Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Treesong
All of that is possible in theory, but Mike did not show one molecule of an ability to react well to adversity. His immediate reaction was to whine about runbad. At what point in the match did he make a single quality play that would have been asymmetric? He also demonstrated a total inability to understand dan and shawn's analysis as to why he butchered the last hand. Literally none. It's also criminally stupid to not sleep and play late the night before, then refuse to get live data and instead cram six Red Bulls. His preparation was poor. His analysis was poor. His attitude was poor. And his execution was poor. His live tricks (like his slow roll and his habit of showing one bad card) were both obvious and ineffective. I did think his apology for lying about showing the j6 hand was sincere. I'd lay 140 on a rematch.
It is true that he is a different kind of player to many other players and to people who focus mainly on playing on line poker and I agree that in some areas he didn't adapt to the specific structure of the game that they were playing, and yes sure it is down to him that he didn't plan ahead to counter the extra info she got by getting it too himself or by mixing his playing style up more once he realised she was getting hands sent to her.
But then again, his hole cards were so bad that it was very difficult to mix his game strat up and the match was also too short to enable this.
I do think that her getting hands and advice sent to her was huge. The obvious thing that she must have been told was that his fold frequency on the the river was quite high in game 1 with 2nd or 3rd pair. It's obvious she was told this as she bet a lot on the river in game 2.
As already stated, it was also easy for her to steal small pots when they both missed in game 2 because she had a 1.5 to 1 or 2 to 1 chip lead very early.
You know, being told about the previous hands and Mike's tendencies in the match *is* a minor version equivalent of having superuser status in an on line game and it should not be underestimated how big an advantage this was to Cate.
I think given all of the circumstances, that virtually any player would have tilted a bit in Mike's shoes, and this was no ordinary game played anonymously on line or in a casino with a few other people seeing it who don't even care who does what, it was mass broadcast so when things are going either very well or very badly for you the positive or negative psychological impact of it will be amplified.