World Series of Poker

I saw the schedule for the World Series of Poker. I can only wish I was good enough to go and take a shot at one of the tournaments. I'll have to watch it afterward on TV.

What I found interesting about the WSOP lineup was the HORSE event. It's a new event this year. The buy in is a staggering $50K. That's five times as large as the next highest buy in. It also combines a number of different poker games. It's event 38, the one before the Main Event.

Who besides the top poker pros would dare enter the HORSE event. The combination of the 50,000 buy in and the five different poker games you have to play should scare off pretty much all but the very best players.

Whoever wins the HORSE tournament could make a pretty good claim to being the best poker player in the world right now. I suspect this new tournament is designed for that purpose. Maybe the HORSE tournament will be the serious one the top pros want to win. The Main Event will just be a big fun tournament at the end of the WSOP where you want to win but can't really expect to get all that far.

Historically the winner of the Main Event could take the title as unofficial world's best player. With plans for up to 8000 entrants this year the main event is now such a spectacle with so many amateurs and so much dead money the winner no longer gets that recognition. Some of the stuff I saw on TV from the 2005 main event was some strange play.

One guy raised preflop with KJo. Phil Hellmuth reraised with AK. For some reason the amateur moved all in. Phil instacalled. On the river the amateur hit a Jack to take most of Phil's stack. A few hands later Hellmuth was knocked out. Play like that can make it pretty tough on elite players where it's a minefield of bad beats waiting to happen. Also all the dead money can allow some mediocre players to gain massive stacks through a lot of luck and less skill. Those huge stacks can be difficult to overcome for even the best players.

In the 2005 main event there were around 5700 players. I'd guess around 1000 were really strong experienced pro players. The remaining 4700, well was kind of uneven. The $10,000 entry fee really isn't a lot of money to a lot of people (it is to me though!) I'm surprised the WSOP didn't increase it.

Of 5700 entrants, 27 will make it to the second last day. That's about 1/2 of one percent. Now among the 4700 group, say 99.9% will wash out from their bad play. That means still around 5 can still expect to reach the final 27, no matter how strangely they play. It's just the sheer numbers of mediocre players there will allow some to have an amazing run of good luck to go very deep in the tournament, while knocking out very many superior players along the way. This year with room for 8000 entrants, the final 27 will probably have even more mediocre players, maybe 8-10.

It seemed crazy watching it on TV around the final 40. There was one woman there, a female lawyer. And she played like a lawyer. One hand she did a big raise with KJs from early position. The Shiek, a pro, cooly raised her all in with AA. She sat there like forever trying to decide what to do. Like KJs is some kind of awesome hand. Did she think she could possibly be in the lead at that point. After a long time the other players finally put her on the clock and she dramatically folded.

Later on she overraised again from early position with AJ. She got reraised, then Greg Raymer reraised again with KK. Bizarrely, she called. Did she really think her AJ was better than two reraises, one of them all in? Raymer was fortunate that time and she missed the Ace.

Finally they again showed her overplaying a hand, this time with A7. TheShiek again reraised her all in, this time with QQ. Like with Raymer, she again decided to take her chances with the Ace. This time she hit her Ace to regrettably stay alive. Despite the way she plays, her and around 4 others like her would reach the last 27 just through the massive numbers of mediocre players.