I could not disagree more to what you just said. Its not "math" at all at that level. One or two mistakes a night at that level is the difference between winning and losing. "Math players" would be annihilated in that game.

What makes Dwan and Ivey so particularly hard to play against is the intangible factor, their ability to feel what is going on in the hand, and exploit it.

When Dwan and Ivey are in hands, watch closely how it always seems to "work out" when they raise, or when they fold. They instinctively know when they are beat, they instinctively know when someone is making a move on them, and they come over the top.

Its not luck. They aren't using "the math". They are so so finely tuned into whats happening during the course of a hand that its almost amazing. I've watched Ivey and Dwan over and over and over again, trying to figure out how they "know". They make the same movements, they take their time, they do their actions methodically.

Now, watch Negreanu. He varies in the way he acts. He's an emotional roller coaster during the course of a big hand compared to Dwan and Ivey. Daniel gave up on a few hand I've watched him play, I've NEVER seen Dwan or Ivey give up on a hand.

Math is idiotic.

Wasn't it "That math is idiotic."?

He's too busy trying to think of some awesome play that doesn't correlate to what is going on in the hand. Whether its checkraising Dwan when he has Aces full, or folding flushes to Todd Brunson and David Benyamine...he so desperately wants to make that sick laydown or bluff.

Problem is...he doesn't know where he is in the hand.

He's riding a moped backwards amongnst a covey of Formula 1 racers and I'm not sure he's even on the same track anymore...much less in the race.

Exactly right, at least, that is exactly how it seems to me. He tries to make a super play in a position where he should be trying to get out as cheap as possible or just folding.

He's raised into the nuts more than anyone, it seems. He did it against Benyamine when he had quads, he did it against Dwan, he got VERY unlucky vs Gus with that quad 5s hand years ago, but even in that situation he knew in his heart he was beat, he just couldn't fold the hand. .

I dunno, it just seems Daniel is not in the same league as those guys, which doesn't mean he's not a great player, but against players of that caliber, its lethal to your bankroll.

Exactly.

Dwan, Ivey, PA,...are all capable of making the ridiculous laydown or monster bluff, but they do it when the information gathered calls for it.

DN is just hemorraging money in a "bingo attempt" to fall into the right play.

Great analysis and I concur, it seems Daniel is trying so hard to look like a hero with some fancy play (including bad "hero" laydowns) that he winds up being the goat instead.

And he doesn't know where he stands because he is always giving up control and playing check/call poker (unless of course it's one of his futile kamikaze bluffs, in which case he leads or takes control the whole way). In the flush hand, when he finally makes a hand on the turn he lets the action go check-check-check. Was he hoping for a glorious checkraise? The only player left to act was Doyle who really had shown no significant strength in the hand with his QQ. Plus he has to know that Doyle is too good to fall into a trap of betting a worse hand than a flush in a multiway pot in that spot, he checked his set of queens for pete's sake. So Daniel gives up control of his pot on the turn and then allows himself to be befuddled and middled on the river with a checkraise. I realize this is only one hand but it's unfortunately one of many he has bungled in this and season's past.

I still don't get Doyle's play here. Personally, when I am *not afraid* of being drawn out on (eg, top set on an uncoordinated board) I'll give a free card to induce and whatnot, but I want VALUE. How is checking top set on the turn getting value?

ya kind of weird but if u pay attention to how DN plays he alsways checks the turn with some bigish hands

If I remember correctly, Daniel bet the flop, was called by Doyle and was overcalled by Benyamine who appeared like he might raise but settled on just the overcall. So when the turn brought the Q, not only did it complete a flush draw, it also completed a straight for JT, which it seems is always lurking in a multiway pot lol. Doyle made the correct decision, he was beat in both spots, he probably figured that Q, while improving his own hand, also may have put him in second place.

On the other hand I'm not sure what Daniel was thinking by not betting on turn when he finally makes his hand, I mean at least protect againt a 4th spade hitting the river, or the board pairing if anyone had 2 pair or a set (Doyle's case), as well as find out if another flush is out there. By playing the way he did, he left himself totally in the dark on the river when Benyamine pulled off the checkraise.

I think it's safe to say that while DN may have run bad, he certainly makes nonstop terrible reads on HSP. I mean, he literally always makes the wrong move in big pots. Maybe he should play online where his lack of reading skills won't hurt so much.

