|
 Herculean
Efforts to Battle the Hydra
Roman and Greek mythology tell us of the labors of Hercules
(or Heracles), and one of the more memorable dozen labors
involved his battle to kill the Hydra, a nine-headed beast
who proved a difficult foe for a swordsman, because every
time you cut off one of its heads, two new ones grew in its
place.
Hercules eventually solved the problem by what in the modern
business world is called "thinking outside the box."
He burned off the Hydra's heads (or cut them off and then
burned the stumps, depending on which version of the story
you subscribe to).
The 383 first day survivors (yes, that's correct: the tournament
officials gave me the wrong number last night) in the $10,000
No-Limit Hold'em Championship event here at the 2001 World
Series of Poker were faced with a similar dilemma today, as
they knocked out their opponents at these nine-handed tables
(and if you want to count the dealer, each player had nine
opponents).
THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS
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"Many
of the tournament's strongest players were knocked out
on Day One." |
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The good news was, you got your opponent's chips when you
knocked him out. The bad news was, while you didn't get two
new opponents in his or her place, you usually got a stronger
opponent. Although many of the tournament's strongest players
were knocked out on Day One, as a general principle, the weaker
player do tend to get knocked out before the stronger players.
Bust out someone you'd never seen or heard of before, and
some former World Champion or multiple tournament winner was
likely to be moved into his place. While smoking is allowed
at the table (but not the rail) at the World Series, burning
your opponent's head off is not, so the players had to come
up with more creative ways to deal with their new foes.
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"Most
players in the Championship event fall into one of two
categories." |
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Most of them resorted to some combination of trapping, aggression,
or patience. While there are probably as many different ways
to categorize styles of play here as there are players here,
I think it's a fair statement to say that most players in
the Championship event fall into one of two categories: the
players who want to play one big pot once in a while, doubling
up or going home, and the players who want to chop their way
into the money, winning a small pot here and a small pot there,
and not committing all of their chips to one hand without
something awfully powerful to back them up.
IT'S NICE WHEN IT WORKS, BUT…
You also have players who want to steal medium sized pots
with huge all-in raises, but in this particular chess game,
that's a better end-game tactic than middle game tactic, because
it only has to go wrong once for you to find yourself on the
sidelines.
Only 141 players figured out how to slay the Hydra this day,
and survived until Day Three, and the problem will only get
worse as the tournament progresses.
We started back at noon, but the "choppers" started
getting the advantage right after the first break, because
that's when we switched over from using only $150-300 blinds
to $150-300 blinds with $25 antes.
"That's when the real tournament starts," said
John Bonetti last night, "when you start anteing."
Bonetti is right, because the antes put a lot more dead (uncommitted)
money into each pot before anyone sees any cards, and an aggressive
initial raiser can accumulate more chips than in a situation
where he's just attacking the blinds.
CORRECT STRATEGY VARIES FROM ROUND TO ROUND
Under the structure used at the 2001 WSOP, all two-hour rounds
are most definitely not created equal. At the first level,
the blinds added up to $450, and the antes only $225 more.
The antes mattered, but not like they did a few hours later.
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"And
the more tournament savvy players understood this and
got more aggressive." |
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|
To show you the dramatic difference, in our final round today,
the blinds were $200-400, but the antes were $100, putting
$1,500 on the table. The antes were thus 150% of the blinds,
instead of just 50% of the blinds, and the more tournament
savvy players understood this and got more aggressive. Make
a raise to $2,000, and you stood a good chance of winning
$1,500 uncontested.
This "raise slightly more than is in the pot" strategy
works much better with antes involved than when there are
just blinds, because with only $200-400 blinds, if you raised
the pot to $800 (trying to win $600, the exact same risk-reward
ratio as someone risking $2,000 to win $1,500), you'd be facing
one opponent, the big blind, who already had $400 of that
$800 invested, and who doesn't need a very big hand to defend
and take a look at the flop.
In the ante situation, if the big blind wants to defend,
he has to put in $1,600, not just $400, and that makes a world
of difference. It starts giving the advantage to the choppers,
the more experienced tournament players who don't want to
play a lot of coin flip hands, and the other experienced players
who like to pick up chips by playing back at the choppers.
WHO WENT WHERE?
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"You
have to be both lucky and good to win this tournament." |
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|
We started this tournament with 15 former World Champions
in the field, and only two are left after two days of action,
Phil Hellmuth and Jim Bechtel. You have to be both lucky and
good to win this tournament, and especially when you're facing
such a large number of non-pros who are willing to commit
chips in even money situations, it's tough to survive.
