Will the Final Table Turn Into an Allin Fest?

[skitzo444]

It looks like with the average stack being 12.7 million, and the BB starting at 240K that the average stack has 54 BB.

There was a lot of criticism about previous events this year turning into allin fest and having significantly shorter Final tables then the equivalent tournament in the year before. Based on all that, will this year's ME final table turn into a push fest?

[Slim Pickens]

People who complain about "pushfests" and "not real poker" usually suck at push/fold decisions.

[skitzo444]

I'm not complaining but based on what reports have said about the final tables this year as opposed to last being significantly shorter. Will the same hold true for the ME?

[Slim Pickens]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not complaining but based on what reports have said about the final tables this year as opposed to last being significantly shorter. Will the same hold true for the ME?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, basically no one in the history of televised poker has ever, ever played a short-stacked final table correctly. My guess is the people who do play it correctly (JC Tran and Jon Little come to mind) don't get a lot of TV time because it's not as exciting as watching a "pro" raise half his stack with QTo and then make a "huge laydown" as a 60/40 underdog against an all-in from AJo. Lee Watkinson plays a little on FT and in the SNGs I've played with him he hasn't been that good when the table gets short-stacked. RainKhan has played zillions of SNGs, but not many that well. I don't know the current state of his short-stack game, but it wasn't very good as of a year ago.

Even if the structure seems to force it, I'd say it's unlikely that the players will adapt their play to preflop push/fold decisions. We'll still see "real poker" long after it isn't really appropriate.

[skitzo444]

At 12:18pm today, last year's champ Jamie Gold announced "Shuffle up and deal!" With four players left, this final table has been progressing at a rapid pace. We have played for about five hours already.

At the 2006 WSOP main event, cards went in the air at 2:12pm and Jamie Gold won it at 3:40am. Total time was 13 hours and 28 minutes. It took 10 hours and 30 minutes for action to get down to the final four players.

At the 2005 WSOP main event (the last one at the Horseshoe), cards went in the air at 4:47pm and Joe Hachem won it at 6:41am. Total time was 13 hours and 54 minutes. It took 9 hours and 15 minutes for the action to get down to the final four players.

Without a doubt, the 2007 WSOP main event is going at a much faster pace than the two previous years. Stay tuned because you don't want to miss anything.