http://www.iaaf.org/news/report/repo...us-oregon-2014

Sorry dude. It's weird that you constantly make points that are disproved in seconds by google searches.

A single event result? What's your extreme point this time?

I'm not sure what you guys are arguing about. I said most, not all, of the decathalon gold medal winners would not win the national high school championships in any of their events. CK Yang, on the other hand, could have won any college pole vault championship. Perhaps quite a few decathalon champs had one event near the high school best. It still makes my point since I doubt they were ever that good in more than one or two.

My point Pete? Is that that ^^^ is still correct, and nothing you have said it has disproved or contradicted it. Somehow, you've made 4 posts in disagreement without doing that.

I was just confused as to why you presented the result from a Croatian in the World Junior Athletics Championships when, as he has explained above, DS was talking about the national high school championships.

Interesting.

For the first point, it's not just the top one percent of all humans but a tiny, tiny fraction of just the humans who ever even played any organized baseball. The Little League website cited annual participation numbers of about 2.3 million kids (baseball side only) during the mid-2000s.

From 1876 to present, the total number of U.S.-born people ever to play in a MLB game is a tad more than 16,157 [Source: baseball-reference.com]. Include the foreign-born players, and the number approaches 18,000. At any given moment during the season, there are 1,200 people on MLB 40-man rosters, just 750 on active duty, and slightly less than half of that on pitching staffs.

Thus, the average major league pitcher is among about 2 percent of the total number of people who have played in the bigs. Expand to the latter population those who played in the minors, Japan's NPB, the Mexican League, or the Negro Leagues; and our hero now stands among a thin slice of a percent of those ever to play professionally.

One little fun anecdote, though: I once saw Chris Bosio playing as a "celebrity" in a local charity softball game. This guy had just retired from his 11-year MLB career. Because of the DH, however, he never once batted in either the minors or the majors. Yet in this beer-fueled softball game, he was by far the best hitter (frighteningly so — I thought he might kill the local news anchor who played third) and a pretty good glove in the outfield.

As for the decathlon...

Ashton Eaton (gold medalist, 2012 Olympic Games) PRs:

Day One events:
100m: 10.21
LJ: 8.23m
SP: 15.40m
HJ: 2.11m
400m: 45.64

Day Two events:
110HH: 13.35
DT: 47.36m
PV: 5.30m
JT: 66.64m
1,500: 4:14.48

2012 National High School Rankings [Source: MileSplit.com]
Note that these aren't champions, as there really isn't a true high school national championship in the U.S.. The Junior Outdoor Championships don't apply, as they go up to 20 years of age. So let's just go with these.

Day One events:
100m: 10.19 (Abraham Hall, South Grand Prairie HS)
LJ: 7.82m (Jarrion Lawson, Bishop Gorman HS)
SP: 21.49m (Tyler Schultz, Custer HS)
HJ: 2.18m (Randall Cunningham, Bishop Gorman HS)
400m: 45.19 (Aldrich Bailey, Mansfield Timberview HS)

Day Two events:
110HH: 13.35 (Artie Burns, Miami Northwestern HS)
DT: 66.55m (Sam Mattis, East Brunswick HS)
PV: 5.58m (Shawn Barber, Kingwood Park HS)
JT: 75.21m (Billy Stanley, South Park HS)
1,500: 3:45.74 (Josh Lampron, Mansfield HS)

The 1,500 doesn't surprise me, as no decathlete runs it well. I'd have to dig to find it but I believe only one person has ever broken the 4-minute barrier in the dec 1,500. The fastest time at the 2012 Olympic decathlon in London was 4:22.50 by Hans van Alphen of Belgium. He would have been on the back stretch when Lampron crossed.

Eaton measured up favorably with the best prep runners in the two sprints, the hurdles (where they had the same time) and the long jump. Again, not surprising as these events are where Eaton is particularly strong. In fact, in my experience, the better multi athletes tend to be sprinter/jumper types who learn to get by at the other events.

Neither of the shot and discus are close, which is also not a shock. The guys who specialize in those two throws tend to be big, burly types who wouldn't stand a chance as a sprinter or jumper, so they don't exactly flock to the multis. The world decathlon discus record of 55.87m (Bryan Clay at the 2005 USATF Outdoor) would have placed third at the 2014 California Interscholastic Federation championships. The world dec shot record of 19.17m (Edy Hubacher back in 1969), which would have been fourth.

The difference in the javvy isn't as extreme as the other two throws but it's still quite a ways off, and continues to support Sklansky. Eaton's javelin wasn't close to Billy Stanley. Only one competitor at that year's London games was: Cuba's Leonel Suarez, whose opening throw of 76.94 scored him a nifty 996 points.

No 2012 London decathlete measured up to Barber in the pole vault, but then Barber's mark was also a national high school record. He has since set collegiate and Canadian national benchmarks. The top vaulter at the London games was Chile's Gonzalso Barroihet, who cleared 5.40m in his first attempt, about on par with most recent U.S. high school leaders in the event. The high jump comparison works out the same.

* * * * *

All this said, the OP only asked why someone doesn't play the different poker disciplines at "a top level," not why no one is the very best. I think other posters have already cited a few examples of players who DO excel at SNGs, MTTs and cash games, just as there are or have been those who of those who play many of the different variants (flop, stud, draw) among the very best.

In any case, bringing it back to the subject at hand, the world's best poker decathalonists are in the top 200 in at least five of the ten games and no actual decathalonists is even close to that.

No argument there.

Wilbury, interesting post. Decathletes are generally weaker at 'big guy' and 'little guy' events.
The 1500 is always their killer. as this page shows:

http://www.decathlon2000.com/844/

Of all the WR holding decathletes, only Bruce Jenner and Ashton Eaton stand out and they are nowhere in the grand scheme of things.

