The 2003 WSOP Main Event Final table participants – where they are now

The 2003 WSOP’s Main Event was undoubtedly one of the greatest moments in the history of the game. A true turning point, Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 win sparked the online poker crazy and pretty much single handedly turned poker into the global industry we know today.
Besides Moneymaker, there were other players at that 2003 final table too though, and while finishing at the final table didn’t quite mean as much financially as it does today, the rewards were still nice and many of the players involved went on to continue their careers as top-class professional players.
Eliminated in 9th place, and rewarded with $120k for his efforts, David Singer would probably be extremely disappointed with that haul by today’s standards, back then however, it turned out to be a driving force for him, as he started spending more and more time playing in online and live poker tournaments. One thing led to another for this talented player and following his WSOP final table presence, he amassed close to $4 million in tournament winnings. He made no fewer than 5 more WSOP final tables and won a bracelet in the $1,500 PLH event in 2008.

David Grey was the one sent packing in 8th place. His reward was slightly better: he picked up $160k, still rather unimpressive by the standards set by subsequent Big Dances. Unlike Singer, Grey had already had a WSOP bracelet before his 2003 final table presence. In its wake though, he too ramped up his tournament schedule and sure enough, he scored a second bracelet in 2005 in the $5,000 NL Deuce to Seven Draw side-event. Grey had been a relatively steady tournament earner before his 2003 Main Event sting, and he became even more prolific afterwards: he added another $886k to his already impressive tournament tally.
Young Pak finished 7th back in 2003 and since then, he’s pretty much disappeared off the map of prestigious live poker events. His tournament winnings had been relatively modest before his final table presence too at $34k, and they haven’t exactly turned northward afterwards either. He only managed to add $47k more, and his best post-2003-final table performance was a 246th place in the Big Dance in 2005.

Of all 2003 final table participants, Amir Vahedi was the one who faired the worst. He took down a quarter million dollars then, and he followed it all up with $2.2 million in additional tournament winnings after the 2003 Big Dance, but unfortunately he passed away in January 2010 due to diabetes complications. Right before his death though, he was regarded one of the friendliest and most beloved faces the game of poker had ever had.
Tomer Benvenisti, the 5th place finisher, had not been playing professionally before the 2003 WSOP. He had had no official tournament earnings and he didn’t really become successful after his $320k WSOP feat either.
Jason Lester, bounced in 4th place, was a high stakes cash game player. Just like Singer and Grey, he started playing in more tournaments after his final table stint. In 2010, Lester has been on something of a roll, finishing deep in several high stakes live events.
Dan Harrington, 3rd place man in the 2003 Big Dance, needs no introduction. For a player who has never been a full time pro, Harrington has done extremely well. The very next year (2004) he finished 4th in the Main Event. He also has several WPT final table finishes to his name. Most importantly, he is the author of some of the most popular poker theories and books.
Sam Farha (2003 runner-up), is also an established poker pro. A millionaire businessman, Farha has no fewer than 3 WSOP bracelets to his name, two of which came after his 2003 final table stint. At the time, he had already had a bracelet.

Chris Moneymaker, the winner, is one of PokerStars’ in-house pros today. Though many have doubted his skills over the years, he has proved his worth in several live and online events since. Though he hadn’t had a single cent in tournament winnings before 2003, he’s amassed more than 500k afterwards.

Cashing in on your big hands in poker

Winning poker theory is simple: all you need to do is to make the most of your made hands and to lose as little as possible on your rags. That’s easier said than done though. Minimizing losses on weak hands is relatively easy, that’s not what most people get wrong. Maximizing winnings on legit hands is a different story, and no matter how good you think you are at it, there’s probably plenty of room for improvement for you too in this respect.

One of the first things you need to learn about poker is that there are two types of made hands. One type which is bound to land you small pots and the other which will result in large pots. Pocket pairs obviously belong in the first category. While you know that you probably have the best hand at the table before the flop, your advantage is extremely flimsy and vulnerable, thus you do not want to commit a too large portion of your stack on it (unless you’re in the closing stages of a MTT, which is a different story). Large pot hands are flushes, straights, boats and even sets. With these hands, you can be fairly certain that you do indeed have something that will hold out till showdown, so getting as much money into the pot on them as possible makes perfect sense.

One of the most basic ways to build a large pot is through the small steps policy. The reason you can’t just barge through the door and bet your $200 into a $20 pot is that you’ll scare off your opponents, the very guys whose chips you’re after. Thus firing out a reasonably sized bet in order to get a snowball effect going, starting out small and eventually getting all the chips into the middle, is a much healthier approach. The snowball effect means that you pretty much have to bet at every available opportunity. In NL poker, your bets should generally represent a percentage of the pot. Whether you start out pot-size or half-pot size is up to you, one thing’s certain though: the pot will grow bigger and bigger on every street thus a small bet in the beginning will blossom into a true avalanche by the final betting round.
The betting on every street method has its flaws too though. It is an overly simplistic approach really which won’t work against seasoned players with enough finesse under their belts, therefore you should only make use of it if your micro table image is extremely bad (you’ve just been caught red-handed when bluffing) or against some of the old-fashioned calling stations (though there are ever fewer of those guys running around these days).
Of course, you can also rush things a little by squeezing two betting rounds into one through the check-raise.

When you do the good old check-raise, you basically check through to your opponent showing weakness this way and tempting him to take the initiative. When he does by betting into you, you raise him. This way you get to shove much more money into the middle than through a plain bet. The risks are obvious though: your opponent may just check too, and thus you’ll miss an entire betting round, or he’ll be scared off by your check raise, because quite frankly, a check-raise will pretty much always blow your cover right away.
The overbet is quite possibly the ultimate weapon in a good player’s pot-building arsenal. The overbet usually screams “bluff” and there are still many old-school players out there who believe that every time an opponent bets more than the pot, he’s bluffing. Such players can be taken advantage of through overbets, and Tom Dwan, Full Tilt’s infamous pro is the master of such treachery.

