How To Win The Main Event

Some people would say that I am the wrong individual to be giving advice on the subject being I have never won the main event in my two attempts, and will probably never win it, as I have no intention of ever playing it again in its current format.

One would think that a skilled player would have a significant advantage over a field of players, and in most cases this would be accurate. After all, a skilled player is most likely to get his chips in when he is ahead rather than behind, thus, a skilled player is more likely to face a bad beat than the novice player. Let’s look at some examples though as to how the probability of a skilled player surviving a particular field of players varies significantly.

1, Let’s step back in time a few years ago when the Main Event had a couple of hundred participants. You would have about 200 professional skilled players facing off with about 20 novice players. The skilled player would have less than a 10% chance in this field of facing a bad beat.

2. Now let’s jump ahead to the days of Chris Moneymaker. You have a field comprised of over 2,000 participants. The professional skilled player is outnumbered 10 to 1; thus he is 100 times more likely to run up against a possible bad beat. In fact, statistically, each pro in this scenario will need to win or avoid 10 possible bad beats on Day One of the tournament alone. Now lets select a starting had. Lets assume that in each instance the Pro has pocket Aces. His opponent has Ace -6 off-suite. This is clearly one of the most advantages pre-flop scenarios one can face. The A-6 does not connect to a straight; the hand is not suited; and the Ace is dominated by the opponents Pocket Aces. Thus, the novice player would have to catch two of the three sixes remaining in the deck, or catch four to a straight or four to a flush on the board. In this particular scenario, the Pro is about an 8.5:1 favorite in the hand. So, in conclusion, if the Pro faces 10 possible scenarios during day one with the most advantageous starting hand possible, he is an underdog to make it past the first day.

3. Now let’s jump ahead to this year’s Main Event. With 8,773 attendants a professional player is about an 80:1 dog to make it past the first day. The odds of a pro making in the money are ten times worse, and let’s forget the possibility of a pro winning it completely, as you would have a better chance at your local state lottery than you would getting through a field of 8,000 amateurs.

At this year’s main event I had little intention of playing, especially after I heard the attendance estimates were in excess of 8,000. I realized early on that this would be a mere exercise in futility, but, being I had already won the money for the seat and I was already there, I managed to talk myself into it.

I was lucky early on as I drew Day 1A. This allowed me to play immediately as soon as the Main Event started and, should I make it to Day 2, I would be afforded three days of rest in between, giving me lots of free time to play the cash games. I drew my table and went to my seat. The day started well. I was catching cards early and was getting paid off. My goal was to at least triple of quadruple the 10,000 in chips I started with by the end of the day. I had amassed in excess of 27,000 chips 42 minutes into the tournament. It became obvious quickly that half the people at my table were calling stations. This began to worry me as I knew it was inevitable that a couple of bad beats were sure to follow.

Well, to make a long story short, I had Pocket Jacks cracked 20 minutes later when I was 95% favorite in the hand. Six hands after that I had Pocket Kings cracked by a guy who caught the case Ace on the river. Pocket Queens did not do much better a half hour later when I was 93% favorite to win the hand. And I quickly found myself short stacked at the table 30 minutes before the dinner break.

A few minutes before the break, I was fortunate to pick up a suited A-10 on the button. The best hand I had seen in a while so I decided to push with it. There were three players that limped ahead of me so I really needed to isolate a player if I was to play the hand so I push all in. Everyone folded around to the guy on my right who called my all in with a K-6 off-suite (both cards were red though). He was actually disappointed when he saw my hand as he actually had the audacity to think I was bluffing and he would be ahead in the hand. Well he was ahead before long. He flopped 2 Kings and filled up on the turn. Even though I hit my Ace and managed to catch the flush, I was out.

The reason I have provided the above detail is because what happened to me at the Main Event was not the exception, rather the rule. Pro after Pro was sent to the rail by one bad beat after another. The irony is that statistically they went out exactly when they should have considering the statistical disadvantage they had coming into a field with over 8,000 novice players.

The unfortunate part is that the WSOP’s willingness to turn the main event into just another lottery will eventually have devastating results on this game and its popularity. The game is quickly becoming nameless and faceless. No one I know wants to tune in to watch 10 episodes of poker to see the plumber take on the garbage man, as the local mortgage broker is short stacked and scrambling for chips. This will hurt the game and the ratings. The sooner the Professional ranks are separated from the massive fields of amateurs the better off Poker will be in the long run.