The interesting thing to me is how something is both correlated and anti correlated at the same time. The high school 2015 10k champion has less of a chance of breaking the 100m world record than a randomly picked high school student. Yet he is at least a 1000-1 favorite to be able to beat that random student in the 100 meters.

(The reason of course is the respective standard deviations.)

Hahah "decathalonist." I'll have to use that term with our decathletes (or hepathletes) to see what reaction I get. I like it.

Also, thanks for the link to the IAAF website. Totally forgot that one of my friends ran at the Sainsbury's Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix over the weekend. (She finished sixth.)

lol **** off pete, you've just outed yourself. Go back under your bridge.

He hadn't specified anything about 'national highschool champ' before I posted the article about croatia, thus we could have been talking about any nation's champ. ESPECIALLY because you are from uk, ds is from US and I'm from canada. Just stop, no one can be as stupid as you are making yourself seem.

I'll take your word for this, as there is no 10,000-meter title in high school, at least in the U.S.

In canada I believe the longest event is 3000m, but it might be 5000m.

Apart from in the original post that started this...

You obviously aren't aware that 'High School' is relatively UScentric in terms of an age group of school that precedes university which is why I naturally assumed that DS was referring to US High School champions.

And I'm the one who takes things to extremes? lol dude come on!

I assumed high school champion meant champion of the local high school rather than nationwide 18-or-under champion but whatever.

"High School" isn't that US centric. I'm British but I use "High School" to refer to any level in a particular national school system for an age group like 14-18 (as in Croatia) or 15-19 where I am, because English English doesn't really have a word from our own school system for that age group. What would we call it, 4-year 6th-form college?

its true

I have a strong correlation between lhe and limit studs, or big bet stud also okay but it was played regularly when i was a kid. I played mostly lhe and never had any problems with studs, so i dont count them as different skill sets, the stud8 though taking some extra energy like omaha8 does.

Plo i worked up, and is my 2nd strongest after lh, and both helped also my limit omaha that i dont mind playing, and a bit about my limit omaha8 though i have had to works with lo8 and i am still not good at it, just holding. I have taken part in two lo8 big tournaments, cashed both, the other high. Cashed one stud8 tournament, the only one i have played, and i was very comfortable w these split tournaments. Never been very comfortable at plo tournaments, not really fit for my style to play butt off the seat and i dont play my cash being worried about losing a stack or a part of it, not my focus.

Big bet omaha8 is too difficult for me though i have played it and see how it is, and it isnt beyond hope but would be a top effort to learn it. Or maybe okay in tournaments, less fighting, that i though need some but not too much and too difficult, or actually i played one table plo8 tournament and i didnt like it and cant even remember if i won it or was 2nd or 3rd, just that i didnt like it and was stressed, plenty close nlh cash actually, but it was one table, though i have enjoyed many one table nlh tournaments, so nothing clear cut.

5o, 6o etc. are of course not too difficult for me, just some other omahas will be more difficult like split games are for me a step or two more difficult.

Nlhe cash is my weakest game as it is not as much a card game and i can well understand if ones nlh gets weaker if one doesnt play it enough, and even my plo suffers some but nothing i cant handle. Actually my sh lhe might get more rusty, losing the feel, though the problem was w the nlh and other games study and play, and it was the first time i lost the feel pretty badly, costing me many bets, though i got it back soon.

The nlh skill set is different to any other game that i play. I find tournament nlh easier because it is more strategy than tactics but it might still be too tricky for me. Nlh cash being difficult and i play it only in mixed games and in some tournament, and can do okay as so, but wouldnt make them my mains as i dont have whatever they need, like attitude.

Reading the gus book about his tournament win and it was all very abc compared to cash games, and i got zero better. And i have read lots of nlh books, but looks like more because of plo as i never get much if any better, it being so much of players and experience that it has little to no doing with strategy, just with observations and experience, a game for one or two tabling and playing very hard and it is not the cards one is playing there, that much i have learned.

Nlh cash maybe shouldnt be too difficult to me as an experienced and skilled hu and supershort player, but it just is. Less a card game, and as big bet. I just dont have the right attitude for nlh cash, if even for nlh tournaments.

i'm beating $10 abi mtt's, 25zoom and up to 15$ 27/180mans

ship teh credit

everyone solid

Ivey, and Chip Reese?

Personally I suck at this. I put in maybe 100k hands of 6 max NLHE last month. Switched to HU for a week, and now feel completely uncomfortable at a 6 max table.

Also, lets say something like 5% of people are actually winners in any form of poker. You obviously have to put work in to be among those 5%. So, are you going to have enough time, and natural skill to be in the top 5% of all formats? Hell of a parlay.

Tough to coordinate your "Rungood" to instantiate itself at all three simultaneously. Not saying it can't happen, but you gotta have enough juice with whatever entity you sold your soul.

winning aussie mills 250k challenge 3/4 times the past 4 years..... ya.... and a wsop bracelet recently

I don't really follow pros much, or have any idea where Phil's game stands atm.

But, what does winning 3 out of 4 tourneys, with an average of 29 people in them prove? You win some KQ vs. AQ, AK vs. KK, A3 vs QJ, aipf type situations, and that means something?

It's not true. I dont play high stakes, but relatively speaking, i've been very successful at cash games, sngs, and mtts. I've only formally trained and studied cash games and never mtts or sngs.

My personal take on it though is that you can learn cash game fundamentals and transition to mtts and sngs much easier than you can learn mtts and sngs fundamentals and transition to cash games.