Agree. Raymer was at least a semi pro iirc. Was he still practicing law at all?

As he does post here maybe he will chime in with how he considered himself then.

But imo has was more pro win he won than at least a couple in the last decade.

am i the only one who thinks the whole laptop **** should get banned from mtts? such a bad look

Which is never going to be solved and only going to get worse. The cats is long out of the bag.

I think there used to be a lot more online satellites/bar leagues etc that would send people to the main event that don’t really exist anymore. A larger majority definitely seem to be more experienced players (been playing a long time) even if the skill level does vary a lot but not a lot of brand newish type players.

The whole pro vs amatuer thing in poker is dumb. I’ve played with tons of “amateurs” who are way more successful outside poker than in poker but that are stronger than lol pros who somehow make a living playing. People really need to stop using these labels in general they’re ridiculous and it’s laughable how often they are misused. People just don’t want to say weaker/stronger player but in reality the terms they make up are way worse.

I was thinking exactly this during last night's coverage. Lon, Norm and to a lesser extent Maria kept making allusions to Griff being less experienced than the rest of the table. And while that's likely true, it's not necessarily true. (Obviously, chances are good that Astedt is more experienced than the remaining eight combined, but that's beside the point.)

Pretty sure I typed this into the chat, but if not, I definitely thought, Wait, there are plenty of experienced amateurs... how do we know he isn't as experienced as some of the others there? After all, it's conceivable that an online rec has played more hands in his/her lifetime than many live pros.

Now, I'm not saying this is the case for Jordan Griff. In fact, I still don't know much about his poker background other than that he reportedly started playing in college about a decade ago. Still, I'd argue that the spectrum of skill of all amateur players overlaps greatly with the similar spectrum of all players who make poker their sole source of income.

The bolded is definitely true. To top it off in say 2005 basically none of the players winning these satellites had even been playing NL for more than a few months.

Today getting someone like that in the main is really rare.

I mentioned this in the main WSOP thread because I thought there would be more comments about it here. The chat certainly didn't like it, and I see the Subreddit is quite mixed.

To me, it's not that big a deal mostly because he's not entering his currently played hand into the solver. The "real time" of real time assistance is stripped away due to the stream's delay. However, I've seen one decent argument against it: the rail is entering stack sizes in real time, and can give Tamayo updated preflop HU ranges – especially push/fold ranges when effective stacks get shorter.

I don't know how often that kind of info was relayed to Tamayo, nor do I know how much he needed it. Of course, if he did something during a hand – e.g. he faces a BB three-bet jam, he signals his rail with his exact holding, they look it up then give him a thumbs up or down – I would imagine the floor would immediately step in for an OPTAH violation.

As it is, after flopping the straight with that KT vs 77 flip, there are a few people who claim his corner man is visibly entering the stack sizes for the next hand, then giving Tamayo a quick refresher for the next hand.

As for the optics part, yeah... it's kind of a bad look. But then again, the WSOP is sponsored by GTO Wizard, and had that platform's logo all over the venue and the telecast. So that part might simply be a fait accompli by the time the FT rolls around.

EDIT: whelp, never mind. Just went to the other thread and it looks like NVG has more dissent on the laptop than it did last night.

Tournaments are actually fair, anyone can buy in and get a random seat draw. There is no blocking of good games or scum seat moving onto a whales left.

Main Event turnout this year was BARELY higher than last year (10,112 vs 10,043). Poker is starting to hit a ceiling. For another genuine boom, we need new legislation that legalizes online poker and/or a likable "average joe" to win the Main Event.

Yes Raymer was a full-time patent attorney when he won the 2004 Main Event. He was playing at Foxwoods at Connecticut during his free time.

Yeah tournaments are thriving. Vegas cash games have gotten boring.

This thread is dumb. Griff could have won and it and maybe should have.

So? Maybe amateurs should gitgud if they want to win it.

Interesting that the Thread title contains 'amateur' wording instead of the most common used classes of Players .. Rec, Reg and Pro. So let's restart the Thread using those three categories .. eh?

Rec .. A True Rec would have a very difficult time in the ME. Way too many spots where they would make mistakes and or get pushed around when OOP. Eventually the remaining Players will just stop paying off. Top 200? For sure a (very) good run of cards can propel almost any Player up the pay scale, but eventually a Rec will just miss the opportunities from position and definitely get into lost value and/or overplaying too many spots.

Reg .. IMO there are quite a few Regs that can hold their own with Pros .. then it just comes down to being spot savvy and running good. JT ran extremely well the first 10 hands of HU (and Griff gave some away) before the HU settled in. JT also made some calls in very good spots for Griff to be at a much stronger part of his range .. if so, it would've been over quick. Plenty of profitable seasoned 2/5 Regs are capable of playing those spots IMO.

Pro .. The big advantage Pros have is experience and perhaps handling the spotlight much better than a Rec/Reg would. Griff indicated he was VERY nervous at the start of FT, but then settled right in after winning his first pot.