In the mean time if you are considering entering one of these lotteries in the future, first and foremost, understand that it is a lottery you have entered. A skilled player can rarely ever get lucky, he could, however, get unlucky and not have his hand hold up. So keep playing the best poker you are capable of and that should account for about 20% of your success at one of these mega tournaments. The other 80% is a matter of fate.

You can contact John at John@JohnTheGreekPoker.com

You can play with John at www.PokerSyndicate.com

May 9th, 2006

Everything But The Cards

All too often I will be somewhere, minding my own business, and someone will walk up to me with a specific hand question. The discussion will begin in a usual format “I had XX and was up against YY….” It is at this point that I will interrupt the individual and begin with a barrage of questions: “What position where you in? What position was your opponent in? Who started the action? What was the other players’ at the table involvement in the hand? What were the chip stacks? How has the play been thus far? How many hands has the other player been involved in? What type of hands has he been showing down?” and so on. You would be amazed as to the small percentage of players that were able to offer an answer that would define the “situation” rather than the hand.

I recently decided to conduct a small study of 100 poker players that were playing at a local tournament. When a player was asked to cover their eyes and tell me what position they were in, less than 10% answered correctly. The majority of the correct answers came from those that were on the blind, yet 20% of those players did not even remember which blind they were on. All they knew was they had just put chips in. When asked the size of their chip stack, less than 60% got within 10% of the actual count. Less than 25% were able to identify the chip leader and less than 5% had any clue as to the chip count of the remaining players at their table. One other valuable piece of information that was derived was the fact that the majority of the players that answered all of the questions wrong, are frequent Internet Players and hardly ever play live, unless in an occasional tournament. On the Net, a great deal of this information is provided to you on the screen. Thus, you have little to focus on, besides the cards. In a live game environment, it’s about everything but the cards.

It baffles the mind how one can sit at a table engaged in tournament play and expect to day dream their way into the money. In live play you MUST be conscious of everything going on around you. Especially when engaged in a hand. All of the above information I questioned players about is critical. There is also quiet a few other pieces of information that is a must. For example: How much is in the pot at any given moment? What pot odds does he need to call based on what hand you have put him on? How often has your opponent entered a Pot……from early position……..from late position? What percentage of hands has your opponent won? What other reads or information have you accumulated on a player that can be useful on this hand? What information is he giving you now that will be useful later? Is he “scared money” and will fold to a big bet? Has he chased a draw in past hands without sufficient pot odds to do so? Are you up against a calling station? What are the other players doing that are not involved in this hand? Which players not involved in the hand are the ones really paying attention to the action that you need to keep an eye on later? Post hand, what is the players’ reaction to a good hand holding up or a bad beat? The list is never ending.

It is almost inevitable how ignoring this information can lead to disaster when up against a skilled player. In looking back at the 2005 main event there is one particular individual that come’s to mind. This guy had showed up to Vegas for a bowling tournament and ended up winning a satellite into the main event. Suck out after suck out, he found himself deep into the money. At a stage of the tournament when information is critical, as the change in payout from place to place varies considerably, he made a critical error. He entered a pot, raising from late position with pocket 2’s. He was called by the big blind with A 10 off suite. The flop brought an Ace and our friend with the deuces pushed all in. He was shocked when he saw the A-10 and could not believe he got called pre flop with that hand at this stage in the tournament. Well, had he been paying attention, his first realization would have been that his opponent had been making very calculation decisions thus far. His pre flop raise was insufficient as it gave his opponent almost 3:1 odds on the hand. With an A-10, there are very few hands that he would be an underdog to with less than 2:1 odds, thus, a call was inevitable. Had he raised 1.5 times the pot, his opponent would have, most likely, laid the hand down. So in conclusion, he got exactly what he deserved. Hopefully he can take something away from this hand and, next time, pay more attention.

So as you can see, Poker is a very demanding game that requires a great deal from its players. Knowing what information is needed and having the ability to accumulate and process this information is critical to one’s long term success as a poker player. Now throw in some much needed mathematical calculations and you will soon realize just how engaged one’s mind needs to be during a hand of Poker.

Let’s face it, at the end of the day you could cherry pick your hands and hope they hold up, but if you plan to have any future in this game at all your first realization need to be that Poker is about everything but the cards.