alan goehring wins la poker classic

[jomatty]

this guy is amazing. if he learns how not to blow through monster stacks he could be even more dangerous than he already is. no one accumulates chips like he does and he claims to have made new years resolution to stop giving away his monster stacks and it seems to have worked for him. he did have to hit a 2 outer on jc tran (who was my pick to win) when they were basically both all in but it still seems like he played great. he is an interesting guy with an interesting style and its nice to see him get another win.
matty

[roundmound]

The structure made the hu match into a complete crapshoot. Each guy had around 10 BB for the final hands.

[streetz]

jc got robbed. wonder how he's sleeping tonite.

[-Skeme-]

i like me some alan gheoring

[bugstud]

I have a different opinion on his play, but that may have been a bad day.

[gilbert]

it says on the cardplayer site that he called his opponents all in when they were HU with K8o and didn't even know if he had him covered.

sounds like a real crapshoot.

[WinBig]

Flipping coins for $1.2M isn't poker? I know it makes for exciting television but when it got down to four players with the blinds at 150K/300K the players had 21BB, 12BB, 7BB and 6BB. Basically it turned into a $10 SNG pushfest. I'm sure these guys were happy to be there winning hundreds of thousands of dollars but when you play for six days you should have a little bit of play at the end.

The WPT got a great heads up match too with the players having 18xBB and 9xBB when the blinds went to 250K/500K shortly after heads up play started. AJos moves all-in at the end and gets called by K8 suited. Thrilling.

[gilbert]

to be the biggest wpt event (besides the $25k event) you would think they would start to slow the blinds down when it got down to the final table.

[Kevmath]

The problem is that the WPT jacks up the blinds and speeds up the levels in an attempt to save money. For those that don't like ESPN's coverage, at least they allow poker to take place on the day of the event.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

This is one of the biggest problems, just after the bs release clause. Every WPT final table is structured to be over in a few hours, apparently because the WPT doesn't want to have to pay overtime to their crew. While the host venue at each event sets the structure for the tournaments prior to the final table, once the final 6 are set, they must play the WPT structure, which becomes a crapshoot after an hour or 2 of play.

If you look at a hand-by-hand breakdown, you will notice that at most WPT final tables, they get in about 13-14 hands per level, sometimes less. This is not much better than a Party sng, where the blinds going up every 10 hands. And we all know those things are very much crapshoots at the end. At least with sngs, you can make up for the lack of skill at the end with volume. You use your skill to get deep in the sng, and then use volume to make your win rate. The same is unfortunately true in the WPT. You use skill to get to the final table, and then you have to make up your win rate with volume. However, since there are only a few WPT events per year, it will be a few centuries before you get a fair shake.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)