Remember that at least 5-6 of the FT were below 5bb or needing to hit a River from behind to survive. Cards don't care whose holding them.


If online poker continues to grow in the States there will continue to be a very large number of entries. Peaked? I don't think so with the biggest issue still being it's very difficult for a Rec/Reg to be able to take the time off to play this long of a tournament. I had 3 friends 'earn' their ME seat via satellites that had overlays .. and all 3 cashed from 15-40k.

The biggest risk of continued growth while trying to maintain a deep structure is having to have a split Day 3 with the risk of Day 3A having to stop play at a % of field as many 'minor league' MTT circuits do (usually 12%). The easy fix of that would be to play 90 minute levels until the field hits the Bubble and then go to 120 for more playability. 90 is still more than double most of the level lengths that Players see 'at home' with 60 pretty rare IMO, mostly 40 min levels for larger BI multi-day events.

I do think Live Cash is down .. Detroit is losing 2 of it's 3 casino rooms within months of each other. This is due to Apps, online poker and Home Games. The casinos are not treating Players as well as they used to due to the 'numbers' game with casino management. Wives don't want their husbands at the casino 'all night' .. now they have options to play at home or go to a known closer address for a Home Game with free food and drink.

Lots more to discuss .. Poker is not getting any younger, but the good thing is that there's more Players getting older that will have more time on their hands. But eventually that will catch up with itself. Poker needs a new Elky type .. even Wolfgang is playing stakes that are out of reach for a lot of Players. Will Rampage burn out? Will Mariano even care to play as much? The 'tricks' that Brad Owen shows in his Vlogs don't work at 1/2! Doug Polk (and Joey Ingram) is running a business instead of turning the crank of controversy .. and I've never listened to Berkey. Bart Hansen I think has the right idea .. steady the course, nothing too flashy and involve the viewers with the call-in show that gets remixed into YT content.

We're there .. 'everyone' takes August off and then we dive into the Fall .. GL

What's fair about telling recs who dump tons of money they have to play cash games with people they can't stand playing with?

They're the customer.

Is it fair that if one business has horrible customer service customers go to their competitors that have great customer service?

You're kind of making my point with the scum seat moving.Stuff like that is why a lot of bigger games are private now.


Like I said tournaments are doing great. People like the idea of putting up a little to win a lot.

10k is also probably the equivalent of 4-5k when Moneymaker won.
Bump the main to 25k and you're not getting 10k entries.

Wat?

Vegas poker rooms up and down the strip were packed at summer. Poker is doing very good.

I was just talking about this yesterday with another player.

I would love to see the WSOP have a tournament (at any buy in level, but $1000 or less would be best) where to enter, a player cannot have a WSOP or Circuit event cash on their resume.

Call it the Amateur Open or whatever.

Yeah, you probably are.

An average joe winning will make no difference whatsoever.

And Griff was flipping for the ME so this thread is kind of not good.

A woman or celebrity winning would move the needle.

*well

I didn’t pay attention as closely as I usually do but it didn’t seem as if the overflow was as large as it has been in the past.

There were times where you couldn’t get into any NLHE game on Strip. WSOP cash games seemed to have half the players.

There were definitely less cash games than pre covid at wsop itself. That's been the case for a few years.

Wait lists weren't nearly as bad for plo cash as they had been in recent years ar Aria or Wynn.
Wynn also switched to poker atlas where you could put yourself in waiting lists where in last years they didn't take call ins during wsop.

Aria had more tables than in years past in the temporary area which really helped things.

I can't speak to NL list at rooms across the strip.

I was technically an amateur when I won in 2004, as I got the majority of my income from my full-time lawyer job. But, I was already filing my taxes as a part-time pro. Also, given the level of knowledge at that time, I was likely in the top 1% of all poker players when it came to poker knowledge, specifically tournament knowledge. I was fully aware of concepts like ICM, and used plays that are common now but almost unknown back then (e.g., floating, stop-and-go, etc.). Many of these ideas were still unknown or went unused, even by some of the players considered the top tournament pros at the time.

But during the 2000s boom not only were the rooms full, but weren't there more of them?

Off the top of my head I can think of Imperial Palace, Mirage, Flamingo, Luxor, Monte Carlo, and Rio, all having rooms back then that are now shuttered. The only additions I can come up with from that period are Resorts World and Aria. Plus downtown you had Binions and Plaza, both of which are no more.

Two years ago you had a better chance of playing pick up sticks with your butt cheeks than getting into a game in WSOP cash game side

No more tables left, and no available dealers. Wait list 100 deep

This year room half empty, people were starting up games three handed

Definite down tick

Few things are on rise though, mixed games, big o, double board

Right but nobody would consider you an amateur skill wise. You've never been lumped in with Gold Yang or Moneymaker.

I don't think the OP would consider someone similar to you in 2024- full time job but very good at poker an amateur for the purposes of this thread.