Pros and Cons
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Pros and Cons
I watched the FullTiltPoker.Net Invitational last night after getting home late from work. For those who haven't seen it yet, this was in essence a 7 person SNG pitting Devilfish, Matusow, Hellmuth, Ivey, Ferguson, Juanda, and Hansen against each other for $1,000,000 in prize money. The buy-in was $120,000 and first through third paid $600k, $280k and $120k respectively (FullTilt ponied up the other $160k) .
First, I want to note that I don't think for a second that any of these players actually paid the buy-in. Half of them are affiliated with FullTilt and the other half have their pockets padded by poker sites and other businesses I'm sure. Now I'm not knocking these guys for this, in fact I think it is great that the players who have earned their place among the best are getting "paid" to play.
I'm not sure if these guys dressed themselves for the event, or had help in that department, but whoever advised Hellmuth on his attire was obviously hoping to get some laughs. He had a huge white scarf over his shoulders that just made him look like an idiot. That coupled with his glasses that had no business going with a tux just made him look ridiculous. Kudos to whoever dressed him. Thank you, indeed.
As for the play, which is the reason I'm writing this post, I won't go into details as to where they placed (no spoilers here), but I want to offer a few general thoughts. Now I don't want to dumb it all down and profess that you or I are as good as these guys, but I do want to note that their strategy is not so immaculate that we couldn't compete with them, especially in the SNG arena.
I'm sure I'll get a few comments about smoking crack if I think I'm better than these guys, so before you get to typing, that is not what I'm even remotely saying. All I'm saying is when you play a shorthanded SNG, you can play your game and not be too far off from what these guys are doing. Eventually, in a SNG, if you are low and the blinds are getting pretty high, you know what you have to do. And guess what? It's exactly the same as what these guys did. They know that eventually they have to get their chips in there if they are low and see where the cookie crumbles.
In the end what I think sets these guys apart from most other players is not only their high stakes game play, but their willingness to find the right situation to take the risk, then take the risk. They are not afraid to risk their tournament/sng on AK offsuit if they feel it is the right move to make (just one random example folks). I also think these guys (for the most part) are realists. They know sometimes the chips will fall their way and other times they won't. Make the right decisions as often as possible and then let fate finish the deal.
If you have 4 hours to spare I'd say check this show out. If you have a DVR/Tivo then you'll only need about 2 ½ hours to spare. Oh and the title of this post was just poking a little fun at Mike Matusow. Everyone who played is a pro and he just happens to be the only one I'm sure was once a con so I just went with it. Who knows if some of those other guys have spent some time in the big house.
For those of you wondering how a Heads-Up tournament works, let me offer an example using 64 sign-ups. Once the registration period is closed, each player is randomly put at a table with another player. You duke it out until there is a winner at your table, at which point you will be seated at another table with another player. From 64 you have 32 and so on until there is one person standing. However, not just one person will make money. Just like any regular tournament, the prize pool will be distributed to the top players accordingly. To see the payout schedule go the the tournament info tab at PokerStars, but I assure you it is in line with their regular tournaments. Since we can't determine how many sign-ups there will be, there may be a few people who receive 1st round byes until it is set to an amount that will work. I'm not sure how that works at Stars HU matches.
I get the feeling there will be some great write-ups on the brogs after this event is over. Imagine one of the many new broggers getting to play HU against one of the big boys like Iggy or Dr. Pauly, or even possibly seeing those two go at it. There's no telling who will be playing who which makes it pretty exciting. I don't know, I just think it will be a good time. And if you unfortunately get knocked out early there will be plenty of tables to rail. Please note, I wasn't stating that anyone above would specifically be at the tournament, though I certainly hope they will be. We'll see. Based on the turnout from our last two DADI events I think we could have a good number of folks involved.
posted by TripJax @ 11:42 AM,
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