Right now I'm trying to beat the olds on Day 2 of the WSOP Seniors.
Decent stack, long way to go. 5 day event.
Right now I'm trying to beat the olds on Day 2 of the WSOP Seniors.
Decent stack, long way to go. 5 day event.
Seniors is 50+?
Seems young to be calling people seniors at 50
Not when there's big money to be made by Caesars raking each one of those 50s dudes $100 on their $1000 buyin, and letting them buy in up to 4 times
Record field of 7188 entries this year. Fastest growing event in poker. The majority of the field looked 50-59, from my observation. It played way different than I thought. My guess was that a lot of the field would be straightforward and passive. While there was some of that, for the most part the players had a clue, and generally understood tournament strategy.
However, many of the playstyles were just bizarre. I was at a ton of different tables throughout the event, and the only consistent thing was the fact that each one had at least a few players with super strange playstyles and almost random, non-standard lines. Took me two bullets to adjust, and then I made my third bullet stand. (I also ran awful with the first two bullets and ran well with the third, so that was also a big factor).
When it was all said and done, I went into the final 2 hours of Day 2 with a stack which was about 1.5x average, ran it up a bit further, and then lost two big hands which ended my day. The first was a super-standard QQ overpair situation running it out against AdJd with a flush draw, and the As hitting the turn. The second was a squeeze attempt out of the BB over 4 limpers, holding AdTd, where the first limper oddly decided to limp JJ from early position. So he snapped me, and I didn't catch up. Went out 263rd for $4122. Blah.
I am very disappointed, as I felt I had a good feel for the players and had a fairly nice stack going in the late stages. I'll definitely be back next year.
I’m not that surprised the fields are way more competent than you imagined. Even old seventy year olds are not nearly as bad as they were 10 years ago live. They make plays and bluffs even a lower stakes games. Not all, most are holding what you think, but some will surprise you.
You figure we were only 30ish when online took off. There was a whole lot of guys like us who started playing a whole lot. Most haven’t had your success, but many have kept playing recreationally for over 20 years now. Tournament strategy isn’t beating 5/10 online. It’s fairly straightforward for the most part, and that group has $, so with $1k buy in, they’re going to mix it up. You’d see more passivity if it was a higher buy in like $5k.
You still had a nice run.
I shouldn’t have used the word competent. Tricky in ways that aren’t passive is what I meant by running bluffs in unexpected spots and not playing passive. They trap more than you expect even on scary boards.
They’ll bluff when their bluff doesn’t make sense, which makes you think they aren’t bluffing, and they’ll show you a bluff. Many have some card sense, but don’t play optimally, but can be hard to figure out. I encounter old guys often playing and I’m usually surprised a couple times a night. All the value is making them make pre-flop decisions on the lower levels, which I’d consider a 1k tournament. It’s not even a 2/5 buy in. The other main value is the tighter ones find it hard to lay down big hands. I see way more flops against old guys than younger players because I know they’ll pay it off. That’s easier to do in a cash game.
This is true. A lot will play something like 30/10 strategy. Preflop they are unorthodox and passive which makes it difficult to put them on a range post flop as they often will float to steal turn and rivers. Plus once in awhile they will hit something and get paid off cause their line makes little sense.
Kathy Liebert chip leader after 3 days.
It's a 5 day event, but it's falling faster than planned, and there's only 18 people left. Tomorrow should be a short day, just eliminating 9.
TAKE IT DOWN
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You need to update your WSOP bio to show that you are one of the few conservatives left living in CA. Has you listed as living in Vegas.
I can’t wait to play this event in 17 years. Although by that time the the young pros of today will be in the field and most of the current field will be underground. Maybe I’ll pass…
#ToddsPlan
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
"Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness." - Alejandro Jodorowsky
"America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." -- William S. Burroughs
In 17 years, most poker players will probably be over 50. Sad but true.
It was an interesting experience learning to adjust to the weird playstyles in this event. For example, I noticed that it was easier/safer to steal blinds in middle-late position, because most of these guys don't 3-bet light. So it's not like the regular NL events where some 27-year-old 3-bets my face off with 6s7s from the SB because I'm opening from the cutoff and believes I probably have shit, and is re-stealing. However, from early and early-middle, I found I had to be tighter than usual, because I would get cold called a lot, it would be hard to bet them off flops, and sometimes they'd take odd lines with super-slowplaying big hands.
One exception I found to "not 3-bet light" was pocket pairs. Some of the olds were 3-betting early raisers with 66 as if they're holding AA, and others were terrified to 3-bet with anything less than QQ, and were flatting even JJ to your late position raise.
As BCR described, it was sometimes tough to put these guys on a hand. However, it was easier than usual to extract value and to blind steal.
Down to final 5.
Kathy Liebert is 3rd in chips. The chip leader is a San Francisco attorney with some moderate poker success in the past. The other 3 seem to be rec players.
Kathy is clearly the best one at the table by a good margin, but of course there's a ton of luck at this stage. This would be her second bracelet if she could pull it off.
I did get an extra $164 because I did a hallway swap of 2% with Victor Ramdin when we saw each other during one of the breaks. We had about even chips at that point (I had slightly more). He finished 56th for $12k+, so 2% of that minus 2% of my $4k-ish cash was $164.
Every little bit counts. Would've been sweet if Victor could've taken it down, and I would have pocketed $14k. He was definitely one of the best players left at that point. Sad!
I don't feel like a senior. However, I don't feel anywhere near young anymore, either. Like I feel really, really removed from the young generation right now, to the point where I don't understand them very well.
But honestly, this event, like most things at Caesars, is all about money. They made it 50 instead of 55 because they want more entries. They get that sweet $100 rake from every buyin.
The Super Seniors being 60 is even more bullshit. That should really be an event for only elderly people. Should be 65+ for sure. I don't expect to be any worse of a poker player at 60 than I am right now. At 65, maybe I'll start to have a little decline, especially as the day wears on long. 60 just isn't old enough to make as the cutoff for the "older" seniors event.
Anyway, the reason the Seniors is a +EV event for capable players is because of the absence of people under 50, rather than the presence of people over 50. That's my #1 rule of game selection: "The absence of good players is more important than the presence of bad ones."
My dad is 75 and doing the super seniors. I didn't even realize it was 60+. I agree with Druff that is too young, but I also understand it is all about the $$$ so it is what it is. There are of course exceptions, but generally the drop-off in cognition and stamina is pretty pronounced when you go from age 60 to mid 70s. I have witnessed it plenty over the last 15 years in all the people I know in my parents generation. And of course the nation as a whole is getting a pretty good dose of this reality, with so many powerful politicians in this age group deteriorating before our eyes (not just Biden, but his is the most obvious and impactful IMO).
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