A+

At the time of filming this season durrrr was on a ridiculous downswing online, yet still finds the "confidence" to bluff Ivey. Also part of poker is the psychological aspect, if DN is losing confidence with running bad over a few hundred hand sample maybe he's not cut out for high level cash game play.


Ivey probably hasn't memorized MOP word for word but he's far from the "stare somebody in the eye and make a random guess" type player.

Mentally Ivey and Dwan and Antonious seem to be rock solid. They take a loss right on the chin. I couldn't even imagine Ivey getting upset, and you could probably walk over and give Antonious a wet willy and he wouldn't respond.

Daniel gets upset, and he's in some BIG pots with weak hands, or when he finally gets a hand he can run with he'll do some sort of weird play. I dunno.

Has anyone run worse than Daniel Negreanu on HSP?

I think that running bad and playing bad go hand in hand...when you continually lose to the 5 outer (or fewer) on the river, you start questioning every hand you play. You then fail to make the correct value bets in spots where you have the best hand for fear of being beat, or you try to keep the pot smaller for fear that you will get sucked out on. I absolutely think that DN has run worse than any other player on HSP and I also think that it has affected his ability to play winning poker on that show. That doesn't necessarily mean he's a bad player, but he may have made some psychological associations while playing in HSP settings that results in him playing far less than his best game.

If you look at how he plays in season one, you'll see a completely different player. He plays aggressively and with confidence and clearly is playing a much more solid game.

It goes hand in hand for weaker players.

I'll venture to say that if Ivey, Dwan, or Antonius had Daniel's hands throughout the HSP seasons....they would still be up overall.

I think its very important to realize that *ANY* single thing that happens in a game that changes your future decisions in a negative way makes you a weaker player. Just like you said, you start betting a little bit softer, giving your opponent decent odds to draw, being afraid to put in a proper raise with a medium/high pair to take down the pot preflop..... all these things can have a very bad affect on your game.

Of course, everyone who plays poker knows this. Almost everyone does it both ways. You make loose calls when you have a ton of chips in front of you, which will cause you to lose money. You make scared moves when you are stuck.

The difference is those three animals (Dwan, Ivey, Antonious) seem to just keep on trucking. They keep doing what they are doing, their game just stays the same and they are always "on you". I have massive amounts of problems playing against players like that, because you only have to guess wrong once, and you get felted. Unfortunately, Daniel seems to guess wrong often against that lineup, which I guess you can't blame him for.

The fact that he thinks aloud is what makes him so popular with fish. Before I got into online poker I thought DN was GOD because he would announce what an amateur would have and (usually) be right (then calling anyway......). Other players at the time like Phil Ivey would make even better reads against other "pros" but I didn't put them on the same caliber as DN because they didn't announce their reads. In my fish mind I thought if you didn't say what the other person had out loud then you are unsure of your read.

So while it's ****ing annoying as hell to me now it's what makes him popular with the donks.

Too bad DN didn't announce his read when he checkraised into the stone cold nuts against Dwan and his aces full lol....oh wait, he can only announce his reads on players of the type who satellited into the WSOP on a freeroll lol.

Announcing your opponent's holecards = Acting smart = Making yourself look insecure

Daniel tends to try too hard, and this has been reflected in his latest "fancy" play.

To give him some credit, this ability is extremely profitable, regardless of his leaks in deep NL cash.

IMO Jaime Gold played the worst by a long shot. Freddy C. was terrible, but he was playing for the thrill. Jaime Gold had enough belief in his own skills to buy-in to a $10K event. He played a ton of poker. He played those HSP sessions like he was playing with the local-hocals from some poor town. He mashed the raise button and taped over the fold button in those games.

You can't dispute that Daniel has not played all that great. He admits this much, matter a fact he said he didn't think he was a favorite in the game. I think he believed that enough that he saw the $ in booking PH to help hedge (good bet).

You ALSO can't dispute that Daniel hasn't run so hot in several big pots. With such a small sample size of TV poker we can't accuratelly determine anything.

Jamie Gold!!! ahhhh hahaha... But yeah, the quads of Gus were pretty brutal, he can get pretty cold decked. I think he's a good player but he's just not the Daniel we saw when he called out quads in the WSOP Europe (I believe 99 on 4466 board) or the set in WSOP M.E. I really don't think he's playing to his full potential. Worst player, no, I agree with the Jamie Gold statement, but I think he needs some re-tuning to get to be the player he once was.

Sammy.. you got the Aces Sammy?

imo