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#1
08-13-2006, 01:21 AM
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The Top 20 No Limit Hold\' em Tournament Players: #20-11
This is my list of the top 20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament players, countind down from #20.
Honorable Mentions: Phil Hellmuth, Michael Mizrachi, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu These guys all have decent potential, but their results aren't quite good enough to warrant a top 20 spot. Maybe once they get a little more seasoning, they can make a push for a spot on this coveted list. #20. Warren Karp Warren Karp is a really solid NLH tournament player. He never gets out of line without premium hands, always makes the ante levels, and he'll never bluff more than once every three hours, and even then, it's just a "stab at the pot." The reason this strategy works is that he's an expert card marker, and by colluding with the dealers, he ensures that he gets more than his fair share of QQ-AA hands. Using his impressive tournament skills, he has taken down a few $100 tournaments at run-down Indian casinos, and he even cashed once in a big $500 tourney in Foxwoods about 15 years back. #19. Mike Caro If you're strong, Caro will know. If you're weak, Caro will know. If you've got the nuts, Caro will muck the underfull. Mike Caro is just untouchable in the realm of picking up tells on other players, and his unequivocal knowledge is available to the public in his 300-year-old book about poker tells. The fact that he plays tighter than a virgin certainly helps him write incisive collumns in CardPlayer magazine, teaching novices the art of stealing the blinds and antes with big pairs and Ace-King suited. #18. Ken Warren Another player from the Warren Karp school of poker, Ken Warren strives to make the ante levels in every tournament he plays, and you'll never see him play a big pot unless he's on the button or in the blinds with pocket aces, preferrably suited. Ken has written multilpe books, like Ken Warren Teaches Texas to Fold'em, and The Big Book of Bustouts. Ken Warren has played in so many tournaments that he was able to fill up a whole book with the times he busted out. #17. Brad Garrett Everybody loves Raymond, and everybody hates Brad Garrett, because he has taken just about everybody's chips in poker tournaments. Garrett is an expert at manipulating his opponents with his biting table talk, once inducing an all-in steam raise from none other than 2004 Main Event champion Greg Raymer by declaring that nobody in poker had a bigger "rack" than Raymer. #16. Tom McEvoy Tom McEvoy used to be an above-average tournaent player, like Ivey, Negreanu, et al, until 23 years ago in 1983, when he really took his game to the next level by becoming a rock. His features became blurrier and nondescript, his skin and body hardened, and his starting hand selection shrunk five-fold. He even used an ordinary gray rock as a card protector to complete his metaphorical transformation into one of the great rocks of all time. With his newfound proclivity for folding the best hand and making otherworldly laydowns, like top two pair against a six-high flush draw, and a 21-out open-end straight flush draw with overcards against Ace-Four offsuit, Tom McEvoy rode a 400 chip short stack all the way to the final table of a Limit Hold'em WSOP preliminary event, when he finally started getting those aces and kings, doubled up 94 times, and won. Unbeknownst to everyone, none of the decks were really shuffled due to expert sleight-of-hand tricks by deck mechanics hired by Bugsy Siegel and Benny Binion themselves, and so Tom McEvoy was dealt the exact same cards in the Main Event that year, which is how he won again. #15. Don Vines Don Vines is one of Tom McEvoy's biggest fans, and after years of grinding $7.50+1.50 live tournaments at Barbary Coast, he finally ran into Tom McEvoy and they soon became best friends, and Don Vines became McEvoy's protege. Vines soon moved up to $50 and $100 tournaments, where he often did well by folding every hand, even pocket aces, when the blinds were small and he had a lot of chips. Vines even folded some trouble hands, like AQ, preflop when he was in the big blind, so he wouldn't be tempted into losing all his chips if an ace came on the flop. The crux of Vines' strategy is to wait until he has just enough chips to barely cover the blinds and antes, and then triple up with a big pocket pair so he can survive two more rounds. If he does this enough, he'll make the final table and finish in 9th place for a $150 profit. Don Vines explains all of these strategies indepth in a book on NLH Tournaments that he co-authored with McEvoy. Truth be