[EdmondDantes]

Roni,

I'm going to ask Mike about a number of hands he played in the next couple of days; I'll post excerpts. Yeah, he missed a bet with the AJ hand two episodes ago, and the 23 raise, flop shove was a mess, but in this episode, he seemed like he was just playing straightforward poker and hit a couple of hands. Why do anything fancy when someone shoves into you with an underset or you're sitting with Sammy who's obviously playing for the audience?

Mike did say that Sammy and Jamie were both tough to predict ("Those guys will play anything") so I can definitely understand him saying "You probably have me beat." and calling with top pair anyway. Sammy was playing his hand dark and I think Mike's comment was just a little face saving, in the off chance Sammy hit.

As for body language, he's just casual and self-deprecating by nature. He's sitting with plenty behind, both in bankroll and professional cred.

As for stats or data to back me up, I admit I don't have much. He's played two tournaments to my knowledge and won one of them (posted above). He plays in a cash game that sits bigger than the biggest that Commerce spreads and I'm pretty sure PokerTracker doesn't support it, ergo: no graph to post or datamining. Maybe he's just a lucky calling station, but from my perspective, I'm watching a guy who I know is smart, I know beats the market, who the producers seem to think would be competitive, who I've seen (with the exception of the 23 hand) get money in ahead and now he's sitting with a couple hundred of Farha's dough and another nice chunk of Eli's. And he won an LoP series tournament against a final table the included some pretty good tournament players.

Honestly, though, even if I didn't know him, it’s enough for me that he bets his hands and doesn't whine for insurance or ask to run it twice when he gets it in. These "pros" are embarrassing.

Edmond