Good Things Come To Those Who Wait... And Bet

   Well The WSOP Main Event is over and congrats are in order for the winner Pius Heinz and the other 8 contenders for a very entertaining Final Table. It was definetly fun to watch. ESPN's coverage was excellent and it was great to be able to see every hand played. There were questionable plays, questionable analysis, and some questionable wardrobe choices, but all in all whether you are a poker fanatic (like myself) or not you had to appreciate the conditions and the pressure these nine individuals were under. In this post I will be discussing the first three eliminations.

   The short stack coming in to this final table was Jesse Eisenberg look-alike Sam Holden. He wins my award for Best Hair. The only Englishman at the table he had quite an uphill climb. Unfortunately his A-J suited in spades ran into Ben Lamb's A-K and he was out in 9th place. Personally, I don't think he had to go broke there. Lamb open raised and Holden could have called and taken position in the hand. When the flop came three clubs, Holden easily could have folded and gotten off the hand leaving himself with over 10 big blinds. If I came in as one of the short-stacks, my goal would be to not finish 9th. Let someone else make that mistake.

   The second smallest stack entering play on Sunday was also the youngest player at the table 21 year old Anton Makiievski from THE U-kraine. Anton gets the award for Hardest Name To Spell. His bust-out was probably the worst. I should give him an award for that too. Anton went all-in with K-Q off and was called by Heinz and his 9's. Flop came K-J-J and the turn was a 9. The river blanked and Makiievski was out in 8th. Exactly where he entered the final table. No harm no foul on his decision. He took a bad beat. Nothing more you can say other than shit happens. He played well and picked a decent hand to move with in my opinion.


   That brings us to our 7th place finisher, and one of my horses, Bahdi Bounahra. He came in running 6th and played well I thought. He wins an award simply for holding his own against significantly younger opponents. The oldest player, and possibly least experienced, made a good showing and made his country proud. His bust-out hand was A-5 offsuit, but I don't fault him for it. He was extremely short on chips compared to the rest of the table and A-5 is better than A-6 as a blind all-in hand. Good for Bahdi and good for Belize. Way to go!


   In my next post I'll discuss the 6th, 5th, and 4th place finishers. Till then...

The WSOP Main Event 2011

   So this being my first post into the blogosphere, I thought I'd begin with my thoughts on the WSOP Main Event. For those of you who know the game of poker (specifically No-Limit Hold Em) all of this should make perfect sense to you. For those of you who don't forgive my use of its lingo throughout this post. In fact, much of this blog will be about poker and the direction the game is going both live and online. But first The Main Event.

   In 2003, Chris Moneymaker won the biggest poker tournament in the world. An amateur who paid $40 on an online satellite and ran it to 2 million dollars by winning the Main Event. In the 3 years following, the Main Event grew from 839 entries to 8773 in 2006. aka The Jamie Gold Year. In the few years following that the number of entries declined a bit. This year there were 6865.  Not too bad considering the DOJ's smackdown on the big online poker sites in April. Next year will be the year we should see the full effects. I'm guessing the over/under is 4800.

   The true problem for the game right now is its lack of an ambassador. A Michael Jordan if you will. Or a Tiger Woods before all his troubles. The online thing has just rubbed everyone the wrong way and these well-known pros now just seem shady. The Jamie Gold thing was a black mark as well. Personally, I'm rooting for a big name pro to win it. Someone relatively upstanding that can maybe promote poker and have a positive influence. I think it would legitimize the game. Phil Ivey I'm talkin to you!

  Although Phil Ivey isn't in it this year (in fact he boycotted this year's World Series) I think there are some names at the Final Table this year that could do the game some good. First on my list is the hottest (meaning he's on a good run people) player in the world right now Ben Lamb. If he wins it would be an absolutely epic year for him at the WSOP and arguably the best run in the post Moneymaker era. The guy had already made over a million dollars at this year's WSOP before the Main Event even started. It would give him two bracelets and two other Final Tables, one of which was an 8th place finish at the Player's Championship. It would also make him WSOP Player of the Year. In a word: impressive. Did I mention he's only 26?

   Next up is Bahdi Bounahra. He's from Belize. He's the oldest player at the Final Table at 49. It would be pretty fun to watch an old man (relatively speaking of course) whip a bunch of twenty-something's asses. It'd be a great story and great for the country of Belize.

   Finally is Eoghan O'Dea. He has two scores over $250,000. His father cashed in the Main Event 6 times. He's from Ireland and that would be cool to see an Irish champion wouldn't it?





  Well, those are my picks for this year. I'll write again in a couple of days with a full analysis of the Final Table and my thoughts and feelings regarding the results. Till then....