blonde poker forum

Ok maybe Hellmuth in disguise is going too far.

But when I was watching it, I thought he was poor, it was just the others were worse ( with the obvious exception )

The more I think about it, though, the better I think he played in those circumstances, given his own opinion of his limitations in that company.

( Especially interested in peoples opinions of things like the A9o call etc )

He is clearly inexperienced and called far too much with some quite weak holdings. Which as often happens in poker, if the loose player is hitting flops constantly it is bloody hard to play against.

I think he will prove to be the weakest WSOP main event winner since Robert Varkoni, but time will tell.

I don't see how you can knock someone that's come out as the winner in a 6000+ runner event.  Sure he played a few lucky calls on the final table, but it took him 4 or 5 solid days (whatever it is) to get there.   

He was aggressive from the start of the FT and no one else stood up to it, so why not carry on.  Once he had a huge chip lead he could afford to gamble a bit.

I really can't understand people knocking him, even Gold last year must have had something about it, it's not like it's a single table tourney these guys have won.

i got pelters on another tread saying he was a lucky fish

he was lucky he got his money in good so many times, he was putting his chips in anyway, just so happens the table gave him gift after gift.

one hand really proves what im saying

rahme kk v yang a5

yang R
rahme RR
yang calls (wtf?)

flop ace x x

rahme check
yang 10mill
rahme 27 mill allin
yang calls


i mean really is this world class play or dumb luck combined with a no fold attitude?

For aspiring poker players the need to be good at the game should be a prominent goal. Why? Because the better you are the more chance you have of winning a big tournament. Any increase in skill level will negate the luck factor that little bit more...and the less you rely on luck the more realistic your chances of success actually become.

So for any of us on this journey, it is important not to become results orientated in order to keep our sanity in tact.

You read your opponent's re-raise as weak and call his all-in with 9-9. You find yourself up against 6-6 and get knocked-out to a rivered 6. You played perfect poker and lost. No matter how good you become you still remain a humble servant to the poker gods. But the quest to be a better player continues to burn bright and you take your seat at the next tournament with renewed enthusiasm.

However, when you do actually cash in a big one (e.g. Yang - $8.5m) everything I have just said would become complete and utter irrelevant piffle. Having achieved the ultimate goal you would quickly and clearly realise that poker is actually comprehensively results orientated. It matters not how you got there.....the important thing is you're there. It is only important to use the crutch of skill on the way up, it gives you hope, it gives you respect and it gives you the enthusiasm to plod onwards. Once there, I am sure you would quickly realise that any half-competent player is capable of winning any poker tournament and on that particular day the powers that be looked down kindly upon you. It was just your day.

When you have $8.5m it is inconsequential how "well" you performed....you have $8.5 MILLION!!!

For this sort of money you can call me a donkey if it makes you happy. I will just smile and adjust my bracelet slightly. In fact for $8.5m you can strap a saddle to my back and I will work the season on Blackpool Beach.

Stuart Fox recently folded his way to $450k in the $5k NLH and was criticised somewhat for his performance

He said...

I think once you're there you're there and being good just doesn't matter any more. You will go promptly to the Voodo Bar and start your life!

So how good is Yang?....Very, Very rich indeed!

corking post, simply corking!

I think he played ok IMO

He had nothing to lose entering that final table he got in cheaply and had the drive to win it.  I dont know what cards he had to start but he steamrolled that whole final table with constant aggression.  

Yes some calls were questionable but they were correct!  E.G A9 vs A6 i think it was.

The other players did not seem like they knew how to approach someone on the final table of the WSOP playing so aggressivly so they gifted him with free chips!  

This then gave him the power to gamble a little and get lucky.  

Like him or not he played the start to win and got the job done.

Yep, I'd agree with that. If this was a standard 15BB-average-stack final table, then you could understand some of the other players' moves, because in that situation you simply have to take a stand sooner or later.

But some of these players had 50BB in their stack. They could have, and should have, waited things out. Ace-seven pre-flop, a flush draw on the turn - the situation was not so desperate that these were the hands to make a stand with.

