Went to the Rio to watch the Final Table of the WSOP and to go to Mike Sexton’s Hall of Fame Induction. A cool night all the way around.
Watching the play I was not surprised at the results. No doubt Joe Cada got lucky to beat JJ with threes and to do it again later with 2’s. No doubt BUT what I admired about his play was he was willing to get in there and gamble. I didn’t find that to be the case with Shulman or especially Ivey. They just got blinded off. Ivey was in a better position than anyone else at the table to play without cards because ..he’s Phil Ivey. The entire poker world thought he would win and those other 8 players knew his reputation. I really don’t think he even began to capitalize on that and had said early on I did not think he would win.
I felt for Darvin Moon as he made some missteps and struggled as a result. However, as I too have learned the hard way, you can’t get real final table experience unless you’re at a final table. Moon – as did I – got his on national television. I think he did fine.
The best player at the table, in my opinion, was Eric Buchman. After losing a big pot he began to push, more needless than necessary (easy for me to recognize the trait as I suffer from it also) and tried to run back up the top of the mountain instead of slowly climbing back up.
All in all I enjoyed this more than in the past. Having played the WSOP every day this summer, following and knowing some of the players, I was intrigued with how this one played out. I’ll be at the heads up match tomorrow to watch with great interest.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:31 PM
Excellent, analysis, I was truly the most impressed with Eric B’s play!
While being equally disappointed with Jeff and Phil’s play and the killing by blindage.
Moons play was a bit too cally with crap, good with the raisey with crap style he plays though to build chips.
The Kid was a blast and cleary an unstainable situation when your underpairs are expected to make sets, but I like his determination, moxy and the ultimate ability to get the chips in without hesitation.
Lets face it the difference between winning and losing any tournament is how the sukout balance runs, everytime I won a big one my sukout balance was high and if you lose your sukout balance was a defeciet
November 8th, 2009 at 8:33 PM
Excellent, analysis, I was truly the most impressed with Eric B’s play!
While being equally disappointed with Jeff and Phil’s play and the killing by blindage.
Moons play was a bit too cally with crap, good with the raisey with crap style he plays though to build chips.
The Kid was a blast and cleary an unstainable situation when your underpairs are expected to make sets, but I like his determination, moxy and the ultimate ability to get the chips in without hesitation.
Lets face it the difference between winning and losing any tournament is how the sukout balance runs, everytime I won a big one my sukout balance was high and if you lose your sukout balance was a low.
Looking forward to Monday! Hope to Meet up with you some time, I’m sure our paths will soon cross.
Michael