15 replies to this topic

[JasonIDK]

Hell DN and the FCP veterans, long time lurker here.DN, I know your phiolosophy is to play a lot of hands early on in tournies and rely on your skills to bust the dead money, however. . .In the WSOP main event, hasn't this sort of backfired? I know it's a bit of a conundrum, because you are playing to win which entails being aggressive, but with the blinds so low, people will continue to overvalue their ace rag hands, even OOP to 3 and 4 bets.The reason I pose this question is. . . Look at the guy who finished second, Steve Dannerman. I was listening to the live audio with Flack and Hellmuth, and they kept saying this guy was one of the worst player they'd seen. I couldn't believe that a guy who made the final table could be that bad, but I was wrong. The way Dannerman played the last hand against Hachem was reminiscent of how Jojo the monkey would play his hand.Do you think that changing to a more conservative approach early on in these tournaments would help you out, DN? It was frustrating to watch you in these pots where weakness was shown on the flop by a round of checking, you hit the nut draw on the turn, there's a big bet by Farha, and you make the call and. . . miss.

[Golden]

JasonIDK said:

I was listening to the live audio with Flack and Hellmuth, and they kept saying this guy was one of the worst player they'd seen. I couldn't believe that a guy who made the final table could be that bad, but I was wrong.

Listening to Hellmuth and Flack would be mistake #1.

[DanielNegreanu]

I thought I played great in the WSOP this year. It's not an easy event to win, but I'm confident in my approach.

[JasonIDK]

"Listening to Hellmuth and Flack would be mistake #1."LOLThe extent to which those two were kissing eachothers butts was both amusing and worrisome.

[Chrisj1616]

Did you see Steve Dannenman last night on ESPN? This guy looked like a total fool

[Konidias]

I think Daniel did everything right. The deck was just as cold as a night in Alaska for him.Oh, and it's Dannenmen.

[JGinLV]

JasonIDK said:

Hell DN and the FCP veterans, long time lurker here.DN, I know your phiolosophy is to play a lot of hands early on in tournies and rely on your skills to bust the dead money, however. . .In the WSOP main event, hasn't this sort of backfired? I know it's a bit of a conundrum, because you are playing to win which entails being aggressive, but with the blinds so low, people will continue to overvalue their ace rag hands, even OOP to 3 and 4 bets.The reason I pose this question is. . . Look at the guy who finished second, Steve Dannerman. I was listening to the live audio with Flack and Hellmuth, and they kept saying this guy was one of the worst player they'd seen. I couldn't believe that a guy who made the final table could be that bad, but I was wrong. The way Dannerman played the last hand against Hachem was reminiscent of how Jojo the monkey would play his hand.Do you think that changing to a more conservative approach early on in these tournaments would help you out, DN? It was frustrating to watch you in these pots where weakness was shown on the flop by a round of checking, you hit the nut draw on the turn, there's a big bet by Farha, and you make the call and. . . miss.

Hi Jason,I hope I don't offend you or anybody with these comments as I just wish to throw in my 2 cents. Personally, I tend to play very loose aggressive. Most of the time unless you're up against a bigger pocket pair you're usually a 3:1 dog preflop at worst more often 3:2 which isn't that high. I think early on in a tournament you need to get a lot of chips to surivive in the later stages. If you wait for one or two big hands to get it all in 2 things may happen. One is that you may still get sucked out on and waste all your chips on one hand. Two, those big hands may not come or if they do it may be too late to matter because after blinding away after waiting it may not be enough to make a difference. I'd rather go out swinging than strikeout. I always say if I bust there's always more tournaments, and if you're playing in a tournament where that's not true, you're probably playing outside of your bankroll.In my opinion the skill versus luck comes into play with knowing how to play the flop, turn, and river. Playing your cards with the board and knowing your opponents is crucial. You've got to know who you can and can't bluff. A lot of the big pots in tournaments are won with luck, people bluffing all in with outs and such and getting called and hitting their outs when they were way behind. Say for example you're in MP with 7s8s and UTG opens for 4xbb. At this point it's roughly 1/8 your stack. You decide to call knowing the UTG likely has big cards AK/AA-JJ knowing if you can a flop, two pair, straight, paired set, you're likely to take a huge pot off the person and if you miss it's an easy fold. Suck outs are going to happen, some people don't when it's correct to fold, they get lucky and some guy who should've won, gets knocked out. It sucks, but it's poker. Nothing in poker is absolute. Big hands are going to lose to lesser ones, if you don't see flops except with big hands, they're likely to miss more than hit and with fields of more and more amateurs playing not knowing when to fold, you never know what they hold or when they'll fold. So I think it's better to see more flops and try to build a bigger stack or go on to the next event. Well done DN!

