Is it just me or are the professional poker players doing very well this year at the World Series of Poker? Johnny Chan won his 10th bracelet early this morning and I’ve recognized quite a few other top players making final tables. Mark Seif (twice), Todd Brunson, Barry Greenstein, T.J. Cloutier, Josh Arieh, Erik Seidel, and Allen Cunningham have all won bracelets so far. 25 events have been completed and by my count 9 have been won by top players. I’m sure there are other big winners that I don’t recognize.
What really sparked my interest in looking this up was the latest post on Daniel Negreanu’s blog. He says that he’s not enjoying the WSOP this year. My guess is that he’s not playing particularly well, which of course will make it not fun. While other top pros seem to be doing very well this year, he’s not having anything relatively close to his performance in the 2004 WSOP.
Negreanu complains about having too many $1,500 buy in events this year because they attract the lower end players. Shouldn’t he be drooling? The other pros seem to be taking full advantage of all the amateurs playing. It makes perfect sense to me. The pros are great at reading people. If there are more amateur players to read a pro should be able to build a stack a lot easier. Instead of blaming the lack of talent at the 2005 WSOP, maybe Daniel should take a look at his own game.
Nick Momrik 