The worst poker hand

What do you think the worst poker hand is? The worst pocket hand… before you start screaming 7,2o pause for a second and give it some thought. 7,2o may be mathematically the worst starting hand indeed. It cannot really make straights or flushes unless giving up a card and even if it does hit one that way, it is likely to get the player stuck on the lower end of it. If it hits a pair, it’s almost certainly beat. Hitting a trip is one hell of a long-shot, so it’s basically quite useless. The very fact though that even a beginner can tell why this hand should be mucked, saves it from the stigma of the worst staring hand in poker. Nobody plays the 7,2o. If you do not have any money committed (you haven’t paid one of the blinds) folding it is a no-brainer. You won’t ever really lose any money with the 7,2o unless you’re the BB or the SB. In case you are, there’s only one way you’ll ever take it to the flop: if a limping fest ensues. Other than that, you’ll fold it anyway, letting go of the chips you’ve committed, and in the long-run, yes indeed you will lose some money on it this way. The extremely few times you do end up seeing a flop with it though, every once in a while you end up being hit dead on for a two pair or for some trips. These few cases will generate enough value for you to offset the losses you incur on the blinds. Chances are that in the long-run, a reasonable poker player is in the black with his 7,2o, or he’s only marginally in the red.

The worst poker hand obviously needs to be sought elsewhere.
The worst hand is a hand which gets you to shove a bunch of your chips into the middle, and it ends up stripping you of them much more often than not. The culprit could be something like a J,J promoting you to shove all-in in a tournament only to be met with your opponent’s pocket rockets, Ks or Qs. The J,J is also gut-wrenchingly vulnerable when faced with a higher card on the flop, and then with another one on the turn. The K,Q is a good candidate too. It’s not a bad starting hand, but when an A lands on the flop, your post-flop life instantly becomes unbearably difficult. The K,9 and the J,10s are other examples of such perfect worst hand candidates.

With all the above taken into account, the bottom line is obvious: the worst poker hand is different from one player to another, there is no clearly definable “worst hand”. Your worst poker hand is the one which makes your post-flop life miserable. The hand you have the most trouble folding when you suspect you’re beat, the one that makes you uncomfortable (and thus prone to commit mistakes) even when you’re pretty sure you’re ahead.

“Worst” hands do carry some common characteristics, at least for reasonably good poker players: they’re made up of two big cards, unpaired, that are one or two gappers. A K,10 or a Q,10 are excellent examples in this sense. Our guy plays them because of the implied odds they carry, he then hits a top pair and he finds he still can’t feel happy about it on account of his kicker. Most of the “worst” hands flop draws easily, and that’s when the problems surface. Players generally have difficulties playing flopped draws and this often leads to tilting.

After having read all this, I’m quite certain next time you’re asked about the worst starting hand in poker, you’ll take a moment before you reply.

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Your non-showdown winnings

The redline and the non-showdown winnings it represents, may be one of the most sneaky aspects of poker strategy. You may do everything right, and by failing to pay attention to you redline, you may still end up a loser. Are you one of the TAG-fish who’s already managed to address all the obvious issues (which I discussed in a different article on here, by the way) leading to that condition and you’re still unable to walk away a winner? It’s almost certain that you have your red line to blame for your plight. I do see that I’m cutting ahead of myself here, so let’s just try to digest this one step at a time.

What is the red line? In online poker stat tracking applications, (like Holdem Manager and Poker Tracker) players have an option to view a summary of their showdown winnings. To make it easier to assess, the software displays the statistical data in the shape of a graph which is as easy on the eyes as it gets. On that graph, there is a red line which represent your non-showdown winnings (money that you win without ever going to showdown). For some people, the red-line slopes upward, which means they’re successful at squeezing money out of their opponents without going to showdown. If the redline slopes downward though, it means you’re losing money on your non showdown confrontations. If your redline presents only a minor southward tendency, you may still be an overall winner, on account of your generous showdown winnings which tip the balance your way regardless of the losses you incur. It also means there’s still room for improvement in the non-showdown department for you.
If your redline is sloping upward, obviously, you need to look for problems elsewhere.

If your redline exhibits a sharp downward slope though, you should probably be happy because you’ve just identified the source of your problems. You are losing so much money on non showdown situations, that you’re unable to make up for those losses through the money that you win on your showdown hands.
What are some possible causes for such seriously southward bound red lines? Common sense tells you there’s just one cause: you putting money into the pot and then giving it up by folding, but that’s the overly simplistic approach. In reality, there are a myriad of possible causes. Calling a raise on a weak made hand and then having second thoughts about it and yielding to further pressure. Chasing draws too far in a passive manner and chasing too many of them. Calling preflop three-bets and then folding when the flop misses you. Committing money into the pot preflop when out of position. Being just plain bad at C-betting. C-betting is a very subtle issue as it offers mediocre players so many opportunities to make mistakes. Once he discovers the value of the c-bet, the average player is tempted to abuse it, thus firing out c-bets way too often and from less than ideal spots. These players are easily intimidated when c-betting, so they do make the initial move, but they fold it afterward at the slightest sign of resistance on the part of their opponents.

Passive play is generally a true red-line slayer. Say you three bet before the flop (you’re the aggressor) but then you turn passive past the flop on account of the rags that you pick up, giving your opponents the opportunity to strike back and to force you to fold.

How do you improve your red line? If you’re guilty of any of the above listed sins, you probably already know what you need to do. Other than that, try to stay on top of your game all the time, and DO NOT make moves that you do not really want to make for heck knows what reason.