Who played the best/worst among the last four at the FT?

[VarlosZ]

[SuperUberBob]

Rahme played horribly. He refused to adjust to shorthanded play and was a total nit throughout. How many hands did this guy play of note? Two, maybe three at most.

Yang was the best that day. He was dominant and ran over the table for 15+ hours straight.

[Dynasty]

Other than his mini-tiltfest, he played fine through most of the final table.

The table was deepstacked and Rahme was simply patient and waited for hands. It was a viable strategy and it gave him the second biggest stack at the table when he busted.

[Senor Cardgage]

I hated Yang's personality and some of his earlier plays enough that I feel like I'd have to watch the final table again to rate his play fairly. I'm not great at NL so my bias against him probably gets in the way and I'll defer to other people's opinions on his play. For what it's worth, I personally rated Kravchenko's play slightly above his.

I agree that Rahme was the worst. I don't think playing a tight fashion was too bad of a strategy for the majority of the final table, but I'd like to see what his hole cards were in a ton of cases (for instance, what he had on those tilt-shove hands). I puked a lot (a whooooole lot) over his exit hand with KK.

I also look forward to seeing what Lam had during the first 20 or so hands of HU. That was a ton of folding.

EDIT: Didn't see Dynasty's post before writing mine. Glad to see at least I'm not alone in the opinion that Rahme's earlier play wasn't insanely nitty and tight. Then again, the final table WAS like fifteen or sixteen hours (counting breaks), so I can't remember a ton of the earlier action.

[vixticator]

I think Alex played best given his stack size and situation. Yang a close second, ran over table and got people to make less than optimal moves over and over and over again. Rayme kind of melted down after dinner, he was playing solid before that then looked like he wanted to go home. Lam played okay, not sure why he folded so much head's up though and the push with A5s (??) into Yang's raise where I believe Rahme called -- anyone remember that? What was this all about?

[BenTurpen]

[ QUOTE ]
I think Alex played best given his stack size and situation. Yang a close second, ran over table and got people to make less than optimal moves over and over and over again. Rayme kind of melted down after dinner, he was playing solid before that then looked like he wanted to go home. Lam played okay, not sure why he folded so much head's up though and the push with A5s (??) into Yang's raise where I believe Rahme called -- anyone remember that? What was this all about?

[/ QUOTE ]

A5h I think it was. At the time, I think he had 13mil and it was four handed. He seemed severley card dead and just decided this was a time to shove, then ran into QQ behind him.

Kravchenko played the best. Rahme hands down has to get the worst just based on the fact that the four handed match was pretty much the final table.

[talentdeficit]

i think lam and rahme played the best, yang and kravchenko the worst.

i didn't stay up to watch the heads up portion, but from the sounds of it, lam was pretty aware he had time and the edge in skill to chip away at yang, he just didn't get the hands he needed to make it work and the chip disadvantage was too much to overcome. i liked his push with ah5h, and i think that while he misplayed a few hands against yang during 4 handed play his overall strategy was solid.

rahme had his little tilt fest which was obviously very bad, but he was tired and frustrated and it's really just three bad hands out of many that he played very well. he seemed to realize how large his stack was relative to the blinds, i don't remember him once getting his money in bad. sure, he had AQ against QQ and sucked out, but against yang i think you have to be thrilled to get action with AQ.

kravchenko got a lot of props, including from me, for hanging on with his tiny stack, but he never once capitalized on any of the chips he got from his pushes and double ups. he'd just let them slip away until he went into pushbot mode again. he also won a lot of consecutive races just to stay alive.

yang sucked. i mean, i don't care that aggression won him the title, his aggression was horribly applied and he got lucky. he also had an absolutely horrible call with jto against a three bet all in from a supernit. i don't see how he can be considered good.

[BenTurpen]

[ QUOTE ]
i think lam and rahme played the best, yang and kravchenko the worst.

i didn't stay up to watch the heads up portion, but from the sounds of it, lam was pretty aware he had time and the edge in skill to chip away at yang, he just didn't get the hands he needed to make it work and the chip disadvantage was too much to overcome. i liked his push with ah5h, and i think that while he misplayed a few hands against yang during 4 handed play his overall strategy was solid.

rahme had his little tilt fest which was obviously very bad, but he was tired and frustrated and it's really just three bad hands out of many that he played very well. he seemed to realize how large his stack was relative to the blinds, i don't remember him once getting his money in bad. sure, he had AQ against QQ and sucked out, but against yang i think you have to be thrilled to get action with AQ.

kravchenko got a lot of props, including from me, for hanging on with his tiny stack, but he never once capitalized on any of the chips he got from his pushes and double ups. he'd just let them slip away until he went into pushbot mode again. he also won a lot of consecutive races just to stay alive.

yang sucked. i mean, i don't care that aggression won him the title, his aggression was horribly applied and he got lucky. he also had an absolutely horrible call with jto against a three bet all in from a supernit. i don't see how he can be considered good.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I agree about Kravchenko slipping after a couple of the double ups, he was all-in with AK vs. 88 for the chip lead.

