A good WSOP bet?

[henrikrh]

That an american complete amateur will win the WSOP. For clarification Raymer even at the time of winning would be considered a pro, haaving played as high as 300/600, if the person has ever played televised poker, their name can be found on the hendon mob database or the are clearly not an amateur they don't count.

Even money, which side do you take?

[Rhett]

What do you call Joe Hachem? He likes to say he was a "pro", but he did have a steady job at the time while he played online.

[mlagoo]

yeah you really need to clarify exactly what a pro means before making this bet.

raymer had a full time job. just because he played in big games, that made him a pro? i would think being a pro means that it is the source of your livelihood.

[idrinkcoors]

This seems too easy of a bet:

Say 8,000 entrants. How many of those are in the Hendon Mob database? 1,000? Out of the 7,000 remaining, how many are Non-American? 1 to 2 thousand? And if you appeared on t.v. tournament, you are probably in the Mob database, so I'm betting on one of the 5,000 unknown internet qualifiers.

[GixxerJoe]

I'm in the Hendon Mob database, and I'm certainly no pro. I've just had a cash at a big tourney. I think the definition of 'Pro' would be defined as poker being the individual's primary source of income.

[greg nice]

many american online 'pros' will have lots of experience and should fare well.

[henrikrh]

Yeah I meant not an amateur rather than pro. Joeseph hachem had been playing tournaments for years, so he's not amateur. One measure we might go by is that an amateur is someone who started playing poker after 2003 WSOP, is not a pro,or is undeniably amateur (for example Steve Danneman would qualify even if he had been playing poker since birth).

[HendonRob]

For your reference, last year's main event paid 560 and about 320 of these players registered their first cash in the database with that result. A lot of first timers but still nearly half of those who cashed had already cashed in tournaments we listed.

We have close to 50,000 players already in the database and are still working through all the historical results we have access to, going back to the 1980s (I believe we already have the most complete set of results for the WSOP available anywhere, going right back to the inaugural compeition). Once that's complete (and we're getting close) we'll be adding lots more features and ranking lists to the site.

Although there are likely going to be 6-8000 entrants this year, and the majority of those will have qualified online, bear in mind that many pro players, or serious amateurs who have played major tournaments before, are still going to be trying to get their seats in online satellites before parting with 10 grand. I think it's odds on that the winning player will already feature in the database, but of course Steve Dannenmann came mighty close last year....