 

As will Lisandro. The pros will rally behind anybody who's "paid their dues."

Hey Pooch, I caught some of that PPT the other day and was wondering what was up wth that. Has the Travel Channel jettisoned the WPT? They surely can't be pimping two poker outfits.

 

Mike Berryman busted out in 33rd place.

 

A $330,000 payday for your boy is pretty sweet.