told, McEvoy has some reallly secret tournament moves that he can fool anybody with, even TJ Cloutier, and is clearly a better player than Vines, but Vines gets the higher spot on the list because unlike McEvoy, he actually rads the 2+2 forums and anonymously contributes to the micro-limit tournament threads, so it is likely that he will read this list. #14. Lance Funston This guy epitomizes the term "sandbagging." He acts like a village idiot at the table, but in fact he graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Colorary Carnivology. His "JOPKER" image at the table allows him to value-raise on the river with hands like a counterfeited small pair, and jack-high no kicker. He's one of a select few players who can reraise with just one overcard on the flop against trips, and skillfully backdoor a ten high flush to take down a monster pot against weak slowplayers like Phil Hellmuth. Action is this guy's middle name, and pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Dan Harrington, it will soon be his ONLY name. Otherwise, he'll have to settle for "Action Lance", which actually sounds better and will surely put him in the top ten. #13. Tiffany Williamson King-Jack not suited is Bill Fillmaff's signature hand, but suited cards are even better, and in the 2005 WSOP Main Event, Tiffany Williamson confirmed her reputation as one of the best poker players when under pressure by makding one of the most pro laydowns in poker history. She wrestled over the decision for an eternity before dodging bullets in Hellmuthian style. Later, she made an amazing call with Ace-Jack not suitedagainst Greg "Big Rack" Raymer's pocket Kings that even Stu Ungar would be proud of. Contrary to the opinion of many amateurs, Ace-Jack not suited is actually 3 to 2 favorite to beat pocket Kings because the deck contains three aces and just two kings. If only Tom McEvoy could figure this out, he'd be in the top five for sure. A fun piece of trivia is that Tiffany Williamson is actually staked into tournaments by her sugar daddy nephew, Minnesota Vikings Wide Receiver Troy Williamson. #12. Steve Rassi Steve Rassi owns a coin shop, so perhaps his familiary with the words "In God We Trust" allows him to play poker on such a sublime level that his decisionmaking process can be reduced to one single phrase: All-In. The action gets around to Steve Rassi, and Steve Rassi's all in. The player in Seat 5 raises, Steve Rassi's over the top all in. The cutoff limps, Gustav Hansen raises on the button, the small blind calls, guess who's in the big blind? It's Steve Rassi, and he's all in. The all-in move puts such a scare into Steve Rassi's opponents that they ship him their chips with no risk to him. His tactics are especially effective against unseasoned players like Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey, who raise too many hands, and even top pros like Warren Karp and Mike Caro, who pride themselves in folding big pairs on the bubble just so they can sneak into the money. In fact, Steve Rassi's strategy is so brutally effective, that if some goody-twoshoes internet qualifier calls his all-in raise, and Steve Rassi tables pocket Aces and wins, Rassi becomes a virtual lock to make the final table, and the odds-on favorite to take down the whole tournament, just like at the 2004 Bellagio Five Diamond Classic until he took a brutal beat from Jennifer Harman, who was daydreaming about the $0.04/$0.08 mixed games at www.bellagiopoker.net. #11. Gavin Griffin Okay, so Gavin Griffin lucked out to win a WSOP Bracelet in everyone's least favorite game, Pot Limit Hold'em (not No Limit), but his play was unextraordinary, but don't tell Lon McEachern or Norman Chad; they still view him as a prodigious 21-year-old bluff artist who's going to take the poker world by storm...some day. What really makes Gavin Griffin worthy of the #11 spot on this list was how he got scammed for $6500 and multiple pictures of his genitalia, which are now all over the net, by some underage degenerate gambler from the NeverWinPoker forums. When people are passing around links containing pornographic images of you to their foruming buddies, you know you've made it big. I will include #10-1 in another post in the near future. It will allow for immense speculation in this thread, as well as suggestions for who to include. I have a list of players that I have selected, but if any names are brought up that I hadn't thought of, they will definitely be considered as a substitute. 
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#2
08-13-2006, 01:23 AM
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Re: The Top 20 No Limit Hold\' em Tournament Players: #20-11
Wow. You actully wrote all of that. Very very impressive.
