Quote:
Originally Posted by Cotton Hill
A more interesting discussion rather than all the trollish "OMG he sucks" vs. "OMG GOAT" is to try to figure out why, that despite very obvious shortcomings in his playstyle, he still manages to have such a high level of success in hold em tournaments.
There are a whole host of tournament specific skills and considerations and I'm just assuming Hellmuth is exceptionally good at at least a few of them.
His results speak for themselves, he's clearly an exceptionally good holdem tournament player. Its likely that what he's good at is more subtle and situational which is why it's so maddening to try to figure out.
You'll find virtually all praise of him with the "live holdem tournament" caveat attached. I don't think anyone on the planet believes Hellmuth is the all around best poker player period.
The problem with excellent people in their fields (like Hellmuth) is that many of the stuff that make them great are unconscious. In fact, what they say they believe is the right way or the wrong way are at conscious level and would therefore have nothing to do with what really matters, which is unconscious - call it "instincts' or "intuitions" if you will.
There are, however, things that are clear with regards to Hellmuth and that is he does not seem to give value to EV when it comes to making decisions. He's all about survival (forgoing the current plus EV of the current decision) and then using his exceptional people reading skills (more than just hand reading skills) and ability to influence and manipulate weaker players later on. In a way, by not putting high value to EV during a tournament, he has aligned himself with the fact that EV decisions inside tournament don't have long term effects because once the tourney is over or once one busts out, the EV decisions made inside the tournament won't add up to a long term sample size.
The "obvious shortcomings to his playstyle" are from the point of view of people who value optimization. But Hellmuth is not based on optimization. He is based on exploitation and manipulation. He never uses words like "balance", "frequencies", "ranges", etc. He uses old school phrases like "put him on so and so...", or "I suspect he had so and so" or "I sensed weakness" or "I didn't believe him", etc. These are only "shortcomings" from the point of view of the optimizers.
When he uses the term "white magic" he means it. It's the people who dismiss it or even mock it that may be missing something, thanks to their conformity to optimization and to group think.
