trust me, i know full well how the editing of hands works. what pisses me off is that there's ZERO mention of the boring hands that helped mizrachi gain the major chip lead. Even a quick one-liner just to acknowledge it -- they don't even have to show a single hand -- provides some continuity

my god the grinder was god awful, played every hand back to front. nice to know he is now the winner of the most prestigious poker tournament in the world.

what's wrong with chino rheem?

is he dying?

Seriously, Mizrachi totally degened his way to victory. Awesome call w/K J on the 7 8 9 x board w/one coming + calling Oppenheim's all in with an "I'll gamble!" because he knew that the only way he could beat Oppenheim was by winning a race + bluffing 600,000 into a 3M pot heads up + (obv) Ac7c > AdJd.

There's never going to be an NLHE final table as sick as the 2006 50K HORSE. Watching this one was just ridiculous by comparison.

Grinder player fine until heads-up I think. I'm not a tournament player and maybe I should not commect anything, but I loved grinders bet sizing. Against Thuritz he bet quite big with his top2 in QTx board thuritz having KT(almost pot, more than usually), giving Thuriz a perfect spot to re-raise all-in with marginal holdings if he doesnt believe Michael, which he didnt and shipped. Then against Oppenheim on the A357A board he bet big once again on the river with K7 fully aware that Oppenheim probably has a 7 as well, or maybe a 5 and is going to call, which he did. Then in the second to last hand when he luckboxes the running trips with 23s, he overbets the pot and once again gets called my worse hand. Bet-sizing is one of the more important issues in poker which, when used properly, can confuse opponents into making the wrong decision. And that is exactly what grinder was able to accomplish here and got maximum value to his hands.

Also I loved how he was in the zone in the AQ8xx hand where oppenheim tried something crazy in river raising with nothing and grinder called him with just an 8x. Oppenheim seemed distracted somehow and was kinda donking away. In the AQ8xx hands it's really hard to see what he is representing after checking the flop and only calling the turn, then he supposedly has a raising hand on the river? Was kinda strange, seemed like Oppenheim changed his mind mid-way through the hand and decided to try to bluff it away.. Which didnt sell too well to grinder.

Mizrachi is such a hero.

It WAS kinda funny watching Oppenheim' face get redder and redder every time he spazzed and got caught.

The steam rising off the top of his head may have been a tell...

Exploding head!

Same.. Wasnt acting classy either.

DANIEL NEGREANU???

Yo russians, what did Schemelev say after the 5c on the river?

+1

What a sick heater.

Just my opinions...

tl;dr

1st) Every year when ESPN broadcasts a final table, massive suckouts and bad beats are the basis of what appears to propel the eventual winner to victory. Even Chris Ferguson sucked out massively on Cookier to get his Main Event title. Go watch the vid. We should be careful not to be overly judgmental about the play of someone on these broadcasts though because we don't see all the hands. Our own confirmation biases prevent us from acknowledging the extent to which we suck out and put a beat on someone, or someones, as we make our way to 1st in a tourney, but in the case of these broadcasts, the opposite seems to be the rule: i.e., ESPN makes $ off of showing shocking upsets (bad beats and suckouts), so we see more of them than we do conventional, well-played (i.e. "boring" for average viewers) hands. And if Grinder really is a grinder, we certainly won't see the *yawn* grinding that gets him where he needs to be. In the course of an hour-long broadcast, most of the hands shown will have at least some component of shocking luck. Take the hand where Shchemelev hits his gutshot on the turn and then Mizrachi hits a better gutshot on the river, for another example.

2nd) Mizrachi has such a Stuey degen style, and I frankly find it refreshing and entertaining to watch. Though David Baker is obviously amazing, his tortured range-eval shoves (which surely would have geeked-out justifications for them) seem to be the opposite of great hand-reading compared to the plays of good intuitive players like Mizrachi. Schoonmaker stresses in PoP the point that few of us really have intuitive hand-reading talent like Doyle or Stu, that such talent is very rare, and so we should focus our studies on what we do have control over developing (reminds me of perfect pitch, if one were to extend the analogy to music). While I understand the irritation of many of the posters itt with respect to Mizrachi's play, a part of me embraces his style as a completely legitimate alternative to the highly analytical internet brain-trust style so many posters here advocate and play.

3rd) I would love for ESPN in future years to offer a product, like a reasonably priced DVD, that contained every hand from various televised WSOP final tables, including the action from every street, for students of the game. In the case of this final table, we were given a slight hint of what sort of subtleties such a product might contain, when Mizrachi checked behind on every street in adjustment of Shchemelev, hanging the rooskie on the river. It was great to see Mizrachi exploit his opponent through such an adjustment, and if we could see every hand, those of us who study this game would have a concrete object for studying the sorts of adjustments great players make, and how gradually these adjustments take place over the course of many hands. AFAIK, no show on the market exists which has every hand played on a final table of a major tournament. If such a product did exist, the narrative of final tables would then shift from stories of suckouts and beats to stories of brilliant adjustments, counter-adjustments, and strategic exploitation. Hands out of context do not tell the whole story.

...deushe?

Well, you got this part right...

[ ] "Based on what we saw heads-up, the Russian was one of the best in the world."

You know what I would like to see? Every person that plays in the main event gets to pick 10 players that they would like to see play in a $500K HORSE. It would be like voting for the MLB All-Star team. The top 10 votes have a chance to put up $500K and play a Sit 'N Go. If a top 10 player refuses, #11 gets a chance to put up $500K, then #12, ect.

Winner take all.

the best part was when Grinder was trying to figure out if he had the right odds to call with KQ vs Oppenheimers's 4 bet. After a while of looking at the pot and attempting to figure out a range for Opp. he just said screw it, let's gamble. No big deal...it's not like you should be able to do these calculations in the head cuz if he did he'd realize KQ was like 7% below an Ev call if you give a std 4 bet range to Oppenheimer.

LOL. Do you really think a guy that plays in Bobby's Room has a standard 4 bet range in a $50K touriment? Especially when that guy is tired and bored out of his mind?

...couple more and we got all the lyrics itt.

"**** it, i'll gamble with you, call"
*oppenheim shows 8s*
"i knew you had 8s or 9s"

fdkjalkjfdsls;alf;kjlsdfkj;lfasd this is seriously the most tilting thing ever. it would be bad enough if he said he thought he had 8s or 9s, but to so matter-of-factly say he knew it after he's already been shown the hand, god i really want to punch people like that in the face. not to mention it's PURE bull**** because if he knew then he wouldn't have had the "screw it i call" attitude since it'd be a snapcall with all the chips in the pot

so so so annoying

So er where is er like er the last er installment of that episode????

Wow, a great reminder of how cruel this game can be when you're playing against the hot seat. MM butchered every hand shown (HU) and still came out smelling like roses. Fitting that the final hand was Q8 vs Q5 and everyone knew the Russkie was drawing dead. I really felt bad for the guy, and MM showed no class as he could have at least acknowledged his **** luck with some humility (at least Cada did this).

He said "First hand. Cold Deck". First hand after a short break, and board runs pretty good for both players, so if it was no preflop all-in, they would go all-in on the turn or the river for sure.

And he's not an "amateur", he s/n is NEKOTYAN on ftp.