You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
Sky Poker forums will be temporarily unavailable from 11pm Wednesday July 25th.
Sky Poker Forums is upgrading its look! Stay tuned for the big reveal!
Most profitable sports bet and Will Kassouf in WSOP Main Event
Hi Neil, great to have this thread and thanks again for your support with the heads up comp and the TLB2016 charity initiative as a whole.
I was wondering what your most profitable ever sports bet was? How much did you win? What were the odds? Did you have "insider" knowledge? ie) A horse you'd seen run on the gallops or something similar.
On the poker front, something topical from this years WSOP.
I'm guessing you are aware of Will Kassouf's deep run in the M/E this year, and the controversy resulting in his one round penalty.
I was wondering where you stood on this? Was it "fair enough", should he have got a penalty at all? Should the penalty have been worse? Are these antics good for the game or something we should be trying to stamp out?
How do you stand on speech play in general. Once heads up, does anything go?
Whilst we are on the speech play topic, as far as you are aware, are the rules the same in different countries? (ie OK heads up, but not multi-way),
Is it OK heads up to declare your hand for instance (either truthfully or untruthfully.) Do these rules vary from tournament to tournament?
Can you say for example, well I've got AK (when I may or may not have.) If this is not ok, can you say things like, "If you've got an Ace it's good" when it may or may not be so.
I've always found the speech play "rules" a little ambiguous and open for interpretation, so would really value your thoughts.
Cheers,
Graham
Comments
Think of the difference that could have made to his wealth.
Hi Graham,
My most profitable "sports" bet was definitely a poker bet on myself to win the Irish Open...I thought the price of 200/1 was about right at the start given that there were 650+ runners but a lot of them were playing their first ever live event and many were very inexperienced. I managed to more than double my stack on day 1 and about 240 went through to day two. I got 100/1 at that stage which I thought was pretty fair. I actually backed a bunch of people and laid out about £2500. I had £500 on myself. Going into day three I had £500 at 40/1 on Sorel Mizzi who was chip-leader with 40 left and £600 at 66/1 on John Kabbaj who was also doing very well. All good fun and games.
In sports I liked the way the Rams scored a lot of points in their games in the NFL in the late 90s so after they won a couple of early games in 1999 I bet them at 100/1 to win the Super Bowl. Each week they were winning and scoring and I kept having a bit more on. I bet them at 80/1, 66/1 50/1, 40/1 33/1, 28/1 20/1 14/1, 8/1 and I was still betting more at 4/9 on the day. A guy reaches out to try and get the ball over the line for Tennessee on the last play of the game and his arm doesn't quite get there. That was a bit of a buzz and it won me a very decent five figure sum.
I don't have massive views on what happened with Will at the WSOP. I quite like Will off the table but on the table I do find him extremely annoying and I've told him that many times and this has caused some friction between us. I feel quite strongly that when he goes over the top his behaviour can discourage newer players and especially women from enjoying the game and anything that discourages those people is terrible for the development of the game. The worse thing though is the way he massively slows the game down. I've been on his table where the game is going along quite normally and then we get on the feature table and suddenly we cant get 20 hands an hour in. The idea that he has to be the centre of attention the whole time but now he stops people from having their best chance in the tournament as he basically makes the structure worse for everyone by wasting time really upsets me.
I actually don't do a lot of long-term betting but I'm never afraid of taking big prices if I see value. In the Ryder Cup once I bet the European team to win day one 8-0 at 500/1...I got £500 on as I thought it was a good bet. Lots of people think you should have more on when the price is shorter. The real way to do it is have more on when the price is most wrong.
Generally though I like anything that makes the game more fun and if possible tournament staff should leave the players to just get on with the game. Unless there is any suspicion that speech play could be implied to be collusion, (if you fold I can knock the other guy out or let's call and check it down, that sort of thing), I would let players get on with it.
I agree, ambigous rules are a bad thing.
I would say it's totally wide open and anyone can beat anyone...the format means there is a fair bit of luck in it. Thoich is a decent player though and I wouldn't bet against him.
Obviously if I was still in I'd say it's all skill.