Wait a second. Norm and Lon are actually entertaining me in this episode. Furthermore, Lon made a valid point about poker. Something must be wrong.

Lon: "A weak ace is pretty strong at a short-handed table."

Norm: "This isn't an office. It's a casino. Is she drunk?"

Haha. I'm pleasantly surprised so far.

Theo, this is my first post, as I joined a few days ago after being a long time lurker, but I wanted to thank you for your explanations, and how you presented yourself on these forums, even with all the BS. It is nice for someone new like myself to hear the thought process that went into some of your decisions (the J-9 call of David Bach I was really impressed with). You played incredibly well, and you are obviously an intelligent, personable young guy.

And thanks to Grant too, for his analysis and helping me understand his shove with 10-4 there -- given the history (that we didn't see), it makes more sense -- something we wouldn't have had the benefit of without his posting of his thoughts.

Congrats to both! :-)

-Defy

Thanks for the advice. I will give you first right of refusal to stake me. Cheers!

Thanks to both of the final table players for participating. Made for great reading. congrats

Norm was really on his game. Otherwise I don't think this episode would have been watchable.

Chump: Thanks for Ruining this thread.
I would appreciate if you would not post in future WSOP/PAD TV threads.

The AJ hand was just about as standard as it gets. Before I raised I was hoping he would shove on me, and when he did shove I just took a few seconds to recount his stack and make sure it was in line with what I estimated before the action.

What isn't really made clear in the broadcast is that it is folded to me in the small blind vs Mike Ngo in the big blind. He only had about 1.6 mil left with 60K/120K blinds. He had also just open shoved 15 big blinds UTG w/ AT in the blind level before where he ran into Akenhead's KK and spiked an A. So with as active as I had been opening and then doing it from the small blind I think AJ is well above his shove range there. I just happened to run in to the top range.

My brother Blair and James Mackey that were sweating both thought that I slowrolled with my AJ because they would have instacalled. I had the intention to call quickly going into it, but then just wanted to verify his stack size before I formally made the call.

After much thought and consideration, I will be unable to oblige your request.

Theo, next final table, can you please leave your thugs at home and dress less scary for us old farts? Thanks.

Congrats to you and Grant!

This was just awful poker. I felt like I was watching PokerDome.

I don't think it is dumb at all. It seems extremely standard in a short-handed small blind vs. big blind situation. Of course, ESPN rarely finds it necessary to point out who the blinds are.

After all, who has time to set up a hand when Norman Chad is telling honeymoon jokes?

Thanks Grant and Theo for combing through all the BS and actually posting some really interesting stuff about your thought process.

Some of the social commentary was somewhat interesting and I think it really magnifies the differences in poker players around the globe. This is such a great game because it brings these different types of people together, and allows for (sometimes) good discussion.

I've been checking out the new WSOP eps and thought I would check this forum for the first time in ages to see what people thought about the event aired last night. I still see this is still the incredible suckhole that it was last time I stopped by, and as awesome as Kevmath is, I think he's missing the boat by not at least tempbanning this Change Chump assclown. To that end I'm reporting the last post he's made in this thread to direct Kevmath to it in case he's too busy playing zookeeper in NVG or otherwise is missing this.

Theo, thanks for stopping by with your thoughts - particularly after all the abuse you've been taking in this thread, deserved or not.

"What's with Hinkle moving in on Jesus with QJ? how dumb is that? He already should know that Jesus is playing for the win and that his calling range is pretty wide-especially after he overcalled on Theo with 88."

Jesus basically had no chips then. The size of Hinkle's bet is meaningless, as any raise puts Jesus all in. If you don't shove QJs in that spot, you should never ever ever play tournament poker.

I gave you way too much run in this thread, I suggest you change your behavior, or at least figure out the difference between JC Tran and Theo Tran.

fair enough...Jesus had just doubled up and seemed to me to be looking for any opportunity to double again. I just didnt see why give a player of his caliber another chance to get back into the tourney by gambling with a marginal hand there.

Thanks for the backgound!

HOLY INSTACALL - I wouda hit the allin button immediately

btw Grant your mom is cute

I was kind of pulling for the Ngo guy after hearing him talk about the Katrina thing etc. Then after he bluffs Theo out with 44 he acted like a jerk. I thought Theo acted pretty cool about it by saying "nice play". Then Theo said after more crap from Ngo with "I said it was a nice play but you havn't won anything yet". For me that said a lot about Theo's maturity and I was very impressed. I'd say later on Theo took a few things a tad too far but nothing crazy bad. I think Theo was just pumped up after getting some chips by basically saying "game on".

Am I the only one who finds the last name Akenhead hilarious?

With his stack and the size of the blinds QJ may as well have been AK. It was standard endgame tourney strategy. There's almost no hand that he could be up against that he would be a huge dog preflop.

Hah! So Kev rolls over for Tuq? lol.



I wouldn't call it rolling over, just being very late to the party. I was gonna CC go because he said he'd stay out of the thread, then he posted again. -KM

Tran was more out of line than Ngo was.

Remember, Ngo didn't start the talking. He had to endure Tran's speech about that was the only card Ngo could hit and he doesn't even know how bad of shape he was in.

Showing the bluff was almost mandatory after that.

And we can't just throw this blanket of "ESPN editing" to defend everything.

Tran did celebrate Ngo's elimination rather loudly, yelling, "He got what he deserved! He got what he deserved!"

As an earlier poster said, even Hellmuth doesn't berate opponents after THEY have been eliminated.

But I'm not hating on Tran. Good game, good score. Emotions just got the best of him a little bit.

you obviously did not read theo's posts then

Yeah, Michael Mizrachi is so Asian. LOL.

Saying someone is a douche has nothing to do with ethnicity. Douches come in all shapes, sizes, colors, etc.

Is this a level?