Yes, he was lucky. Yes, I don't even think he's as good a player as me (and I'm certainly no world champion). But most of the other players didn't play correctly against him.

 i think maybe excepting Kravchenko , he was the only one who played to win , he showed real balls when others were happy to play tight and take the money he was in the thick of the action all the time.

 sometimes the guy who has the heart and is willing to risk more deserves the victory.

 also , Jerry Yang is a Psychology Graduate so maybe he had great reads and tells on his fello players after playing with them for days.

 he also moved to America from Laos where he said he couldnt afford a marble , he couldnt speak English.

 he also couldnt play poker 2 years ago.

 now the guy is a Doctor has a wife and 6 children and has beaten 6400 players to win the WSOP and $8 million plus change.

 i think a little credit where credit is due should be given , well done that man

Fair point and he seems like a geniune guy, i don't dislike him at all. The question though is about his poker ability and based on the limited evidence we have, I would be surprised if he proves to be a winner at the top level.

Does he have to again though with that money??  Am i right in thinking he also gets an extra 10mil from Fulltilt as he quliafied through there?  I believe the deal was any player who qualified through fulltilt and won got 10mil

The deal with Full Tilt is 'win the WSOP and become our bitch for ten years and we'll give you $1m a year'.

In any case, he didn't qualify through them, he merely took their shilling to wear their hat at the FT.

Ummm.....

Ahhhhhhh.......

would you like to rephrase that ???

I was a little disappointed with Kravchenko.  He did great to get himself comfortable in 4th play.  But I think he got some kind of adrenalin surge once he saw AK.  I don't think he should have gone out with it.  At least, I don't think Hellmuth would have gone out with it .

That's what I thought while I was watching it.

But is it unfair to put it that way. 

He played well to knock Hilm out.

Then he got himself HU against Watkinson ( who I would imaging he saw as the best player on the table ), With 35million behind him I think that was a good call.

After that he rode his luck.  But he won hand after hand.  If he'd lost a couple in a row to put himself into second position, do you think he would have carried on the same game plan, or would he have tightened up and played for 2nd ?

We'll never know, so maybe we should give him the benefit.  He never changed his game plan, because he didn't need to, rather than because he was unable to.

 BTW I don't think we'll ever see him on a final table again either - this bloke is no Gold.  I don't think his ego wants to compete with the big boys.  He'll be content to earn a fortune this year and then sit back & retire

Forget the $8mill.  With good marketing he'll earn more than that this year through advertising.  Can you imaging what the God squad channels will pay him. 

Yang is better than Gold...no doubt in my mind about that. And I think the guy has the game to win another tourney or two but you also need a lot of luck to do that. Sure he's no Hellmuth..but then again..neither is anyone else when it comes to NL holdem tourney play.

BLONDE LIVE UP-DATE:

Snoopy: It is 45 mins since Mantis01 won the 2007 WSOP and we are here at The Vodoo Bar. Mantis has just been approached by three gorgeous "poker bunnies". I couldn't hear what the girls said but I was able to catch the responses from the latest World Champion.

"....Er hello girls"

"....Well I wouldn't exactly say Poker God but thanks all the same"

"....Er no I've never played "Baby-Oil" poker before what does it involve...?"

"....Really"

"....And what if I want to go all-in?"

"...Wow unlimited re-buys as well, that's great value!!"

"....And how much are the pinks worth again?"

"....No they've comped me an upgrade at the Bellagio..I'm now in the penthouse"

"....About 2:00 a.m. I think"

Snoopy: But within minutes Mantis had fled the bar and had locked himself away in the bathroom of his palatial Vegas suite. Apparently he spent the evening quietly weeping. Muffled cries of "but I am not worthy"...."this doesn't feel right"....and "calling with the jacks was such a -EV play" drifted into the hallway.

He was last seen atop the Hoover Dam threatening to cast his bracelet into the watery depths below whilst screaming " I'm not fit to lace Sklansky's boots" at the top of his voice

Lol....I say gl to Yang, deserving or no I am sure he will have a rather pleasant time.

