Final WSOP Props
Monday, June 02, 2008
I put out the call for WSOP prop bets on Friday and three people answered, Fuel55, Ingoal and UWannaBet. And since I doubt I will remember these prop bets a month from now, I thought I'd share and organize them here. Just as a reminder, all bets start with Event #3 and last throughout the WSOP.
Fuel 55
- Main Event Attendance Over/Under ($15.55): My pick is OVER 6218. My logic is that we will likely have more players than last year, which was the first post UIGEA drop. Now we know that the UIGEA is the tiger without teeth, so the fear is a lot less and online poker sites have hopefully resumed sending players en masse to the biggest game of the year. Other considerations will be discussed below.
- Pick 3 Total Most Cash Won ($8.25): Fuel chose Phil Hellmuth, Johnathon Little, and Sorel Mizzi. I chose Phil Ivey, Allen Cunningham, and Johnny Chan. I'll admit something here. I am not a super knowledgeable guy when it comes to poker pros. I rarely watch poker on TV nowadays, and I don't play in online stakes or care about online poker enough to know about up and coming online players. So, while I know Hellmuth and I have heard of Little and Mizzi, I couldn't pick Little and Mizzi out of a line-up and I sure as hell can't assess their abilities. What I can do is play the numbers game. Ivey is a consistent casher and is likely to play most, if not all, events due to his Full Tilt affiliation. He is also #14 in the most cash won at the WSOP, which is even more impressive, given his failure to win the Main Event and his young age. Allen Cunningham is a consistent performer at #4 in the most cash won category (29 cashes). He has been performing well of late, which hopefully will also carry through the WSOP. Johnny Chan has something to prove as he shoots for this record-breaking 12th bracelet. He is also #11 on the all time total cash list, after cashing in 36 events.
- Highest Main Event Finish (Best Single Finish) ($11.85)- Fuel chose Negreanu, Matusow and Kirk Morrison. I chose Cunningham again, Todd Brunson and John Juanda. I chose Cunningham because of his stellar performance two years ago and my confidence in his abilities in long-form live NLHE tournaments. He won an event in the end of 2007 and a WSOP Circuit Event in 2008. I chose Brunson as my dark horse. I don't really have much reason. I know he is a good player and with some luck, I have confidence he could go deep. I chose Juanda because I am always impressed when I see him play. This was really just based on feel, since it is a real crapshoot. Anything can happen in a single tournament.
Ingoal
- Main Event Attendance Over/Under ($5)- I chose UNDER 7325. I chose the under for two reasons. The first is that it is a hedge bet. If I am off about my bet with Fuel, then I will win this bet to cover some of the cost. The other reason is that I sincerely believe we will have about 7200 players, a significant increase from last years ~6200, but not a huge increase. Even though the online sites will probably "send" more players, I am just as confident that a lot of those players will take the money and run instead of applying it to the Main Event.
- Most Bracelets Won Total ($10)- Ingoal chose Johnny Chan and Greg Raymer. I chose Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius. If I really thought it out, I would've rejected this bet, since I picked Chan in my last bet. Even so, I figure that Chan will likely cash a lot without a bracelet. The fact that this bet is only about bracelets says a lot. Anything less than a win is useless. Chan and Raymer are a good team, but I decided to choose Hansen and Antonius because both seem to be on a heater. Gus took first in the Aussie Millions and Antonius
- Most Total Cash Won ($5): Ingoal chose Chris Ferguson and Daniel Negreanu. I chose Bill Chen and TJ Cloutier. This was a real lark for me. I know Bill Chen mostly from his mathlete book on poker. However, he also is a PokerStars pro, and therefore will probably be playing on their dime for most tournaments. He has cashed at the WSOP in a variety of different types of poker and won two events in 2006. I figure he is hungry for more wins, especially since it will help his book sales. TJ is just a work horse. I'm just choosing him with the hopes that he plays consistently.
You may notice that I chose all different people for the Total Cash Won bet with Ingoal, rather than sticking to players I chose in my bet with Fuel. This is purely for diversification purposes.
UWannaBet
- Main Event Attendance Over/Under ($10) - I chose OVER 6700. To be totally honest, UWannaBet did such a great job of choosing the line that I really couldn't decide at first. I even considered rejecting the bet. When it was all said and done, though, I did the math and realized that between the other two O/U bets, if I picked OVER 6700, I was in the best shape to hit all three. So the sweet spot for me is anywhere between 6700 and 7385, a gap of 635 players. If I went with the Under, my ideal spot would've been between 6218 and 6700, which is less than 500 players for the big win. It all came down to math.
- Pick 3 Final Table/Bracelet Competitions ($3 per final table, $10 per bracelet): UWannaBet chose Eric Seidel, Michael Binger and Brandon Cantu. I chose Cunningham, Chan, and Joe Hachem. Hachem has been fairly consistent last two year and seems to shine during the WSOPs. Cunningham is my work horse, and I discussed Chan earlier. Originally, Unimpressed chose Antonius instead of Cantu, but since I already picked Antonius in another bet, he subbed in Cantu.
- Lime Throwing Championship, Pauly v. Otis ($5): I chose Pauly (first pick), leaving UWannaBet with Otis. This one seemed obvious to me. I couldn't bet against my fellow New Yorker.
So, there you have it. My willy-nilly prop bets to keep the WSOP semi-interesting to me this year.
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 10:37 AM,
1 Comments:
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At 4:32 PM,
said...
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Pretty much a coin flip on how those prop bets will go.
Phil Ivey may or may not play a lot of events depending on how the high stakes cash games are going.
Those are what sometimes keep away big name players like David Benyamine, Patrik Antonius, Doyle Brunson, Eli Elezra, and yes Phil Ivey.
Ivey has been playing in these early events so we'll see what happens with him...
I picked him in my WSOP fantasy pool anyways.