Although everyone in this event wants to win, there are probably
plenty of rich players who wouldn't mind so terribly playing
and losing, if they could go home with a story like, "I
got knocked out on a (what else?) bad beat on the second day,
but I knocked out (fill in the name of your favorite famous
player) on the first day."
GIVING UP A BIT TOO SOON
There was at least one player in the field who didn't want
to win. At least, he didn't want to win enough to read the
board when he departed. Mike Sexton got involved with this
unknown fellow when one player limped in, the mystery man
made it $1,500 to go, and Sexton, looking down and finding
Q-Q, raised it to $10,000.
Everyone else got the heck out of the way, but the mystery
man called for the last $2,500 he had in front of him. The
flop came 9-10-K rainbow (unsuited), and because the only
two players still contesting the pot were all-in, the dealer
kept right on dealing, the way you're supposed to.
When a jack hit the turn, Sexton immediately flipped his
two queens face up, a classy thing to do because he'd made
the stone cold nuts with his 9-10-J-Q-K straight, and once
you have the nuts, many players consider it a courtesy to
show the hand and not prolong the other player's agony (it's
kind of the opposite of slow-rolling someone).
The mystery man tapped the table to indicate that Mike held
a good hand, and then the dealer dealt off the final card,
another queen, putting a straight on the board (or, if you
were really confused, giving Sexton three queens). The mystery
player threw his hand into the muck and left the table.
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"You
need to have two cards in your hand to claim part of a
pot." |
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"I tried to grab him as he was leaving, to tell him
we now both had the same hand," Sexton said, "but
he left too fast." It probably wouldn't have mattered:
you need to have two cards in your hand to claim part of a
pot, and once you've released your own hand, you're not allowed
to play the board.
THE DEATH OF HOPE AND DREAMS
As to why the fellow left so fast, until you've dreamed about
playing in the World Series of Poker Championship Event, gone
on to play in it, and then gotten eliminated, you can't know
how bad it feels. The Discovery Channel show about the 2000
WSOP used a sound bite of mine where I called it "the
death of hope and dreams," and I probably didn't take
it as hard as some other players.
We had a variation on this same theme yesterday when one
well known player looked at the two black sevens his opponent
turned over, looked at the seven on the board, and ignored
the fact that the board also contained five diamonds, for
a flush, and he mucked his hand. The erroneous fold didn't
knock him out, but he felt a bit silly. Try to remember this
the next time you make a false move in your own poker game.
Even great players sometimes make enormous errors.
SURVIVE AND ADVANCE
In many ways, the first couple of days in the Big One are
like the NCAA basketball tournament: the idea is "survive
and advance," because you can't win the tournament on
Day One or Day Two, but you sure can lose it. It's a chess
game where you are battling for position in the early and
middle game, in an effort to get into a good position for
the end game.
The players who have the patience to sit and wait for their
opportunities, who realize this tournament and its two-hour
rounds is a marathon, not a sprint, are the players most likely
to survive and advance.
THE CHIP POSITIONS GOING INTO DAY THREE
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"I
wouldn't consider anyone in bad shape unless they have
less than $20,000." |
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|
With $6,130,000 in play, and 141 players remaining, an average
stack at this point in the tournament is $43,475. Given what
we've seen throughout the WSOP as far as short stacks coming
back, and the volatility of no-limit, I wouldn't consider
anyone in bad shape unless they have less than $20,000, and
even someone at that level can get back among the leaders
very quickly with a bit of luck. There's enough play left
in this event that almost no one who remains has to push the
panic button.
I was tempted to make some final table predictions based
on a combination of current stack size and my estimate of
abilities, but position at the tables (who you have on your
left and your right) makes such a huge difference in figuring
out who has a good chance to get through, I decided to pass
on the prediction business today, because tables will still
be breaking and recombining fairly quickly tomorrow, and the
shuffling around will make a big difference.
Once we set the final 45 "in the money" players
at the end of play tomorrow, I'll offer some analysis of who
has the best chances of getting into the final nine, based
on chip count, ability, and position.
Teddy "Sugar" Tuil, who finished second in the
Poker Million, hasn't pulled out his sugar cubes to place
on top of his chips yet. I asked him about this, and he said
he doesn't pull them out until he thinks he needs them. With
$126,200 at the moment, he probably won't have them out at
noon tomorrow.
