Posted on 11/01/2012 4:52:48 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A 24-year-old poker professional from Laurel won the World Series of Poker main event, outlasting his final opponents in a marathon card session of nearly 12 hours for the $8.53 million title on Wednesday.
Greg Merson emerged with the title before dawn in Las Vegas after a session that proved a showcase for his skills amid the unpredictability of tournament no-limit Texas Hold ‘em. On the last hand, Mr. Merson put Las Vegas card pro Jesse Sylvia all-in with a king high. Mr. Sylvia thought hard, then called with a suited queen-jack.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Could somebody remove the screwball characters from the title, please? Thanks.
In heads up, Kx is not really a bad hand. I would bet my tournament life on it.
The opponent is likely to be worse off and must pair or better to beat. I would not have to.
An IRS agent was probably waiting on his porch when he got home. lol
Merson played some of the best poker I have ever seen in my life. He was so dialed in, it was unreal. Congratulations Greg!
I watched this final table...all night long. It didn’t matter what the pot size was, every bet was pondered over like it was the last hand. That made the long grind even longer. Very boring for the casual fan.
It definitely was really slow at times, but if I was playing for millions of dollars, I sure as heck wouldn’t rush my decisions either.
Nobody really plays poker better than anybody else.
It is, at least mathematically, like betting on coin flips.
He just got the more favorable coin flips.
Agreed.
Plus the fact of hiding the hole cards from the TV audience sort of took the excitement away.
Casual players can't figure what the guy is holding, more fun to see the cards and then watch their strategy.
What is that? It beats a King? Then I've been playing without knowing all the rules.
Good for him! I watched the tournament and he is one hell of a poker player. Ice water in his veins. He also overcame a drug addiction. He almost went out a couple of times earlier in the tournament. Very impressive.
Saw a little of that yesterday. I really don’t like the bizarre WSOP announcing duo team. Very much prefer Mike Sexton and his sidekick.
It’s something like betting on coin flips in head-to-head poker, but there are enough additional elements to the game to make skill a large factor. Otherwise, to paraphrase “Rounders”, we wouldn’t see the same guys make it to the final table of the World Series year after year.
Since they shutdown UB my interest in Poker sadly has left.
A suited Queen-Jack is just a starting hand, it can’t beat a King high on its own, but in Hold Em, you use your starting hand to complete a full five card hand with the other common cards that are dealt.
When you look at all the possible hands that could be made with a starting hand, you can then compare them to each other and get a ranking of the best starting hands. That just gives you an approximate idea of how likely each starting hand is to make a very good, possibly winning hand, but it’s the best information that you have to go with when making that first bet in Hold Em, since you haven’t seen any of the common cards yet.
So, based on starting hand rankings, Queen-Jack suited is a pretty good starting hand, because a lot of good, probably winning, hands can be made with it. I don’t have all the rankings memorized anymore, but I’m pretty sure that QJ suited is higher than King + any card less than 9 unsuited.
The key is in the possibilities that can be made with both hands. QJ has the advantages of: being suited, creating flush possibilities, being two face cards, offering two different winning pair/trip/quad/full house possibilities , and being two cards than can be used to complete a straight, and a high straight at that, possibly a high straight flush. Also, when you rank cards that can form straights, two consecutive cards like QJ can form more kinds of straights than cards with one gap, two gaps, or three gaps between them.
Sorry, but this just isn’t true. While luck is definitely a big factor, especially in the short term, over the course of the very long haul the most skilled players who make the right decisions most often rise to the top.
“Nobody really plays poker better than anybody else.
It is, at least mathematically, like betting on coin flips.
He just got the more favorable coin flips.”
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln
Making the right decisions means trying to correctly guess what cards your opponents have and (in many cases) bluffing your opponents to make them think you have better cards than you actually do. This takes a combination of some skill and a lot of pure luck.
We found a fish!
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