Home / Poker News November 2013 / A Few Thoughts on Ryan Riess’ WSOP Main Event Victory
A Few Thoughts on Ryan Riess’ WSOP Main Event Victory
Posted by: Jo Martin - Thu, 2013-11-07 14:37
Hindsight is always 20/20, they say, but everyone who kept an eye on the November Niners before the final table showdown could tell you that Ryan Riess, the eventual winner, had indeed been the odd one out. Unlike most of the other players, he was unusually calm about it and when asked how he planned to prepare for the home stretch, he said he wasn’t planning on doing anything out of the ordinary. Above and beyond the obvious temerity coming from that statement, he was also pretty square about the fact that he was going to win it all, because he was the best player at the table. Coming from a 23 year-old, with just two years of live poker experience under his belt, these statements obviously drew a lot of heat from members of the poker public and from high-profile poker professionals alike.
Most of the critique was directed at the way he handled himself on Day 8, having taken his stack above the 50 million chip mark. The
online poker community was outraged at how he yielded to McLaughlin’s aggression, and played way too passively from late position.
When asked about it, Riess seemed glad to shine some light on why he played the way he did. He said he kept getting complete rags and although his position would’ve allowed him to raise any two cards, he wanted to set up a bit of a tussle between the two short-stacks, Lehavot and McLaughlin, and the best way he figured he would achieve that was by folding.
He also addressed Scott Seiver’s assertion that “he sucked”, by saying that he just didn’t care about what Seiver had to say.
Although the fact that he considers himself the world’s best player failed to earn him a lot of fans, his Phil Hellmuth-esque attitude may yet turn out to be a valuable asset for him in the future.
The best way to qualify to major live events like the WSOP is obviously though PokerStars’ online qualifiers.
