Is It Just Lucky To Win At The World Series?
Every poker player dreams of getting their big moment in the spotlight, running through the large field of professionals and amateurs and getting down to a World Series final table. Eventually they make it heads up and after a gruelling battle, defeat their opponent and capture the treasured bracelet and the prestige of being a WSOP winner. Finally they have the adulation they knew their skills deserve, or have they?
In reading about the World Series I noticed a contradiction in the way people talk about the bracelet wins of players before the poker boom, and after the boom. The fields of players were a lot smaller before poker become mainstream, but the quality of the fields were a lot higher with tournament professionals such as Phil Hellmuth, Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson all very highly skilled poker players still involved in many events. If you were to win through these small but tough fields, you gained the respect of being a worthy winner. If a top professional plays in one of the monster fields today, they cannot rely on just skill to make it through to the latter stages of the tournament. Tom McEvoy is quoted as saying poker tournaments are about “surviving long enough to get lucky”. This suggests he believes luck plays a larger factor in a current bracelet win than before.
Newer players will argue that to win a bracelet from 1500 or more players is much harder than beating 200. You must demonstrate tremendous mental agility and concentration, as well as the stamina to stay competitive for sometimes three or four days before you eventually can win the event. The modern WSOP bracelet demonstrates the player has sufficient skills to cope with the demands of a long tournament, as well as the ability to play poker. The old school players were better overall at playing the game, and winning a bracelet meant outplaying the better players rather than benefiting from easier tables of amateurs that a player can enjoy when placed on fishy tables. The modern player adapts well to large fields and the additional factors that come with dealing with many mediocre players.
But with the fact there are so many unknown people getting a bracelet, is the bracelet just a crown on the head of the player to whom the cards happened to hit that day? You would expect a bracelet winner to be able to make a living from cards and be a consistent winner, better than most ordinary players. But this quite often is not the case with many bracelet winners being average players who struggle to stay afloat in the world of professional poker. Particularly in the main event where around 5000 – 7000 players usually play over many days, there is rarely a player that is known as one of the best that make it to the last few tables. The players who do make it become famous, but are rarely famous before becoming a member of the November nine. The larger the field the more you need to stay lucky in order to have a chance of success.
This is the appeal of poker. As an amateur player you are not out of the race to win. But there is an argument to suggest that winning the bracelet is not treated with the respect from other professionals as it once would have been. You almost need to win a second bracelet to be regarded as a good poker player, reducing the chance that luck was the major factor in your first win. But when players are raising their first bracelet into the air, I doubt whether they worry about such things as how it is viewed by the players they have just defeated.
By Malcolm Clarke
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Tags: play poker, poker, win, world series
