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

[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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.