[recipro]

Yang easily played the best. He was super-aggressive the whole time, raising and 3betting many pots. In addition to all this aggression, when the money went in, he was quite often ahead, despite the fact he was raising a ton of pots. I didn't like his antics, but he ran over the table. Further, heads up with Tuan, he absolutely steamrolled him.

The worst player was either Tuam or Rahme. Rahme had his mini-tilt where he was open-shoving 20M, and Tuam simply rolled over heads up. He may not have been getting cards, but he still needed to take a stand sooner, rather than calling 1 million on the flop, and check-folding the turn, and twice betting big, folding to a raise heads up.

[PokerFink]

talentdeficit,

I don't see how you can come up with the idea that Yang was the worst. He went from 8M to chipleader without showing down a hand and basically steamrolled the entire table for fifteen hours or whatever. He built a big chiplead with agression and then used that chiplead to bully players and take marginal chances when approprate. He was consistantly all-in with either the best of it or in a race and ran about even in all-in pots. He played great.

Rahme played the worst based only on the one KK hand. Ye gods. What a meltdown.

I thought Tuan played well, because I have a feeling he was very card dead. Rain commented during his interview that Tuan was playing surprisingly passive and said that he was probably card dead since Tuan is generally an active and aggressive player.

[talentdeficit]

obviously yang's aggression served him well, but it was pretty clear to me that he wasn't being aggressive because he'd thought about it and determined that it was the optimal strategy, he was being aggressive because he was an idiot who had divine faith in his cards. how can anyone seriously see him call a three bet all in with jto or snap call a massive overbet with a9o and think he's good? yang backed into a winning strategy, he made far far more obvious mistakes than anyone else at the table.

[RacersEdge]

I think it's easire to see who played the worst than who played the best - and I thought the worst was Rhomey. He looked like seeing a flop made him nervous, and seeing a turn card would be a nightmare for him. The 2-3 pushes for no reason, his joy he had about laying down 66 4-handed, and his perfctly wrong c-r with KK are enough for me to give him the award.

[LuckyLloyd]

[ QUOTE ]
or snap call a massive overbet with a9o

[/ QUOTE ]

He didn't snapcall it. lol. He played the best FT by a million, zillion miles.

[gsolis]

Rhame was 80 years old...he was ready to kick it in after dinner.

Yang made some sick calls but then again he had the chips to stomach it - I still cant quite get over the A9o but Lee could have easily had 33-88 there. will be great to see some of these hole cards in Oct.

[GotQuads]

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or snap call a massive overbet with a9o

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He didn't snapcall it. lol. He played the best FT by a million, zillion miles.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. Calling a reraise with A5o and then calling a CRAI on the flop. Not to mention all his other donk moves. He just got ultra lucky here to hit an ace on the flop while Rahme didn't have one. Having said that, Rahme misplayed KK too, so both players did a lousy job on that hand

[Brooks54]

I don't think Lam ever tried to show what he could do the entire final table save the last ten hands maybe...He was content moving up (that was obvious, and not necessarily wrong, IMO) and was severely card dead..

Yang dominated play on this table from 9 to 1...it's a no brainer..

[MrStatic]

Yang deserves credit for his relentless aggression but he also made some 100% genuine DONK plays and got lucky.

[VarlosZ]

[ QUOTE ]
yang sucked. i mean, i don't care that aggression won him the title, his aggression was horribly applied and he got lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

Horribly misapplied? He won a ton of chips in uncontested (or barely contested) pots, so that even when he started running very unlucky in his races he never relinquished the chip lead. If the rest of the table is going to let you play like Doyle Brunson (i.e. pay for your coinfips with the money from uncontested pots) without standing up to you, then you'd be nuts not to do it.

[ibluffoldladies]

Jesus outplayed them all!

[talentdeficit]

i can't believe how results oriented all these posts are. how can you seriously claim yang played the best when he called a three bet all in from a nit with jto? yang won. yang still played badly.

[vixticator]

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i can't believe how results oriented all these posts are. how can you seriously claim yang played the best when he called a three bet all in from a nit with jto? yang won. yang still played badly.

