Alan Goerhing

[Arbitrage]

Alan - What was the deal with your CardPlayer cover pic? You looked like a corpse.

[irish79]

I don't understand why he gets hated on so much for his style of play. He has had more success then about 98.9% of the posters here. Not to mention the fact that people HATE playing with him because of his style and how hard he is to put on a hande. Is that not +EV to have opponents on gaurd the minute they see you at their table.

It seems most people in this forum simply discount or degrade any poker style that doesn't mirror a Sklansky,Malmuth,Zee,or Miller writing.

[Overdrive]

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most people in this forum simply discount or degrade any poker style that doesn't mirror a Sklansky,Malmuth,Zee,or Miller writing.

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[TStoneMBD]

you guys (and by guys i mean low count posters) talk up to the respected posters here like you know more about poker strategy than they do. when respected posters who are making alot of money see poker players doing things that would not win in the games they play in, they often feel it can be wrong. so many of these famous tournament pros are not very good at poker. tournaments revolve around alot of luck and the caliber of opposition in these large buyin tournaments is very mediocre. id like to see how alan goerhing would fare in internet cash games instead of playing against fields of subpar tournament players.

i want to be clear however, i dont know much of anything about alan's style and have absolutely no idea how good of a player he is. he could be great for all i know. im simply pointing out that i see so many posters who clearly have a lack of knowledge about the game glorify famous poker pros and chastise internet experts who criticize them, and it bothers me because you clearly dont have the knowledge they do so what gives you the right to argue them? there is a difference between a good play and a bad play, and a good player might have the utility to properly analyze the difference. that doesnt necessarily mean they fit into a certain mold of player and cant think outside the box. of course there are different styles of nl and alan can probably manipulate his opponents very well. its also possible that alan has a lack of fundamental poker knowledge but his excellent hand reading skills carry him to greatness. the same could be said for phil hellmuth.

id imagine that anyone here who knows enough about alan goerhing that would be willing to criticize his play are excellent internet players who dont play a "S,M,Z,M" style of poker. btw, id probably bet on alan goerhing in a poker tournament over any of the aforementioned poker authors. i hope that doesnt come off as disrespectful.

[eboller]

What internet "experts" are chastising him? The criticism in the two plus two forums seems to be coming from no names. I think most of the experts would say Alan's style is something that most shouldn't try to imitate but appears to be successful. He plays postflop better than most can. From his statements it looks like he has given more thought to his playing style and how others perceive him than just about anyone.

As for playing internet players, I believe he mentioned his style doesn't suit internet tournaments with the fast moving and big blinds. That it is more geared to deeper stack tournaments.

Either way, it seems pretty ridiculous to be critical of someone that has been as successful as he is without having any knowledge of how or why he plays the way he does.

Eric

[wisehandpoker]

TStone,

The one real problem I have with your post (and the mentality that follows it) is that for some reason, you (and a lot of you 10000 post colleagues) are unwilling to let people be fans of the game. They play poker, like poker, wish they were better at poker and hold a lot of respect for the people they see playing it better and bigger on TV.

I think Babe Ruth is greatest player in baseball history. I never had the pleasure of watching him play, but it's not the label that makes fandom fun, its the speculation. It makes the game more interesting to watch and lets the 50 mph-throwing all-star vicariously be on the field. Declaring Ruth the greatest then arguing with Cobb, Mays, Bonds et all supporters is good times. Does that declaration make it gospel? No, it's just a voicing of opinion. Amazingly, I've never gotten a call from a minor league manager screaming about my ignorance on the subject.

Poker's gotten big enough that some people want to celebrate it that way. They have jobs and families and exams and don't have the time to put into it what you have. They still like the game and the big money flying around and can't afford to play at that level so they watch and enjoy it. Like with any other televised game, they pick their favorites to live through, at least until some bully comes around trying to stomp them out

The thing that strikes me as stupid is that these speculations are the best thing in the world for you; they underestimate the online masters because they aren't seeing them on TV; the all-in fest of tv makes people play poorly; the rush of fans to the table gives you more fish to feed on. It loans to the continued growth of the game (when some of your colelagues seem to be in a hurry to end it already), both as a competition and cultural phenomenon.

I can't see a single thing that your post accomplishes. Congratulations, you've shut up fifty people in the gossip forum who want to enjoy televised poker. You're older and wiser and more knowledgeable than most of the three-digit posters, so try acting that way; sit back, let them have their fun, smile at their innocence and be content with knowing you know better. You're biting the hand that feeds you.

