FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#615 – Tournament Star Contest – Who You Picked

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

I was especially interested, in running the contest asking about who you would choose as your Main Event final-table coach, if there were any consensus picks. There were, predictably, a wide variety of coaches chosen, but some interesting results emerged.

Young Teacher

A number of players chose top young players. Alec Torelli received multiple votes, and other emerging stars drawing support included Scott Clements, Eric “Sheets” Haber, and Paul Wasicka.

Teachers of Varying Degrees

To my surprise, Dan Harrington was chosen just once. I figured with his final table experience and the enormous success of his books, he would easily be one of the leading choices. In fact, Mike Matusow, who isn’t known for his teaching (and whose skills in this area, because they are below the radar, are in many instances seriously underrated), received a lot more support. Of course, Matusow has been to the final table a couple times AND played many of these same players in finishing 30th in the 2008 Main Event.

Although it’s not generally acknowledged, his many deep final-table appearances in WSOP and WPT events have revealed him to be a master of situational play. Although I would want Andy Bloch or Chris Ferguson making my decisions in many circumstances – I think Mike, contrary to what some people think about his image, is capable of getting run over by playing too tight – Matusow is a master at making laydowns, surviving, and knowing how much stealing you need to do and how much you need to lay back to make it to the last couple players.

Howard Lederer and Daniel Negreanu, thoughtful players with a history of trying to pass along their tournament knowledge to other players, made several entries, to no one’s surprise. What surprised me is that Joe Navarro, the former FBI behavioral profiler who has written about poker tells, drew just about as many votes.

Mister Popularity

The player who got the second-most votes was Phil Hellmuth. Phil, like Mike, is excellent at staying alive, taking small aggressive stabs at pots but avoiding committing himself. And he has also done a lot of writing and teaching about poker, so the impression is there that he would be effective at communicating his lessons.

I was very surprised by the most popular choice: Allen Cunningham.

Of course, he makes perfect sense on the merits. He has won five bracelets, has lots of other final table experience in major tournaments, and finished fourth in 2006. What surprised me is that (in contrast to Lederer or Negreanu or Hellmuth or Ferguson) Cunningham seems to go out of his way to avoid drawing attention to himself or publicizing information about his style of play. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be a great teacher. It just means that Allen, like Erik Seidel, has left the sources of his success sufficiently mysterious/unstated as to make the experience of retaining him as a coach a complete unknown.

The good news, you future final-tablers, is that AC may be available. When I told him about the contest, he was (predictably) vague about what he thought he would teach someone going to the final table. But when we talked about fees, it seemed Allen wasn’t rejecting out of hand the idea that, for 10% of earnings (above 9th place money), he might take the job.

I’ll try to get you the results of the other two contests, Cash Game Killer and Enigma, ASAP.

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