Professionals

By: Lindy Librarian – June 17, 2008

stats“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.” . . . quote often attributed to Benjamin Disraeli

That being said here are some interesting numbers that have come down to us from the WSOP media office as we approach the mid-point (53.22%) of the Series. Some are interesting (22%), some are prophetic (12% or 78%) and a few are pure publicity hype (104%) or at least that is the opinion of some reporters (9 out of 11) in media row. Of course members of the poker media are at this point of the Series likely to be sleep deprived (56.8%) or simply depraved (23.4%).

Through 27 events, only one player has cashed six times to date – Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow, Russia. Five-time-in-the-money finishers include Tom Schneider, Roland Isra, and Alex Jacob. All are in contention to challenge the record of eight for "Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year," shared by four players -- Michael Binger ('07), Chad Brown ('07), Phil Hellmuth, Jr. ('06), and Humberto Brenes ('06).

The current "Player of the Year" standings shows Erick Lindgren on top of the points list with one gold bracelet win and four cashes. Vanessa Selbst, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and Jacobo Fernandez are all very close (within the margin of error).

Through the 27th bracelet of this year's World Series of Poker, the "Professionals versus Amateurs" gold bracelet scoreboard reads:

Professionals – 21 wins
Amateurs -- 4 wins
Semi-Pros -- 2 wins

I had to include this last “stat” because I have heard the Shrink going on about what passes for a “professional” these days and I want him to put that post up soon (6 to 5, we get it within 48 hours).

 
By: Poker Shrink – June 22, 2007

two headsDuring an informal blogger dinner the other night, the topic of "post bust-out whining" came up. We noticed that several of us had already written about this phenomenon and we wondered just how big a post-event tell this really was.

My position is that you can tell the professional poker players from the amateurs by what they say about their last hand.

The professional poker player will walk away from the table and if they are talking at all, you will hear them say:

"Boy, did I play that badly."

"I have just got to find my 'A' game."

"I was just not ready to play today."

The amateur player can be found in the hall telling anyone they can reach on their cell phone:

"You aren't going to believe what he called me with."

"These players don't deserve to be at the World Series."

"Can you believe he risked his tournament life with pocket sevens!"

Yes, of course, there is an exception to every rule but I have already written enough about him.