The Dean can be contacted at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk for all poker, gambling and coaching related matters.
I have to commend James Akenhead today for reaching the final table of the 10k main event at the WSOP. It is great to see a British player at the final table and he will come back in November albeit as the short stack.
Phil Ivey is also on the final table as well and is lying in 7th place and is also one of the shorter stacks. So far everything that Darvin Moon seems to have done has changed to gold and he seems to be having a similar run of luck to what Jamie Gold did in 2006.
You need luck to win the main event….lots of luck. The simple fact of the matter is that out of 6400+ players, a lot of players are going to get lucky, alot of players are going to get unlucky……but a tiny number of players are going to get REALLY lucky.
It isnt enough to be good……most players can play the game these days and there are many effective styles of play. The winner of the main event will be the player for who variance smacks them hard in the face……unless you are Phil Ivey of course.
If you have ten players all of which have 10,000 in chips, one player gets lucky and doubles up to 20,000…..so does another and we are down to eight players. You are one of the 10k stacks. Suddenly they both bust another player each. They both have 30k and four other players have 10k. Then they get involved with each other and the winner ends up with 60k. Now they start to bully the field who are trying to outlast each other as this means that they can move up and get more prize money.
Mentally, many players have given up playing for first and are almost conceding it to the big stack…..sure…..they are hoping to get lucky but they are more concerned with inching up the placings as each increase represents a big rise in their respective prize money. Suddenly the big stack starts to bully and his opponents really need a hand to stand up to him and his stack grows to 65k……70k……75k……80k…….until it is so big that he is the overwhelming favourite……and all because he got lucky first and best.
Meanwhile your stack hasnt really progressed and your chance of winning this tourmament have seriously dwindled but yet you have done nothing wrong……the only thing that you did wrong was that you didnt get lucky……thats tournament poker. Of course though there is skill to playing tournaments…….but the luck is massive.
see you soon.
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