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#5
08-13-2006, 01:35 AM
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Re: The Top 20 No Limit Hold\' em Tournament Players: #20-11
I called your bluff just based off your not in the top 20 assessment but couldn't stop reading after #20 then it got better and better. I must compliment you on this figuring how much profit you potentially gave up if you had played high stakes instead of taking the time to write this.
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#8
08-13-2006, 01:46 AM
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Re: The Top 20 No Limit Hold\' em Tournament Players: #20-11
[ QUOTE ]
This is my list of the top 20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament players, countind down from #20. Honorable Mentions: Phil Hellmuth, Michael Mizrachi, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu These guys all have decent potential, but their results aren't quite good enough to warrant a top 20 spot. Maybe once they get a little more seasoning, they can make a push for a spot on this coveted list. #20. Warren Karp Warren Karp is a really solid NLH tournament player. He never gets out of line without premium hands, always makes the ante levels, and he'll never bluff more than once every three hours, and even then, it's just a "stab at the pot." The reason this strategy works is that he's an expert card marker, and by colluding with the dealers, he ensures that he gets more than his fair share of QQ-AA hands. Using his impressive tournament skills, he has taken down a few $100 tournaments at run-down Indian casinos, and he even cashed once in a big $500 tourney in Foxwoods about 15 years back. #19. Mike Caro If you're strong, Caro will know. If you're weak, Caro will know. If you've got the nuts, Caro will muck the underfull. Mike Caro is just untouchable in the realm of picking up tells on other players, and his unequivocal knowledge is available to the public in his 300-year-old book about poker tells. The fact that he plays tighter than a virgin certainly helps him write incisive collumns in CardPlayer magazine, teaching novices the art of stealing the blinds and antes with big pairs and Ace-King suited. #18. Ken Warren Another player from the Warren Karp school of poker, Ken Warren strives to make the ante levels in every tournament he plays, and you'll never see him play a big pot unless he's on the button or in the blinds with pocket aces, preferrably suited. Ken has written multilpe books, like Ken Warren Teaches Texas to Fold'em, and The Big Book of Bustouts. Ken Warren has played in so many tournaments that he was able to fill up a whole book with the times he busted out. #17. Brad Garrett Everybody loves Raymond, and everybody hates Brad Garrett, because he has taken just about everybody's chips in poker tournaments. Garrett is an expert at manipulating his opponents with his biting table talk, once inducing an all-in steam raise from none other than 2004 Main Event champion Greg Raymer by declaring that nobody in poker had a bigger "rack" than Raymer. #16. Tom McEvoy Tom McEvoy used to be an above-average tournaent player, like Ivey, Negreanu, et al, until 23 years ago in 1983, when he really took his game to the next level by becoming a rock. His features became blurrier and nondescript, his skin and body hardened, and his starting hand selection shrunk five-fold. He even used an ordinary gray rock as a card protector to complete his metaphorical transformation into one of the great rocks of all time. With his newfound proclivity for folding the best hand and making otherworldly laydowns, like top two pair against a six-high flush draw, and a 21-out open-end straight flush draw with overcards against Ace-Four offsuit, Tom McEvoy rode a 400 chip short stack all the way to the final table of a Limit Hold'em WSOP preliminary event, when he finally started getting those aces and kings, doubled up 94 times, and won. Unbeknownst to everyone, none of the decks were really shuffled due to expert sleight-of-hand tricks by deck mechanics hired by Bugsy Siegel and Benny Binion themselves, and so Tom McEvoy was dealt the exact same cards in the Main Event that year, which is how he won again. #15. Don Vines Don Vines is one of Tom McEvoy's biggest fans, and after years of grinding $7.50+1.50 live tournaments at Barbary Coast, he finally ran into Tom McEvoy and they soon became best friends, and Don Vines became McEvoy's protege. Vines soon moved up to $50 and $100 tournaments, where he often did well by folding every hand, even pocket aces, when the blinds were small and he had a lot of chips. Vines even folded some trouble hands, like AQ, preflop when he was in the big blind, so he wouldn't be tempted into losing all his chips if an ace came on the flop. The crux of Vines' strategy is to wait until he has just enough chips to barely