Poll: Most / Least like-able players at the WSOP FT

[csquard]

I covered the WSOP ME for Stars Blog as well as PokerWorks. Take this for what it's worth, a view over the last three days of the event, except for Khan (I didn't cover him much but watched him from early on). Also, this is based more on watching interactions with other players, friends, and family. The only players I had direct contact with were Yang (asked a few questions about his faith after he won), Khan (couple brief conversations), Rahme (one discussion plus questioned his posse), and Lam (was on him most of the FT, talked a good bit to him before he left for dinner break and before he started HU).

1. Kalmar I may have only spoken to him once, but he was definitely living the dream from the time he got down to the final hundred or so. He's a guy I assume you'd want to head to a pub with or to a EPL match with.
2. Yang My buddy John Armbrust (out in 18th with AK vs AQ to Lee Childs) told me I should get on him when they got down to fifty players or so (Beat for me...). I've read alot about phoniness of his words and antics in a variety of threads, but I would definitely disagree. I too am a Christian and asked him several questions about his faith after he won (some in the Media had already started ridiculing him during the FT). I do question some of his actions, make no mistake (prayer for a card seems fairly bizarre to me). Having said that, he seems like an extremely humble man who had a very tough life doing what he wanted to do and not making any money. With Chris Ferguson watching him, I was struck by how out of place he would be with FullTilt vs. Stars, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
3. Hilm I have little to go on with this other than general persona around the table.
4. Khan I may get flamed a bit for this, but I think his antics had little to do with who he seemed to be away from the table. He was extremely generous in his support of other Stars players and qualifiers who were making it deep, and he was a real pleasure almost all of the time. He played extremely well for much of the tourney, which gets lost in all of his antics.
5. Watkinson Again, very little to go on here. Maybe that means he should be lower in likability, I don't know.
6. Lam I may have him too high or too low, I'm not sure. He definitely got schooled HU, he played extremely tight throughout the end game. In the heat of the last two days, he really seemed focused and reveled in all of it with his friends and family. I actually thought he had a great chance to make a run HU, but he was either so card dead or couldn't pull trigger to get in there with Yang. I used to buy into the whole I'm-here-to-win-not-to-move-up logic of MTT's. After this year's WSOP, I'm now more convinced that being a patient nit most of the time is a pathway to success unless you have the game of Strasser or Jacob. Yang obviously showed what you can do with a big dose of blind aggression in the face of tight play, and I'm sure last year's Gold FT hands were in the minds of some like Childs with his laydown. So I don't fault Lam with how he played except HU, when he should have changed gears.
7. Rahme He seemed nice enough, so maybe he should be higher. Maybe I was just depressed that someone who almost could be my grandfather got so deep and I was sitting there writing hands down in a notebook.
8. Kravchenko Little to go on here, although I thought he, Khan, and Yang would be the three to watch at the FT.
9. Childs Granted, his busting out my buddy didn't help much in my eyes, and I'm actually sure he's a nice guy. But somebody had to be last.

[petp_the_greek]

most - rahme. i like the old guys. they dont act like buffouns, and somebody whos been playing for so long deserves some final table glory. reminds me of the old italian guy from 1 or 2 years ago that put a beating on helmuth.

least - khan obviously, he could be a straightup guy outside the poker room, but who cares, the way he behaved shows some seriously lacking social skills....maybe he should get some real life friends and stop 45-tabling all day on stars.

2nd least - tuan lam; i like the canadians and all, but dude, if youre 41 years old, quit with the frosted spikey hair highlights and the white prada sunglasses...you seem like a jersey shore wannabe.

[JDesab]

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If you can watch Jerry Yang and not be hugely creeped out by his presence/voice/standing up/"in the name of lord jesus please let me win"/calling Bill Edler his idol/telling Norman Chad (!) it's an honor to meet him then I seriously doubt your judge of character.

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are you sure you mean to use the words "judge of character" ... first of all.. i can not judge a man's character by watching him play poker. that being said, he did nothing to damage my thoughts of his character. i did not witness him cheat or steal. i think you are using the word character inappropriately.

how can you be creeped out by watching a man pray. some people are deeply religious and incorporate god into practically all of their undertakings.. a religious person would surely call upon their god when involved in something as huge to them as an 8million dollar poker tournament.

the table behavior.. where he would sit like a stature then slowly stand up and move chips. perhaps he watched how hellmuth plays and wanted to emulate him. what's the harm in stealing behavior patterns from an 11 time bracelet winner.

telling norman chad it's an honor to meet him? where i was born that's simply a part of good manners. perhaps he would have been cooler if he'd have said "yo, what's up chad-dawg... this is jay yang in the motha fuggin house"... perhaps the pre-pubescent readers of this blog might say the champ is "such a baller.. word"

i really thhink you misunderstand the use of the phrase "judge of character".

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also I was thinking recently about this "you guys are just jealous, would you hate all winners" thing, and it's clearly not true. Hachem is a baller and I think pretty much everyone respects his play a little, and everyone here likes Raymer too. So people here don't like Varkoni, Moneymaker, Gold (I don't mind Gold fwiw), and Yang... maybe b/c they are the worst of the recent champs, and it has nothing to do with jealously.

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you've seen yang play one tournament where he controlled the entire final table .. which he entered in 8th chip position. i would say that based on the little i've seen of yang he more than did the job. perhaps he didn't do it how you say you would have done it.. but he did it nonetheless. raymer went to the final table with a serious chip lead. hachem played a short to mid stack very well then when the time was right he switched gears and made it big. i agree with you that yang is nowhere near as accomplished as raymer or hachem. but on that one day .. he was the best of the 9 that he had to beat. not even close.

[Silent A]

Early on in the FT, Yang played well in the sense that his strategy was the right one given his stack and he followed though well.

Once it got 4-handed though, I don't think he played his big stack all that well. It's true that his aggressive play let him steal a lot of pots, but his tendency to over bet plus a willingness to call light when his opponents played back at him got him in a lot of trouble. More trouble than those steals were worth.

That said, the only reason I didn't like Yang was his nutty praying (that and his asking his opponents to "pray for me" just after he knocked them out). It made the PPV hard to watch for a while, at least until he started praying in his native tongue.

[Keyser.]

you guys write a lot

[PhlegmWad]

As a result of the feedback on this years final table, is there any truth to the rumor that next years PPV broadcast will feature Phil Gordon doing poker commentary, and Pat Robertson and Billy Graham doing commentary on the praying and various appeals to Jesus?

[teddyFBI]

I think it's indisputable that if it had been Alex Jacob or Aba who ran over the table the way Yang is said to have done by all those who watched the PPV (playing the same cards and making the same bets that Yang did), this forum would be awash with glowing praise about how nasty he was. Anyone disagree?

[Keyser.]

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I think it's indisputable that if it had been Alex Jacob or Aba who ran over the table the way Yang is said to have done by all those who watched the PPV (playing the same cards and making the same bets that Yang did), this forum would be awash with glowing praise about how nasty he was. Anyone disagree?

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it's possible, but there's also stuff like Yang raising 12x the BB one hand then 4x the BB the next hand that those guys just wouldn't do, and are generally indications of donk-a-tude.

[Keyser.]

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i have yet to figure out what is so unlikeable about the new ME champ. so what if it's a bit annoying that he talks to jesus/god every big decision/hand. does that truly make someone unlikeable?

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If you can watch Jerry Yang and not be hugely creeped out by his presence/voice/standing up/"in the name of lord jesus please let me win"/calling Bill Edler his idol/telling Norman Chad (!) it's an honor to meet him then I seriously doubt your judge of character.

also I was thinking recently about this "you guys are just jealous, would you hate all winners" thing, and it's clearly not true. Hachem is a baller and I think pretty much everyone respects his play a little, and everyone here likes Raymer too. So people here don't like Varkoni, Moneymaker, Gold (I don't mind Gold fwiw), and Yang... maybe b/c they are the worst of the recent champs, and it has nothing to do with jealously.

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Now, let me get this straight; you don’t “like” (your word, not mine) Varkonyi, Moneymaker and Yang because they don’t possess poker skills you view as befitting WSOP ME winner?

Yeah, you’re right…let’s expand that thought. The 1980 Olympic hockey team? Luckbox donkeys. Appy State…take away that win against Michigan, they’re clearly not as good as the Wolverines. Sorry, David…you’re not “as good” as Goliath, so we’re gonna go ahead and award the spoils of war to the Philistines, okay? You understand, right…I mean, you really DON’T DESERVE TO WIN…

“nothing to do with jealousy”…Bull. Keyser, I've read quite a few of your previous posts, and most of 'em indicate a pretty sharp person. Suprising, then, that that you would attach your name to one so indicative of blisteringly shallow thought as this one. It has EVERYTHING to do with jealousy, jealousy that you’re not in that position, and jealousy because you probably wouldn’t have played as well as those guys did. I read all these snarky comments about Yang and Moneymaker, written by mostly insecure, frustrated yah-hoos who think they know the score because they memorized TOP, and I gotta laugh. The angel of realistic thought has clearly passed these clowns over.

Nobody, not Doyle Brunson, not Stu Ungar, not Chris Ferguson, NOBODY has ever won a bracelet without getting lucky, and more than just “winning an extra coin flip“ lucky…that in no way diminishes their accomplishments or skill, it is just the way it is. Sure, Yang got cards, but he won because of his aggression early at the table, not because of his luck. He could have played tighter and MAYBE finished third or fourth, but he realized the chance he would have to take to win the whole thing. It wasn’t “luck” that caused Phil Hilm to call with KQ, it was the effect of Yang’s play on the psyche of the others at the table.

But truth be known, for any of us railbird snipers to win at that table, we would have to do the same thing, or at least play in a fashion that might veer from orthodox TAG play. And we feel comfortable criticizing others for doing it. Incredible. We really are an insecure lot.

Would you have made the bluff Moneymaker did on Farha? The play that inevitably won the bracelet for Moneymaker (who always said he was a gambler, not a poker player or ivory tower theorist like most of usrepresent)? Maybe you would, maybe not, but it seems to me that praise for transcending your skill set when the moment calls for it, a far more enviable and laudable action, is not merely ignored, but trivialized and even blasted. You guys just keep hammering away at their technical deficiencies because they somehow offend your delicate poker sensibilities. Amazing, just amazing. You also gonna criticize Doug Flutie’s last minute heroics because he was too short to be an effective pocket passer?

Honest analysis is one thing, but to state you “don’t like” someone because you view their game as lacking? That’s just…sad…

Jerry Yang played that table like a man, and he deserved his win…

Sorry for the tone of this post, but..damn…

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I don't really want to respond to all of this (because I'm probably wrong), but I don't really think it's that shallow to "dislike" Yang because I think he's a little weird (I suppose shallow is actually exactly what it is, but I think you get my point... maybe, if I have a point, not sure really).

[okterrific]

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i have yet to figure out what is so unlikeable about the new ME champ. so what if it's a bit annoying that he talks to jesus/god every big decision/hand. does that truly make someone unlikeable?

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I dont mind Yang and if he wants to scream holy father every 5 minutes he has that right. BUT its a bit much and im willing to bet some of the folks saying " come on leave yang along he can pray loudly if he wants". Probly would not be saying the same things if lets say Mr. Rain Khan rolled out a prayer rug and loudly was praying to allah. So i think some are being hypocrites about the Yang/God stuff.

My point is believe in what you want but why cant you pray silently? And dont be surprised if other people dont want to hear what your beliefs are. Not to mention it comes off silly praying to God to help you win a poker tourney when theres a few more things god could be doing with his time.