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Finding an edge in the $40k
Maio 28, 2009When Harrah’s announced the $40,000 event to kick off the 2009 WSOP, my interest level was cursory at best. Other than some occasional speculation about how many players would pony up an average citizen’s annual salary, I just didn’t pay much attention to it. While I had looked in detail at the structure sheets for the events I intend to play, I didn’t even take a glance at this one.
Since the players started with 120,000 chips, I assumed it would be a marathon and benefit the pros that have most of their experience in deep-stack situations. I was really expecting to see some of the well-known cash game players dominating the leaderboard.
However, once I heard the blinds started at 200-400 with a 50 ante, I realized this wouldn’t necessarily be the case. Considering you could put buy a nice Audi with 40 dimes, the structure actually kind of sucks. At the WPT championship, it really does take a setup hand (or two) to bust in the first few hours. As I’m writing this, the starting field of 201 has already been reduced to 174. That’s 26 eliminations in less than four hours.
Justin Young, a regular on the tournament circuit and high stakes cash game player, believes this structure actually gives an edge to the online pros. “These guys are in these situations all the time. They’re comfortable playing big pots in marginal situations where some of the live players will be too passive coming out of the gate. I think 7 of the 9 final tablists will be under 27.”
While he doesn’t think it necessarily gives the online players a bigger edge, Joe Sebok concurred with the thrust of Young’s statement. Sebok offered a shrewd critique, “Just because you start out with 120,000 chips doesn’t mean your deep stacked.” He pointed out that the structure is “brutal” when you look at the price tag. I'm not trying to suggest it's a 40k turbo, just that we're going to see late-game tournament situations come into play earlier than most would expect (re-stealing, coinflips, etc.)
I think we’ll see a number of the “online pros” make a good run in this event, but you can’t count out guys with the experience and understanding of tournament situations Andy Bloch or Allen Cunningham. If I had any real ambition, I would do a breakdown of the field…a live vs online kind of thing. Instead, I’ll just offer my best guess and say that 5 of the final 9 will be people considered “online pros.”