[/ QUOTE ]That was the only call he was way behind, J8 doesn't count b/c he pushed with it. The thing I want to know is why the "pros" were pushing into him with the same range he is calling with, until the final four. A7o? KQ? Lee Watkinson, for example, was not surprised that Jerry called with A9(?). If that's true and Lee knows Jerry's calling range is a pair/broadway/Ax+ then the worst play of the night, BY FAR, was him moving in with A7(?) which is ~57/43 dog to that range. KQo is about a coinflip. KJo is a slight dog but Childs made correct call due to pot size. What did Phil bust with, I forgot.

The fact is until it got down to the final four every player made either -EV or neutral plays against Jerry over and over again. Only Alex, Rahme, and Tuan (until HU) adjusted somewhat properly. Put they really didn't need to get run over preflop deepstacked, I don't understand why they didn't take more flops...

[FireStorm]

Agree with the above. The fact that Yang "ran over" the FT doesn't mean he played well. the fact that he won a ton of pots uncontested is not some amaazing godlike poker feat, it's 4 handed and he has a monster chip edge. Of course he's going to win some limped pots. Hell, Kravchenko and Rahme won a few easy ones in the early going. The relevant factors are the hands for big pots Yang was involved in, and he called off with JTo and A9o, as well as committing a ton of chippage against Rahme with A5.

[vixticator]

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The relevant factors are the hands for big pots Yang was involved in, and he called off with JTo and A9o, as well as committing a ton of chippage against Rahme with A5.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes, but Rahme knew Yang was calling with Ax there 100% of the time... knowing he knows this the push was MUCH worse than the call. Yang clearly wasn't the best player it's just that everyone else made even worse plays back at him. I think Rahme must have been tired though, his AQ push was very good as was Alex with AK. Hands like A7/KQ/KJ etc are really marginal against Yang, you shouldn't be playing for stacks in those situations unless you're low in chips.

[MrMore]

How can anyone know until the hole cards get seen? And even then we'll only see a selected few hands.

We don't know if Yang was being aggressive, or just holding the deck. Maybe his opponents weren't "getting steamrolled by his aggression," maybe they were wisely not playing HIS rush. IF he had a bunch of crap and the other guys were folding better hands, then give him credit. IF he was getting premium hands over and over, and the other guys were getting crap, give them credit for biding their time. But we don't know right now. I suspect Yang is about the definition of an average player, like Gold and Raymer and MM and Hachem, and thus, deserving of as much respect, or as little.

This is just a poker tourney, and anyone who doesn't know that tourneys don't entail the skill that live games do is invited to my live games anytime. But in the meantime, it's as silly to bemoan the lack of skill shown by tourney winners as it is to bemoan the lack of basketball ability shown by Super Bowl champs.

[Rottersod]

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obviously yang's aggression served him well, but it was pretty clear to me that he wasn't being aggressive because he'd thought about it and determined that it was the optimal strategy, he was being aggressive because he was an idiot who had divine faith in his cards. how can anyone seriously see him call a three bet all in with jto or snap call a massive overbet with a9o and think he's good? yang backed into a winning strategy, he made far far more obvious mistakes than anyone else at the table.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny how some people see the same things differently. When they turned over those cards his A9 was very good. None of know what was going through his head at the time but he made the call for a reason and after watching him play 4 handed on down to the winner (I didn't see anything before 4 handed) I say he was by far the best at the FT.

[Rottersod]

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i can't believe how results oriented all these posts are. how can you seriously claim yang played the best when he called a three bet all in from a nit with jto? yang won. yang still played badly.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's just one hand. The FT was 205 hands and for 200 of them Yang was the best player.

[gobboboy]

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i can't believe how results oriented all these posts are. how can you seriously claim yang played the best when he called a three bet all in from a nit with jto? yang won. yang still played badly.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's just one hand. The FT was 205 hands and for 200 of them Yang was the best player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please be leveling me because this makes no sense. I thought Yang played terribly but got in some amazing situations that are going to look like he's a genius because he never had worse.

[Rottersod]

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i can't believe how results oriented all these posts are. how can you seriously claim yang played the best when he called a three bet all in from a nit with jto? yang won. yang still played badly.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's just one hand. The FT was 205 hands and for 200 of them Yang was the best player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please be leveling me because this makes no sense. I thought Yang played terribly but got in some amazing situations that are going to look like he's a genius because he never had worse.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm disappointed in you Gobboboy. You of all people should be careful about calling other players bad. It wasn't that long ago that people were saying the same about you in the Aussie Millions. Remember, Yang has only played for 2 years and all that was live so his number of hands seen is minuscule. I'm not claiming he is the next coming of Chip Reese or Antonious but he ran over that FT in no uncertain terms and according to his post interviews he wasn't hit with the deck ala Jamie Gold.