tomh7795
Visionary
Silver Level
Lmfao classic. They won it through their good skill.
TheUndertaker
Rock Star
Silver Level
LMAO 2. But yes they can by unbelieveable lucky I guess.
dg1267
Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
I really don't think we can call any of those "bad" poker players, but I still think the answer is yes. Anyone can win which is what makes it worth playing for both good and bad players. The bad players hit the lottery, and the good players take the bad players monies!
S
swingro
Legend
Silver Level
TheNoob
Visionary
Silver Level
joe steady
Rock Star
Silver Level
Was it Sklansky who developed the shove or fold strategy for new players? I'm going off memory here, so if someone has better info please correct, but he had a chart of hands that you would either go all in or fold - no raising, so it took the element of playing a hand out of it, therefore it was great for beginners. Don't know how well it would work online, but supposedly it was used successfully live. So I guess you could be bad and use this and still do well.
TheNoob
Visionary
Silver Level
I have been running into this kind of play heads up alot. (maybe it's an advanced strategy for good players playing heads up, but I kind of doubt it).
Got burned on it more than once, I must say.
Just last night I went in with a pretty good lead, and he chipped away at it going all in almost every hand while I was getting trash. I would just fold and wait.
About even in chips, I get ATc and he does it again, so I figure he's just gambling and doing it with ATC and I'm probably 2:1 so I call and he has AQ. Those South Americans can drive you nuts.
K
kevkojak
Visionary
Silver Level
Can a bottom division football team beat the current premier league champs? YES. It'd be a fluke - and they could never do it consistantly -but it could, and probably has, happened.
Could that same awful team win the league? Theoretically yes, although the low odds of them winning one individual game become exponentially magnified when challenged to win a high percentage of games against better opponents, with luck being the deciding factor on a victory.
Now apply that to poker. Anyone can win a hand against the best poker pro in the world...(er, Phil Helmuth? LMAO). Whether it means hitting the flop hard with good hole cards, or playing an awful hand and getting super lucky on the flop, or just sucking out on the river against a hand that has had you dominated. That happens. A lot.
In every tournament there is a lucky donkey who gets rewarded despite mis-playing a hand, its part of the game and people accept it. Its probably the main reason people like me keep coming back....because there is a CHANCE.
The deciding factor for me on whether a bad player can win a tourney is field size. A deeper field means a bad player is sitting there that much longer, and is forced to make more plays.
Lets say Bad Player 1 (lets call him Kev!) plays 75% of flops, so is massively loose, and raises too much/out of position/with bad draws, so is too aggressive as well. In a small field of less than 100 for example, he only needs to get a few lucky flops and double up say ten times (busting a player each time) and he's virtually at the final table. More often than not he'll have donked off the majority of his chips by the first break by missing flops and chasing second or third pairs, but on VERY rare occassions he might just LAG his way to the top spot (especially with any sort of chip lead...dangerous ground meeting a LAG chip leader!)
In a bigger field, say 1000+, he's got to KO an average of 100 players to hit the final table*. Still a slim chance, but miniscule odds of maintaining a healthy stack for hours when playing that sort of volume of hands.
Bad player 2, (Kevina maybe?). She's overly tight, only committing chips when she know's she's got the nuts, folding 50/50's and caving to any pressure. In the 100 player field, there is every chance the flops will fall her way for an hour and she is dealt good runs of hole cards.
In the 1000+ field though, you need some aggression to make the high spots and have to occassionally challenge with coin flips if you expect to win the thing, so there is a great chance she'll be blinded out by playing too Tight and Passive. Could the cards fall well for her for 5,6,7 hours? Sure. Is it a long shot? YES!
Sorry for the long reply, but while bad players can, do and will continue to win tourney's, its inconsistant.
Small games can be anyone's with a bit of luck on your side. Bad players winning the big games takes a miracle, or at least a helluva lot of luck. How many bad players have won the mega field (5000+) wsop in the last couple of decades?
I'd say none. Seriously. Moneymaker won a couple of lucky 70-30's, but played solidly throughout, and won like 5 satty's to get there in the first place! Gold was the only real concern, and that's coz he fell in love with hands like Q 10 too often. Again though, I'd trade skills with him in a snap thanks!