And yes, the Wilford Brimley who has $33,600 is the loveable
actor, whom I liked best as the manager in The Natural.
|
Player |
Table-Seat |
Chips |
|
Sam Farha |
65-1 |
$156,200 |
| Teddy "Sugar"
Tuil |
69-2 |
$126,200 |
|
Mel Weiner |
64-5 |
$125,300 |
| John Hennigan |
71-7 |
$124,800 |
|
James Haley |
61-8 |
$123,900 |
| Daniel Negreanu |
62-6 |
$109,300 |
|
Don Barton |
64-7 |
$108,100 |
| Gus Echeverri |
63-5 |
$107,600 |
|
Hasan Habib |
56-5 |
$105,800 |
| Stan Shrier |
54-9 |
$102,000 |
|
Arturo Diaz |
70-9 |
$101,600 |
| Galen Kester |
64-1 |
$100,300 |
|
Carl McKelvey |
62-8 |
$99,400 |
| Skip Wilson |
65-6 |
$98,100 |
|
Eric Panayoitou |
71-5 |
$91,700 |
| John Esposito |
76-8 |
$85,800 |
|
Diego Cordovez |
55-6 |
$84,600 |
| Rafael Fursi |
62-5 |
$80,700 |
|
Klein Bach |
63-3 |
$79,600 |
| Henry Nowakowski |
56-3 |
$79,100 |
|
Ronald Miller |
63-4 |
$74,700 |
| Mike Matusow |
65-7 |
$73,200 |
|
Michael Sukonik |
53-8 |
$70,700 |
| Richie Korbin |
54-1 |
$68,800 |
|
Jacob Horowitz |
62-1 |
$68,300 |
| Carlos Mortenson |
72-7 |
$67,300 |
|
Paul Phillips |
64-2 |
$67,300 |
| Adeeb Harb |
54-4 |
$66,300 |
|
Jeff Stoff |
65-2 |
$63,500 |
| Dewey Tomko |
68-2 |
$61,600 |
|
Aaron Katz |
71-9 |
$60,900 |
| Phil Hellmuth |
62-3 |
$59,300 |
|
Jason Viriayuthakorn |
55-8 |
$58,900 |
| Mike McGee |
53-4 |
$57,500 |
|
John Inashima |
72-1 |
$56,000 |
| Steve Riehle |
53-1 |
$55,900 |
|
Barry Greenstein |
54-3 |
$55,800 |
| Pete Kaufman |
54-8 |
$55,200 |
|
Allen Cunningham |
70-7 |
$54,200 |
| Hassan Kamoei |
56-6 |
$51,900 |
|
Chip Winston |
69-1 |
$50,800 |
| Dan Alspach |
69-3 |
$50,500 |
|
Larry Wood |
64-8 |
$50,500 |
| Jan Backstrom |
63-2 |
$49,800 |
|
Paul Kroh |
72-6 |
$48,100 |
| Mark Goldfarb |
65-8 |
$48,000 |
|
Kevin Song |
61-6 |
$47,100 |
| Damon Ahmadi |
53-6 |
$46,500 |
|
Harry Thomas, Jr. |
72-8 |
$46,100 |
| Charles Glorioso |
57-5 |
$46,000 |
|
Stan Goldstein |
68-5 |
$46,000 |
| Chris Bjorin |
57-6 |
$45,800 |
|
Tom Schmit |
63-1 |
$45,100 |
| Patrick Bueno |
69-8 |
$45,100 |
|
Billy Baxter |
57-7 |
$44,600 |
| Richard Turner |
53-7 |
$43,400 |
|
Alemu Tesema |
71-1 |
$42,300 |
| Salim Batshon |
57-9 |
$41,000 |
|
Wesly O’Bryan |
68-3 |
$40,400 |
| Gene Malatesta |
71-4 |
$39,600 |
|
Jay Heimowitz |
53-2 |
$39,200 |
| Dave Cloclough |
72-4 |
$38,400 |
|
Matthew Glantz |
54-5 |
$38,300 |
| David Pham |
68-9 |
$38,200 |
|
Horst Riedlinger |
70-1 |
$38,200 |
| Christopher Nugent |
55-2 |
$38,000 |
|
Kevin Keller |
63-6 |
$37,900 |
| Mike Sexton |
69-4 |
$37,000 |
|
Bill Gazes |
63-8 |
$36,700 |
| Ted Grose |
56-1 |
$36,700 |
|
Phil Gordon |
55-4 |
