Were Poker Tournaments always crapshoots at the end?

[twonine29]

Before the "poker boom", what were final tables like at major poker events? Were there a lot of big "all-in" preflops, or was there more play with the cards down?

If it was different, what causes the difference, higher blinds compared to stacks, or just a general willingness to re-raise lighter/more often preflop and get the money in?

[Bonified]

It depended on the tournament, but a lot of the time, no, they weren't anywhere near as fast. For both the reasons that you state, plus another big reason is that the fields were much smaller.

[jogsxyz]

Pre-internet there weren't jam and fold tables. No "Kill Phil". Ppl didn't know how to play a short stack.

[FortWorthJim]

Blair Rodman's blog has been down for a while, but in one of the old entries he talked about old-time players having a hard time adjusting to how willing the new breed of players is to get their money in with "medium strength" (his quote) hands like TT, JJ, AK.

He used for example the hand at, I believe, a Bellagio tournament last year when Joe Pelton raised with J8h, and Nick Schulman reraised with JJ.

They were both in the top 10 in chips in the tournament with fewer than 100 players left. Joe moved in, but Rodman was most surprised that Nick snap-called with no hesitation.

Rodman said players 10-15 years ago would never get all their money in with JJ against another chip leader.

Pre-flop play is so much more aggressive now that players have to counter with equal aggression, including, in the words of game-theory expert Vanessa Rousso, making "aggressive calls" for all the money preflop with less than AA or KK.

I don't know anything about the play in the old tournaments, but that is probably a prime reason why Ungar was able to dominate so much. And Hellmuth and Huck Seed, when he first came on the scene, were also very successful playing a lot of hands and making a lot of preflop raises.

[betgo]

The WPT rules were changed to make the final table structure faster. This was probably done so they can show a higher percentage of the hands on TV and don't have to film as long. The WSOP side events this year also have shallow money final tables. Both of these changes have been very controversial.

Major tournaments in the past did not have large fields, and often were played with deep money similar to cash games. This is often true in WPT events now, except when you get to the final six.

[jogsxyz]

The whole concept of fold equity sorta went out the window in the last few years.

[gobboboy]

[ QUOTE ]
The whole concept of fold equity sorta went out the window in the last few years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that's it.

[Supwithbates]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The whole concept of fold equity sorta went out the window in the last few years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that's it.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's why gobbo is so dominant. He's one of the few players that still has fold equity.