[Jennings7]

lalala

[ben_wallace]

I've gotta say watching DN was some of the best poker I've ever seen. Mind you in Australia they only aired his episode 2 weeks ago so I haven't seen the end yet. You're reads were spot on every time and there is nothing you can do if the cards don't come, or worse when the come perfectly for someone else. As for the other player bashing I'd call Hellmuth a fool, he did nothing special at his table that deserves any credit or advancement. When he starting yapping about his 9 time wins my best friend I was watching ti with turned to em and said I'd put him on tilt even more by saying and when did you win your last one? lol, they guy hasn't done anything of any real note in the poker world in a long timeFlack I can't say the same, I quite like his style at a table, who he associates with and is friends with is none of my business, I respect the guy and the way he playsIf I could play half as well as DN played the WSOP main event I'd be a happy man

[Rockets-#1]

Hey all, I just found FCP in the past few days. I read a very large chunk of Daniel's blog, and I'm lovin' it. He's been writing it for such a long time now that I had a lot of catching up to do - it took several hours - all enjoyable, though.I know what you're saying JasonIDK, and I agree somewhat. I'd probably be pretty tight to at the start, but Daniel is just so incredibly good he doesn't need to. I just gotta say, what's probably been said many times, Daniel, the episode of the Main Event you were featured on was the best poker I've ever seen! You made the right reads all over the place - it was amazing! It was depressing watching you play so good but to have no luck whatsoever.And yes, Dannenman is horrible. I depsise him and Aaron Kanter. Those two caught over and over and over - they were obviously two of the luckiest players at the WSOP. I love Hellmuth and his quote, "I guess if it was only skill, I'd win everytime," (or something along those lines). Whatever he and Flack were saying about Dannenman had to be right.It's unfortunate Matusow didn't win it all because he was clearly the best player, but at least Hachem won. I didn't see him make any stupid decisions. He was the only one at the final table that appeared to know what he was doing.

[Allknight]

Welcome aboard Rockets I am also a newbie poster and long time FCP lurker. I read your reply here and had a couple thoughts of my own about what you said. Perhaps you took this all into consideration but just in case you haven't....Not sure why you despise Dannenman and Kantor? First off no matter who you are pro or novice you have to get ridiculously lucky to survive day after day just to get to the final table. I think we all would love to be sitting in Dannenman or Kantor's seat at the final table. But I would also love to have many more opponents like them so my overall chances would be better. I think the other thing that makes this event so interesting is how the unknown players like these two actually have as good a chance as most any other player! I might be a bit envious or jealous of these two players but I certainly do not despise them. In fact I thought they were entertaining and kept the idea that anybody could win in poker alive, which IMHO is always great for the game. It keeps players of all levels coming back for more and sitting down in the games and tourneys that I frequent too!

[_Great_Dane_]

JasonIDK said:

I was listening to the live audio with Flack and Hellmuth, and they kept saying this guy was one of the worst player they'd seen.

Based on what I saw on TV, I thought that Hellmuth played very well except for the all in against Magriel with AQ. He was yelling about Magriel putting Hellmuth all in with 77 as being crazy but Hellmuth made a worse call with AQ.Flack should be considered one of the best players in the world, but he played extremely loosely trying to outplay some people and he got very lucky, such as hitting his flush on the river holding a 7 of hearts. He deserved to lose that hand and other hands.Dannenman appeared to have a game plan, and he stuck to it by being patient and disciplined :!:

[All_In]

ben_wallace said:

As for the other player bashing I'd call Hellmuth a fool...lol, they guy hasn't done anything of any real note in the poker world in a long time

he did win the heads up tournament on NBC...

[Drbingogh]

Danneman also made the final table of the tournament of champions event that "The Mouth" won. Not saying he was a great player but he had to be doing something right.

[SpeedKills]

Rockets-#1 said:

Hey all, I just found FCP in the past few days. I read a very large chunk of Daniel's blog, and I'm lovin' it. He's been writing it for such a long time now that I had a lot of catching up to do - it took several hours - all enjoyable, though.I know what you're saying JasonIDK, and I agree somewhat. I'd probably be pretty tight to at the start, but Daniel is just so incredibly good he doesn't need to. I just gotta say, what's probably been said many times, Daniel, the episode of the Main Event you were featured on was the best poker I've ever seen! You made the right reads all over the place - it was amazing! It was depressing watching you play so good but to have no luck whatsoever.And yes, Dannenman is horrible. I depsise him and Aaron Kanter. Those two caught over and over and over - they were obviously two of the luckiest players at the WSOP. I love Hellmuth and his quote, "I guess if it was only skill, I'd win everytime," (or something along those lines). Whatever he and Flack were saying about Dannenman had to be right.It's unfortunate Matusow didn't win it all because he was clearly the best player, but at least Hachem won. I didn't see him make any stupid decisions. He was the only one at the final table that appeared to know what he was doing.

Canter is not a bad player at all

[PocketRocks]

Drbingogh said:

Danneman also made the final table of the tournament of champions event that "The Mouth" won.  Not saying he was a great player but he had to be doing something right.

In my opinion, Danneman seems to be one of those "really LUCKY" people. Congrats :clap: to him for doing as well as he has done, but alot was luck. That last hand he played, showed his true skills. There were soooo many hands Joe could have had to beat him, and he called him all in anyways. My 5 year old could have played that hand better, deffinately not the signs of a "pro" poker player. I do like him though, I enjoyed his positive "happy go lucky" attitude during the event.I think DN played excellent in the main event, from what was televised anyways. His reads were DEAD ON, when the deck is cold there is nothing you can do. I did not see him make one bad play or read. From watching him you would think he was psycic or something. I wish I could read people that well. I mean, I can narrow it down between a few hands I think they have (and am usually right), but to know exactly what they have almost everytime is amazing. This is the reason I am such a big fan of DN's and why I respect him as a poker player so much. His reading skills are simply amazing. The best in the biz if you ask me. Unfortunatly, you can not win at poker with just skill, or you would see DN at the final table of every event. You gotta get some cards and hit some flops.Keep up the good work DN, the cards will come, hopefully sooner than later. :pray: