Question for Johnny Hughes and other old timers

[mo42nyy]

Like most 2p2ers Im young (24) and learned to play online. I still play B%M but not much.
The last few days Ive watched many of the old WSOP's on youtube and the play seems a lot worse than what Ive seen in a hundred dollar pokerstars tournament. The players also seem a lot more supersticious and insurance is discussed a lot (Ive seen insurance discussed on HSP -usually by Helmuth and it seems to be a stupid -ev play made by someone who isnt properly rolled for the game)However unlike HSP these players were making insurance bets with cash in a tounament.
There was also a hand very early on in the 1973 Main Event where Puggy Pearson has 88 and some other guy has a four( Im not sure of his kicker)
The flop is 844 and they go back and forth and end up all in and it looked like they were 500 blinds deep. While today the 2 players may still have ended up all in these 2 guys got it in on the flop. Did players back then usually pop their wads this early on in a hand early in a tournamant a lot more often they do now?
Were live NL games in Vegas a lot easier 30 years ago than they are now?

[Ribsauce]

Are you seriously suggesting people wouldn't go broke on that flop today with a 4?

I like how you can tell people are better now than then based on one hand. The best part is you can see 500 hands played worse than on the recent WSOP broadcasts.

[mo42nyy]

Im not saying people wouldnt go broke today with the 4 but I doubt the hand would have played out the same way.

Im not saying people are defintatly worse back then. I said from what Ive seen (not much I admit- but these are also supposed to be the best 15 players in the world at the time) they seem worse. This is why Im asking the people who played back then what their opinion is.

[Rottersod]

How many hands are you seeing when you watch TV? Plus, you are seeing the hole cards. You can't even compare this to your PS tourneys.

Also, the style of NL has changed since way back then. The go for broke, all in on the flop style has become standard since 2003. Old style poker was played differently. The game has evolved.

[mo42nyy]

TY rod- this is the sort of info I would like to know
I also saw Bobby Baldwin get sucked out twice after getting all in with top set vs an overpair on the flop (in 2 different years) and none of the players including balwin seemed to have any reaction at all whent he overpair hit a set.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
TY rod- this is the sort of info I would like to know
I also saw Bobby Baldwin get sucked out twice after getting all in with top set vs an overpair on the flop (in 2 different years) and none of the players including balwin seemed to have any reaction at all whent he overpair hit a set.

[/ QUOTE ]
I saw some hand on TV between Juanda and Darden where both players were allin. Darden had aces up and Juanda had a pair of 8s. Juanda makes a set on the river. Neither player shows any reaction.

I think professional players are used to showing no reaction when they are not allin. Also, they have probably seen everything before. Jerks who make big shows get airtime on TV.

[mo42nyy]

ok I know its not seeing every hand but I just finsihed watching the 1979 wsop and the play is piss poor at best
The blinds are very high ( as in many people have less than 15 blinds) and guys are calling 5-6 BB preflop and check folding flops, calling pot size bets on gutshots when their opponent has only one pot size bet left
It really seems that a lot of basic fundamentals are missing here. I know the game has evolved but calling 40 + % of your stack preflop just to check fold the flop can not make any sense at all
When it got heads up both guys had b/w 20-30 big blinds
There is a reason that at this point in today games when blinds get that high there is a lot of preflop pushing

Im sure you can find worse hands on todays wsop but would you really find worser hands if you took the top 50 players int he world and put them in one tournament (since these players are supposedly the top 50 or so in the world at the time)

[Rottersod]

[ QUOTE ]
TY rod- this is the sort of info I would like to know
I also saw Bobby Baldwin get sucked out twice after getting all in with top set vs an overpair on the flop (in 2 different years) and none of the players including balwin seemed to have any reaction at all whent he overpair hit a set.

[/ QUOTE ]

They were probably exhausted from playing cash games all night. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[Rottersod]

[ QUOTE ]
ok I know its not seeing every hand but I just finsihed watching the 1979 wsop and the play is piss poor at best
The blinds are very high ( as in many people have less than 15 blinds) and guys are calling 5-6 BB preflop and check folding flops, calling pot size bets on gutshots when their opponent has only one pot size bet left
It really seems that a lot of basic fundamentals are missing here. I know the game has evolved but calling 40 + % of your stack preflop just to check fold the flop can not make any sense at all
When it got heads up both guys had b/w 20-30 big blinds
There is a reason that at this point in today games when blinds get that high there is a lot of preflop pushing

Im sure you can find worse hands on todays wsop but would you really find worser hands if you took the top 50 players int he world and put them in one tournament (since these players are supposedly the top 50 or so in the world at the time)

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing to remember is that tourneys like these are their own little microsocsm and you really can't base generalizations on watching one edited broadcast. The makeup of the players at a FT has a big bearing on how the play goes. Are they all just trying not to bust out so they can move up one or two places? Are they good tourney players or did they just hit a run of cards to make the FT? It's true that play back then was slower than today's but I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in a heavily edited TV show.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
ok I know its not seeing every hand but I just finsihed watching the 1979 wsop and the play is piss poor at best
The blinds are very high ( as in many people have less than 15 blinds) and guys are calling 5-6 BB preflop and check folding flops, calling pot size bets on gutshots when their opponent has only one pot size bet left
It really seems that a lot of basic fundamentals are missing here. I know the game has evolved but calling 40 + % of your stack preflop just to check fold the flop can not make any sense at all
When it got heads up both guys had b/w 20-30 big blinds
There is a reason that at this point in today games when blinds get that high there is a lot of preflop pushing

Im sure you can find worse hands on todays wsop but would you really find worser hands if you took the top 50 players int he world and put them in one tournament (since these players are supposedly the top 50 or so in the world at the time)

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing to remember is that tourneys like these are their own little microsocsm and you really can't base generalizations on watching one edited broadcast. The makeup of the players at a FT has a big bearing on how the play goes. Are they all just trying not to bust out so they can move up one or two places? Are they good tourney players or did they just hit a run of cards to make the FT? It's true that play back then was slower than today's but I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in a heavily edited TV show.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am not sure if the old broadcasts were edited. I remember seeing every hand.

Shallow money tournament play was not that understood then. The WSOP ME was the only MTT or SNG. These were deep stack NLHE cash game players, or in some cases primarily stud players or whatever.