So can a really BAD player, like a complete noob, win a game. YES they can, but not anything worth winning!
Could that same awful team win the league? Theoretically yes, although the low odds of them winning one individual game become exponentially magnified when challenged to win a high percentage of games against better opponents, with luck being the deciding factor on a victory.
Now apply that to poker. Anyone can win a hand against the best poker pro in the world...(er, Phil Helmuth? LMAO). Whether it means hitting the flop hard with good hole cards, or playing an awful hand and getting super lucky on the flop, or just sucking out on the river against a hand that has had you dominated. That happens. A lot.
In every tournament there is a lucky donkey who gets rewarded despite mis-playing a hand, its part of the game and people accept it. Its probably the main reason people like me keep coming back....because there is a CHANCE.
The deciding factor for me on whether a bad player can win a tourney is field size. A deeper field means a bad player is sitting there that much longer, and is forced to make more plays.
Lets say Bad Player 1 (lets call him Kev!) plays 75% of flops, so is massively loose, and raises too much/out of position/with bad draws, so is too aggressive as well. In a small field of less than 100 for example, he only needs to get a few lucky flops and double up say ten times (busting a player each time) and he's virtually at the final table. More often than not he'll have donked off the majority of his chips by the first break by missing flops and chasing second or third pairs, but on VERY rare occassions he might just LAG his way to the top spot (especially with any sort of chip lead...dangerous ground meeting a LAG chip leader!)
In a bigger field, say 1000+, he's got to KO an average of 100 players to hit the final table*. Still a slim chance, but miniscule odds of maintaining a healthy stack for hours when playing that sort of volume of hands.
Bad player 2, (Kevina maybe?). She's overly tight, only committing chips when she know's she's got the nuts, folding 50/50's and caving to any pressure. In the 100 player field, there is every chance the flops will fall her way for an hour and she is dealt good runs of hole cards.
In the 1000+ field though, you need some aggression to make the high spots and have to occassionally challenge with coin flips if you expect to win the thing, so there is a great chance she'll be blinded out by playing too Tight and Passive. Could the cards fall well for her for 5,6,7 hours? Sure. Is it a long shot? YES!
Sorry for the long reply, but while bad players can, do and will continue to win tourney's, its inconsistant.
Small games can be anyone's with a bit of luck on your side. Bad players winning the big games takes a miracle, or at least a helluva lot of luck. How many bad players have won the mega field (5000+) wsop in the last couple of decades?
I'd say none. Seriously. Moneymaker won a couple of lucky 70-30's, but played solidly throughout, and won like 5 satty's to get there in the first place! Gold was the only real concern, and that's coz he fell in love with hands like Q 10 too often. Again though, I'd trade skills with him in a snap thanks!
So can a really BAD player, like a complete noob, win a game. YES they can, but not anything worth winning!
P
paumarhas
Visionary
Silver Level
definately, i'm truely convinced that all you have to be is super aggressive given the right table.
i see opponents labled as calling stations all the time in chip leads.
are we talking 1st place only or in the money?
and bad players count more on luck then your good players, so you figure it out.
i've been playing a lot of low limit sngs and you wouldn't believe how bad they play. taking a lot of chances that good players normally don't hoping to get lucky. the thing is a lot of the time they do, so this would reenforce thier playing style. lol :boxing: :tongue:
roud:
i see opponents labled as calling stations all the time in chip leads.
are we talking 1st place only or in the money?
and bad players count more on luck then your good players, so you figure it out.
i've been playing a lot of low limit sngs and you wouldn't believe how bad they play. taking a lot of chances that good players normally don't hoping to get lucky. the thing is a lot of the time they do, so this would reenforce thier playing style. lol :boxing: :tongue:
roud:
drgilbert4
Rock Star
Silver Level
Even with Moneymaker, Gold, Yang, etc... They all had to play some solid poker during the tourney. I agree that they all were far worse players than the ones they were heads up against, but they avoided being eliminated by folding a lot of hands. They showed all of their lucky hands on TV, but they had to make some good decisions during the tourney. They may not be big time professionals like Doyle, Daniel, Ivey, etc... but they had to face some tough situations and make solid decisions in a field as huge as the Main Event.