You MUST be violent when you have that kind of sizeable chip lead, you simply must. But when cash differences are of that magnitude for 2nd 3rd 4th 5th etc you must understand that if someone plays right back at you, at that level, they believe they probably have you beat, even though you may have stumbled into a semi decent holding. He simply got lucky with a few of his bad calls. Had he not, and some of the better players doubled up a few times, then they would have smeared his sorry ass all over that table with a decent stack.
Aggression with the dominant lead has to be tempered with the danger of doubling someone else up. Do that, and you may be close to losing the most precious thing you have.
There are plenty of situations to be aggressive without taking this risk. Calling a rereraise all in is not one of them.
Good on him for the win. But I thought Gold was a much more accomplished player. With or without Jesus' help.

Robert Varkoni gets a fair bit of stick too.. yet he cashed again this time. OK, it was 177th for $50,000 but it shows a certain skill factor I think.

Criticising Yang is a bit like saying Botham was a bit of a lucky slogger compared with say a more correct looking player like Chris Tavare.

Yang is a damn hero, he took on the world and won - hard to do much more

I was fortunate to meet and play against Robert Varkoni  in 04 in the first Caribbean classic, let me say here he has a great game but even the best players can not always win, but he will out last most on the circuit.

Me and you both Mo, busted out of the team event tonight.  Just proves your point I think...


As for Yang - he might have made a few mistakes on the final table, but he'd earned that right.  Of course he can play, you can't luck your way through that big a field.

this is obviously a very bright guy- just look at what he has achieved since arriving in the US.....  The bookies had him as 9/9 in their betting. The commentators were all saying he was the tightest player at the table- at the start that is. I believe he knew what everyones perception of him was (showing at least some depth to his level of poker play), and came out playing the opposite of how he was supposed to. He had gained the CL by the time the others realised he had changed his modus operandi- and then decided to play back at him in decidedly dubious situations. I think he had the best plan for the final table of all the players bar possibly the russian (who I was convinced was going to win). yes he made some dubious calls- but non were in a position where he could  be knocked out. He had the right game for the day, aided by players trying to reraise a guy who was incapable of putting down top pair.

As for not being able to luck your way through that field, whilst you have to have some sort of game to get there, I believe you HAVE to luck your way through to the FT. You usually have to win numerous coin tosses or worse, be in the right position to receive donations from the numerous fish who are playing and also pick up cards at the right time.

Yang, in his pre Ft interview said that he had got shortish on the penultimate day ( not on the felt) and had decided to rereraise from the BB with a3s  unsuprisingly the reraiser called with his kk, Yang hit his runner runner str and the rest is history as they say. If you were the guy with KK you are probably still gently rocking in your chair at home muttering "if only......" and "a3 bloody a3" under your breath.

I am still in the US at the mo and watched the whole FT... He deserved to win on that day..has shown an understanding of what was needed from his lowly start position, and no little courage ( he also had a superb table demenour- totally unreadable IMHO.

Well done i say.....

Absolutely.  You cannot win without a whole lot of luck.  You need to play great poker, and have the luck at the right times.  He obviously had a combination of both.

Like you said, he accumulated enough chips so that at the end he was in with the worst of it on some hands, but knew his tournament wasn't on the line.  A nice position to be in.

 i agree , a mix between Phil Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson = not getting much from this guy.

You are fast becoming my hero now the wit and wisdom of Sir Tank is no longer here to amuse me.

Excellent Post

No.

This is something I've seen people say many times over several forums.

But is it realistic.

Yes he lost some hands with bad calls, but he was sooooo highly stacked up that it didn't affect his game plan.

You're then taking that plan, and carrying it forward, to if he lost another double up etc etc.

But who's to say that he would have carried on with that style if he'd suddenly found himself in 2nd spot.  He's already proved he can change up a gear.

Is it fair to say he couldn't change back down again, when he never needed to change back down again.

If it ain't broke, dont fix it, sort of idea.

Everytime someone got 10m off him, he just stuck a huge raise in next pot, and won 5m of it straight back again.

indeed...hell, doyle advocates this in supersystem 2 (Although Yang took it a bit too far) pick up loads of smaller pots and you can aford to take a gamble that nobody else can take and hope to get lucky.