Finally at The WSOP, Durr’s Bets

I am finally at this year’s WSOP and thrilled to be here. Actually, I haven’t been in Vegas much since last year’s WSOP, only a handful of times, but I’m happy to be back. I will play my first event today, the pot limit holdem. I like the pot limit structure with no antes. It makes for a larger effective chip. It is interesting that many of the players who play pot limit have no idea how much is in the pot. In the PLO games I play it is interesting to see those players new to the game not keep track of pot size. It is the dealers responsibility to know the pot size in pot limit games but not having the info yourself in no limit games is just plain dumb. You should always know the amount in the pot as well as your opponents chip stack and of course your own. You see it al the time in tournaments such as when a player in late position raises, trying to steal and hasn’t realized that the big blind is short stack enough that they can’t fold. It is funny when it happens and the big blind throws the rest of his chips in and the late position raiser if forced to call based on pot odds, and says something like, “you got me.” Now when they say it that kind of an “aw shucks” way, they do always seem to win the hand no matter how far behind they are. You should always know how much is in the pot at the start of the hand with the blinds and ante’s and follow the action keeping up with the changing numbers. At the beginning of each level in a live tournament I take a moment and think about the range of size of an opening raise for that level. It also seems that in the later rounds once there are ante’s many highly skilled players will raise a smaller multiple of the big blind, like say 2.1X in stead of the usual 3X. I find this an interesting phenomenon, because you might assume as more is in the pot you would see larger raises. I believe that if you are a good post flop player, you don’t mind seeing flops with players and this strategy can be extremely effective. If on the other hand you feel your strength of game is pre-flop, where I think it’s easier to be a good player (that is, it takes much more skill to play well after the flop) then you might not want to encourage players to call you.

I really love the fact the Durr has made his bracelet bets public, and I have the utmost respect for Tom Dwan’s game, in the online cash world he may be the best of all time except for maybe Phil Ivey, but live tournaments at the WSOP based on the sheer number of players per event make him a long-shot to win a bracelet in the 2010 WSOP. He may be a favorite against almost any individual player in the field, although there are a few, like Ivey, Matusow, JC Tran, and Elky who are proven tournament specialists that I would favor over Tom. Now that being said if he wins one this year I will be thrilled for him. I have always liked him and I wouldn’t mind seeing him collect on all the bets he has out there. I also think it would be good for poker, so good luck Tom.