cover the blinds and antes, and then triple up with a big pocket pair so he can survive two more rounds. If he does this enough, he'll make the final table and finish in 9th place for a $150 profit. Don Vines explains all of these strategies indepth in a book on NLH Tournaments that he co-authored with McEvoy. Truth be told, McEvoy has some reallly secret tournament moves that he can fool anybody with, even TJ Cloutier, and is clearly a better player than Vines, but Vines gets the higher spot on the list because unlike McEvoy, he actually rads the 2+2 forums and anonymously contributes to the micro-limit tournament threads, so it is likely that he will read this list. #14. Lance Funston This guy epitomizes the term "sandbagging." He acts like a village idiot at the table, but in fact he graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Colorary Carnivology. His "JOPKER" image at the table allows him to value-raise on the river with hands like a counterfeited small pair, and jack-high no kicker. He's one of a select few players who can reraise with just one overcard on the flop against trips, and skillfully backdoor a ten high flush to take down a monster pot against weak slowplayers like Phil Hellmuth. Action is this guy's middle name, and pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Dan Harrington, it will soon be his ONLY name. Otherwise, he'll have to settle for "Action Lance", which actually sounds better and will surely put him in the top ten. #13. Tiffany Williamson King-Jack not suited is Bill Fillmaff's signature hand, but suited cards are even better, and in the 2005 WSOP Main Event, Tiffany Williamson confirmed her reputation as one of the best poker players when under pressure by makding one of the most pro laydowns in poker history. She wrestled over the decision for an eternity before dodging bullets in Hellmuthian style. Later, she made an amazing call with Ace-Jack not suitedagainst Greg "Big Rack" Raymer's pocket Kings that even Stu Ungar would be proud of. Contrary to the opinion of many amateurs, Ace-Jack not suited is actually 3 to 2 favorite to beat pocket Kings because the deck contains three aces and just two kings. If only Tom McEvoy could figure this out, he'd be in the top five for sure. A fun piece of trivia is that Tiffany Williamson is actually staked into tournaments by her sugar daddy nephew, Minnesota Vikings Wide Receiver Troy Williamson. #12. Steve Rassi Steve Rassi owns a coin shop, so perhaps his familiary with the words "In God We Trust" allows him to play poker on such a sublime level that his decisionmaking process can be reduced to one single phrase: All-In. The action gets around to Steve Rassi, and Steve Rassi's all in. The player in Seat 5 raises, Steve Rassi's over the top all in. The cutoff limps, Gustav Hansen raises on the button, the small blind calls, guess who's in the big blind? It's Steve Rassi, and he's all in. The all-in move puts such a scare into Steve Rassi's opponents that they ship him their chips with no risk to him. His tactics are especially effective against unseasoned players like Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey, who raise too many hands, and even top pros like Warren Karp and Mike Caro, who pride themselves in folding big pairs on the bubble just so they can sneak into the money. In fact, Steve Rassi's strategy is so brutally effective, that if some goody-twoshoes internet qualifier calls his all-in raise, and Steve Rassi tables pocket Aces and wins, Rassi becomes a virtual lock to make the final table, and the odds-on favorite to take down the whole tournament, just like at the 2004 Bellagio Five Diamond Classic until he took a brutal beat from Jennifer Harman, who was daydreaming about the $0.04/$0.08 mixed games at www.bellagiopoker.net. #11. Gavin Griffin Okay, so Gavin Griffin lucked out to win a WSOP Bracelet in everyone's least favorite game, Pot Limit Hold'em (not No Limit), but his play was unextraordinary, but don't tell Lon McEachern or Norman Chad; they still view him as a prodigious 21-year-old bluff artist who's going to take the poker world by storm...some day. What really makes Gavin Griffin worthy of the #11 spot on this list was how he got scammed for $6500 and multiple pictures of his genitalia, which are now all over the net, by some underage degenerate gambler from the NeverWinPoker forums. When people are passing around links containing pornographic images of you to their foruming buddies, you know you've made it big. I will include #10-1 in another post in the near future. It will allow for immense speculation in this thread, as well as suggestions for who to include. I have a list of players that I have selected, but if any names are brought up that I hadn't thought of, they will definitely be considered as a substitute. [/ QUOTE ] Good stuff! Who are you?
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