who is the best NL hold'em player?

[McCutter]

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i just cant take anything he says seriously.

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The last 5 pages of this thread have been:
1) Gobbo saying internet players are the best tourney players and they "crush and destroy" everyone else
2) Me posting WSOP results showing how his internet buddies do not "crush" and "destroy" Hellmuth, that, in the world of FACT, Hellmuth is way ahead of them.
3) Other people posting to say Hellmuth is the best tourney player.
4) Other internet guys making condescending comments that Gobbo is so smart that we cant understand his brilliant statements.

[gobboboy]

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The last 5 pages of this thread have been:
1) Gobbo saying internet players are the best tourney players and they "crush and destroy" everyone else
2) Me posting WSOP results showing how his internet buddies do not "crush" and "destroy" Hellmuth, that, in the world of FACT, Hellmuth is way ahead of them.
3) Other people posting to say Hellmuth is the best tourney player.
4) Other internet guys making condescending comments that Gobbo is so smart that we cant understand his brilliant statements.

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[SuperUberBob]

Isn't making fun of gobbo's weight getting old by now?

In all seriousness gobbo, you're wrong. At least you are for now. We don't know how good these young guys will be when they're decades into their poker career (assuming they stick with it). But as of now, Hellmuth is the best.

[gobboboy]

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Isn't making fun of gobbo's weight getting old by now?

In all seriousness gobbo, you're wrong. At least you are for now. We don't know how good these young guys will be when they're decades into their poker career (assuming they stick with it). But as of now, Hellmuth is the best.

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Well, I would disagree. There you go. I'm done with this thread.

[THAY3R]

I've won more tourneys than Phill Hellmuth fwiw.

[Turn Prophet]

Cue 7 more pages of "zOMG Thay3r is the best" vs "psh Thay3r has played way more tournies than Phil he doesn't destroy Hellmuth lol."

"The best" is an irrelevant distinction in my mind when luck plays so crucial a role. As long as your results are satisfactory, I would think that would be the deciding factor... because I don't see any system we could possibly all agree on to choose "the best."

[Hexadecimal]

After reading this entire thread, there seems to be a major stumbling block causing all this arguing. There seem to be two polar opposite opinions:

1.) X player won Y bracelets, and cashed Z tournaments. X is the greatest poker player ever.
or,
2.) Results don't matter.

To all those who hold position #2, you're fooling yourselves. The admonition to about being results-oriented is about being too results-oriented. That is, you can't be too wrapped up in the tournament-to-tournament results. You can't afford to miss the forest for the trees.

That said, position #1 has it's flaws, too. Poker is a constantly changing beast. You can't compare the fields of today to ones back in the pre-internet-qualifier, Binion-family-owned WSOP. Field-size does count. Different skill-sets gain in value as the field changes size. In shorter fields, a greater percentage of the time is spent not playing at a full table, and there's less of a chance of building up huge stacks off of the less skillful players just because there are fewer chips in circulation. Larger fields pracitcally require you build up your stack early in order to withstand variance, misreads of unfamiliar players, and later comfrontations with players who have skill advantages over you in certain areas.

I think Phil Hellmuth has proven himself capable of adjusting to the changes that have taken place in NL Hold'em tournaments in the past decade. I do think his results are a strong argument that he is the best Hold'em Tournament player (remember, not all of his bracelets are in No Limit). That said, there are enough valiables (frequency of tournament play, ITM finishes, final tables, 1st place finishes, tournament size, tournament winnings, etc.) in play in poker to make this an open-ended debate.

[Hexadecimal]

To follow-up with something I thought of after I posted...

I think part of the reason we are having such a heated discussion is because poker tournament play has very little in the way of stat tracking in a manner analoguous to other professional sports. In baseball, we have the much argued-about home run record chase by Barry Bonds, and arguments about what his place is in baseball history with the cloud of possible "juicing". But at least there's a wealth of statistical data that can be referenced when talking about players relative achevements, even if they've played on objectively lousy teams. Poker doesn't really have anything to go on except wins, money won, etc. Just food for thought.

[FortWorthJim]

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To follow-up with something I thought of after I posted...

I think part of the reason we are having such a heated discussion is because poker tournament play has very little in the way of stat tracking in a manner analoguous to other professional sports. In baseball, we have the much argued-about home run record chase by Barry Bonds, and arguments about what his place is in baseball history with the cloud of possible "juicing". But at least there's a wealth of statistical data that can be referenced when talking about players relative achevements, even if they've played on objectively lousy teams. Poker doesn't really have anything to go on except wins, money won, etc. Just food for thought.

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I agree completely.

If poker continues to be a mainstream TV "sport," at some point, a chief governing body should step in, maintain records, have players register, and start keeping relevant statistics (win %, in the money %, and profit, not just gross earnings), at a minimum for $10,000 or bigger buy-in events.

Impossible under current conditions, but would be another great step in legitimizing tournament poker as a skill-based competition.

[Bonified]

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Impossible under current conditions, but would be another great step in embarrassing the losers and toughening up the games

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