Four Dogs vs. The Full Tilt Pro's

I've been playing alot of tournaments lately and I have recently begun to track my results with an Excel spread sheet. While I feel that I have been playng solid games and going deep into the late rounds, I usually miss the money. Very discouraging.

I start to wonder, what is it the pro's know that I don't. Lots I'm sure, but what exactly. So being an account holder at Full Tilt and having access to the online results of over a dozen pro's, I decided to compare my results with theirs to see how I stack up.

This is just a snapshot of course and I may not continue it but it sure did help my self esteem to see that I may not be as bad as I think I am.

Immediately I had access to the results of 5 pro's in 7 different tournaments for a total of 11 entries against 5 of my own that I have tracked. The pro's were, Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Richard Brodie, Huck Seed, and David Singer. Here's how I did.

...............Tournaments Final Tables Winnings ...Buy-Ins.....Avg Finish %
Four Dogs.........5 ..............1 ..........$72.80 ....$36.50 .........35%
Pros ...............11 .............1 .........$109.00 ...$940.00 ........45%

Not a very large sampling to be sure, but still, I would have thought the pros would have had a better winning percentage than they did. In fact, out of 11 entries, none of the tournaments were won by a Pro, and only David Singer finished in the money.

Now, most of these tournaments were for chicken feed, and Phill Ivey walked away from a $10,000 buy-in earlier this month leaving his chips on the table because he had to do a commercial or something. It may be that an online tournament for $100 bucks doesn't warrant their full attention, but even so, maybe the gap between pro and a good recreational player isn't as big as we think it is.

This is pretty much the key sentence in your post. To think you can draw any reasonable conclusions from sample sizes of 11 and 5 is pretty daft.

Hi Four how you doing, about 2 years ago while i was in a tourney at Fulltilt a friend of mine called me that was watching, he said i can see Eric Siedel playing in 4 tourneys rite now and the one your in, how can that be, so after some investigating we came to the conclusion that the tourneys with the Pros had to be the software, i.e. its built into the software, they are not even playing. That answered a question of mine> why would a Pro be playing in a game with me for 5 bucks, and sit there for 4 hours at a computer, there all, mostly all of them are millionaires, so why would they do this, So i came away thinking that it has to be built into the software. I dont know if im rite or wrong, but just think about it,
buck

Interesting point Buck. Maybe there is a contractual thing with Full tilt though, that they must play "X"-amount of games to fullfill their deal with FT.
Wouldn't surprise me though if there was a robot playing with a Pro's avatar.

Four Dogs.....I think you have a great point also. Pros are great for sure, but they also have made a commitment to being a pro. Just because they chose to do this for a living doesn't automatically make them a "great player" (see overrated thread) it just means they might have money to burn. So I think there are "amateurs" that are just as good as "pros".

I believe that some of the Pros at Fulltilt started it, i was there when it started and i think they own it, im not sure though, and we got some people on here at CC that are just as good as the Pros, ill name a few, Jamile,joshy,Tammy,Dave,Grumbledook, JesusLederer, bbb, thats just to name a few, and we had a member here named Mya, i havent seen her around lately,but she was good, if i left anybody out im sorry,im just thinking off the top of my head, The trouble is most of us dont have the money to get in these big events like the WSOP or WPT. But how could Eric Siedel be in 5 games at once, they were all running at the same time, thats why i thing its built into the software, but who knows.
buck

They open multiple tables. I do it all the time. I play 2 or 3 tables at a time. I know many that play 4 tables at a time. Try it yourself. Get on a table than go back to the main and get on another table. You get more hands in per hour.

The big diff between the Pros and Ametuers is in live games. The Pros know how to read people. They pickup tells. I know everyone likes to claim they are good at it but truth is most internet players are only good at reading betting patterns and not so good at reading body language/Facial expressions. Most are worse at hiding their tells and don't even know they have them.

A small % of poker players turn a profit life time. Most claim they do but truth is only 15% max profit after rake.

I can attest to the fact that there was a pro that played at one of my micro tables (on Full Tilt) for at least 2 hours. He was very friendly, basically gave his money away and answered lots of goofy questions.

Now you don't have to wonder anymore...
Amazon.com: Secrets the Pros Won't Tell You About Winning Hold'em Poker: About Winning Hold'em Poker (9780818406591): Lou Krieger, Sheree Bykofsky: Books

I dunno, Buck. I think some of the Cardschatters are pretty good, and I agree that the gap between pro and skilled amateur isn't as large as some believe it is, but I could never put anyone here on par with the real pros for the simple reason that those pros have been tested by fire, have had their life's savings on the line as their bankrolls at one time or another, and have successfully made it to a point where many others have tried and failed. I think these guys (and gals) deserve a little credit for that...

I'd have to echo chris' comment

There's guys out there with +1000% ROIs who have losing streaks (no ITM's, let alone final tables) of a lot longer than 11 MTTs. It simply doesnt reflect anything

Seems like my little observation has been misinterpreted, or should I say re-misinterpreted as it's like 8 months old. The point I was trying to make was one of optimism, not cynicism. The intension, as I made clear, was not to imply that the average on-line player is as good as the professional players, but to suggest that
1) There are some very good on-line players (I think Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, and Joe Hachem will attest to this)
2) The definition of Pro (as used by Full Tilt) is loose enough so that the gap between a very good on-liner and these ersatz pros is not as extreme as one might suppose.
3) Playing on-line may take away some of the advantage that proffesional live players have.
I still believe this. Do not interpet this as a blanket indictment against the ral pros. The concept is sound, the definition may not be.

Moneymaker hasn't cashed since his miracle run at the Main. Moneymaker is far from a Pro. Moneymaker is a cindarella story. Did you see how many bad beats Moneymaker gave on TV. My understanding is that there was more than that. The guy hit runner runner who knows how many times.


Raymer and Hachem were Pros long before ever winning the WSOP. Hachem was well known in Austrailia as the Top player there. Raymer was well known as a Pro at Foxwoods.

That being said, there are some Pro internet Players. But they usualy are not consistant against Top Pros in Live games. They are great at reading betting patterns and the math of the game but not reading tells. Pros make it difficult because they change up their betting patterns as the game goes on.

PS: The Best players in the World are the ones winning at the highest stake cash games.

But not necessarily the ones highlighted in red at FTP.

I would say Harman, Ivey, Juanda and Ferguson are 4 of the Best in the World.

Moneymaker cashed in 04 once and he also cashed this year in the Limit Hold 'Em Shootout.

But I'm no fan of his. He is awful. The fact that he has only 3 cashes period at the WSOP and Jeff Madsen who is 21 and has two bracelets and two thirds tells you all you need to know.