[TStoneMBD]

i think my post sends off the wrong message to you. everyone has to come to their own conclusion about every topic in the universe that presents itself whether conscienciously or unconscienciously. as a result, discussion may ensue.

however, the problem i have is that i will often see someone with limited poker knowledge slander someone with a more extensive knowledge because he critiqued a player as not being as talented as the media suggests. in this case, the poster i replied to said that the people who would say alan goerhing isnt good only say that because they cant think outside of a 2p2 poker author mentality.

in many cases, thats ridiculous. ill often see someone who i respect as a knowledgeable poker player say that a professional poker pro isnt nearly as talented as the poker media suggests. you will then a see 100 post twoplustwo bash him and accuse them of saying such a thing out of sheer jealously. of course, this 100 post twoplustwoer might be a fantastic player but i assume that most of these people just base their opinions on how talented a famous player is based on a tournament hes won or whatever mike sexton said on tv.

my point is that alot of the players you see on television arent nearly as good as youre being told. there are alot of fantastic poker players in big buyin tournaments that weve never heard about because they havent been blessed with the same variance that alan has. i suspect most of these fantastic players are internet players. likewise, there are many sensational internet poker players who would be enormous favorites in these big buyin tournaments, yet they dont enter them regularly because they arent worth their time. they make more money killing the online games.

that is why when i see a random person bash a knowledgeable poker player for assessing his opinion saying that he just has cookie cutter thinking it bothers me. the poster i replied to here didnt direct his comments at any specific poster and so my post isnt directed specifically at him, but for those who ridicule others for critiquing a famous poker player's ability when those ridiculers arent as skilled as the ones critiquing. simply, his cookie cutter comment referring to 2p2 authors put a needle through my head.


i think its fine that you idolize professional poker players the way you do baseball players. thats great that youre a fan of the game. creating superstars out of poker players is making the game great for us professionals. i have no intention of tearing apart alan as again i know nothing about him, but i suspect neither does the aforementioned poster who preemptively insulted anyone who attemps to criticize alan in this thread. he seems to think alan is a world-class poker just because hes won some tournaments.

also, my opinion that there are alot of mediocre big buyin players is based on a few reasons. first, these tournaments are regularly getting over 500 players. most of these people are satellite winners. surely these 500 players are not all excellent players. i have personally done some spectating of 2 wpt events during day 1 and 2, and while i have not had the opportunity to play in them (i just turned 21), i would say that from what ive seen, there are alot of subpar players.

[wisehandpoker]

OK, point taken. You're right that the person saying 'questioning Alan's skills is retarded' is being pretty closed-minded. I guess in a way they're doing the surpressing I thought you were.

I do think poker's is a broader spectrum than some established 2+2ers make it out to be (At least, I think the live game's is), so I kind of understand his point. He definitely could have stated it in a more enlightened way, but hey, hyperbole is a big part of the fan process, isn't it? I guess the higher man in the food chain stomping on it is too

[Beavis68]

Erick Lindgren's book describes the same kind of play. I think Daniel plays a similar game.

[kutuz_off]

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tournaments revolve around alot of luck and the caliber of opposition in these large buyin tournaments is very mediocre. id like to see how alan goerhing would fare in internet cash games instead of playing against fields of subpar tournament players.

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This is nonsense. Tournament game is different enough from cash game, that you can't make these kind of comparisons. It is possible to be a great tournament player and subpar cash game player at the same time. Alan's game is obviously geared toward tournaments, where he can apply chip stack disparity to get pots he'd never get in a cash game. To that end, he takes gambles to create these chips stack disparities. Those gambles would be losing propositions in cash games, where utility of each chip is the same throughout the game, but in tournaments utility of each chip changes all the time. To say "oh, but he would lose a lot of money in cash games playing like that" says nothing about his tournament play prowess.

And where do you get that idea about level of play in big buy-in tournaments? It almost by definition has to be quite a good deal better than in lower buy-in tournaments. If you compare level of play in big buy-in tournaments to that in largish internet cash games, that's akin to comparing levels of play in British Soccer premier league and NCAA basketball. Yes, any NCAA team will kick any soccer team's ass at hoops, but what does that say about the soccer players' skills at soccer?