$36,300 |
| Alexander Dietrich |
56-2 |
$35,300 |
|
Wilford Brimley |
76-7 |
$33,600 |
| Minh Nguyen |
71-2 |
$33,300 |
|
John Farley |
61-4 |
$33,200 |
| Rob Frank |
63-9 |
$33,200 |
|
Ken Phillips |
55-3 |
$33,100 |
| Neil Channing |
57-2 |
$33,100 |
|
Karsten Ersland |
61-7 |
$32,100 |
| Hertzel Zalewski |
71-8 |
$31,500 |
|
Padraig Parkinson |
76-2 |
$31,300 |
| David Kim |
64-4 |
$31,200 |
|
Casey Kastle |
64-9 |
$30,500 |
| John Aglialoro |
57-4 |
$30,500 |
|
Jim Allen |
76-4 |
$30,100 |
| Alex Papachatzakis |
70-1 |
$29,600 |
|
Ken Lennaard |
54-7 |
$29,400 |
| Barney Boatman |
71-3 |
$28,500 |
|
Yakoub Bellawala |
69-6 |
$28,000 |
| Hilbert Shirey |
69-9 |
$28,000 |
|
Salah Levy |
56-8 |
$27,800 |
| Mike Marzouq |
53-5 |
$27,700 |
|
Joe Calabretta |
70-8 |
$27,500 |
| Larry Beilfuss |
62-7 |
$27,400 |
|
Mike Shi |
54-6 |
$25,200 |
| An Tran |
54-2 |
$24,400 |
|
Richard Anthony |
63-7 |
$24,100 |
| Jim Bechtel |
55-1 |
$23,900 |
|
Mickey Appleman |
76-1 |
$23,500 |
| Joe Andreis |
71-6 |
$23,500 |
|
Refugio Quintero |
55-5 |
$23,100 |
| Paul Zimbler |
61-2 |
$23,100 |
|
Harry Sleighel |
56-9 |
$22,900 |
| Raymond Zananiri |
62-2 |
$22,800 |
|
Alex Brenes |
53-3 |
$22,600 |
| Surindar Sunar |
72-9 |
$22,300 |
|
William Strother |
56-4 |
$22,300 |
| Ramon Adams |
68-8 |
$22,000 |
|
Tom Walsh |
76-9 |
$21,100 |
| Joe Gaultieri |
61-1 |
$20,900 |
|
John Strzemp |
65-3 |
$20,300 |
| Mark Gregorich |
69-5 |
$20,200 |
|
Calvin Dykes |
57-8 |
$19,500 |
| Roger Smith |
68-4 |
$19,400 |
|
Charles Dye |
68-6 |
$17,400 |
| John Walsh |
55-7 |
$16,900 |
|
James Bucci |
64-3 |
$16,800 |
| Captain Tom Franklin |
76-3 |
$13,300 |
|
Spike Gallas |
65-4 |
$13,100 |
| Bill O’Connor |
62-4 |
$12,900 |
|
Bob Walker |
65-5 |
$12,700 |
| David Sklansky |
57-1 |
$12,600 |
|
Joseph Brandenburg |
56-7 |
$12,500 |
| Don Zewin |
64-6 |
$12,500 |
|
Mike May |
61-9 |
$12,200 |
| Lindsay Jones |
62-9 |
$11,800 |
|
Manfred Daries |
61-5 |
$11,500 |
| Jeff Shulman |
72-3 |
$11,400 |
|
Earl Kim, Sr. |
70-6 |
$11,300 |
| Kathy Liebert |
65-9 |
$11,000 |
|
Phyllis Meyers |
53-9 |
$10,800 |
| Pilot Whitt |
69-7 |
$10,700 |
|
Harley Hall |
70-5 |
$10,400 |
| Ash Pervaiz |
72-5 |
$9,700 |
|
Steve Guiberson |
68-1 |
$9,100 |
| Tam Duong |
76-5 |
$9,000 |
|
Paul Darden, Jr. |
55-9 |
$9,000 |
| Paul Benichou |
70-2 |
$8,400 |
|
Young Phan |
68-7 |
$7,500 |
| Jacob Cohen |
57-3 |
$6,100 |
|
James Pechac |
76-6 |
$5,200 |
Andrew N.S. Glazer, Editor
Wednesday Nite Poker
For more information on this newsletter read "What
to Expect from Wednesday Nite Poker".
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