[sam9ball]

05/04	Team World					Team USA					Confederates					Team Canada
1	Enkhbat	4800	28		1	MrKLC	7055	34		1	GaryDN	4725	29		1	sinmiedo	6755	22
2	Stifler	4785	24		2	blankoblanco	6275	24		2	bobbywaves	4585	25		2	snapperman2	4680	17
3	dhristov211	4410	17		3	AutoDonk	5615	25		3	TheGiant	4575	26		3	nitlogic	4655	13
4	Stefan	4345	36		4	JAKEPEAVY21	5385	25		4	Cross	4445	22		4	aggieshawn	4245	22
5	Mannyfan	4195	22		5	Triple_D_Bet	5330	21		5	astro61200	4415	22		5	JoeyBagels	3615	22
6	slikec	4115	15		6	ArunSh	5295	24		6	ronpaul2008	4395	19		6	BeerDog99	3565	25
7	Grivas_Digeni	4100	17		7	oneunder	5285	29		7	oiler	4360	26		7	vbpro7	3265	13
8	Manosdepiedra	3815	19		8	dlowilly	5175	26		8	lobo369	4355	27		8	Krashman	3030	30
9	Lex_icon	3760	31		9	chili_powder	5050	22		9	shane	4305	24		9	firekillex	2820	29
10	dare	3635	21		10	JayTris07	4950	20		10	craigpb	4100	31		10	cankid	2225	14
11	spider	3530	24		11	chico2663	4320	20		11	k6mike9	4050	21		11	bracerman	2180	6
12	Spacefrog	3520	11		12	sportfan	4745	24		12	smitch124	4000	23		12	MillerTime99	2085	12

[chico2663]

yes i know i'm on the confederate team at this time

[Auto Donk]

CHECK IT!!!


YOU KNOW HOW I BE!!!!

Another week later and Waves still trailing me.....

YOU KNOW HOW I BE!!!!

SCAMMIN' BOBBYWAVES CAN'T CATCH ME!!!!

OKAY!!!! WAVES!!!!!

TELL ME HOW MY ASS TASTES!!!!!

[sinmiedo]

Waves in any team is -1.
Good luck USA.

[ArunSh]

Crazy how streaky this is. After two weeks of barely cashing/not cashing at all and being off/close to off of the Confederate Team, have 1st/1st/3rd/12th this week! A bit of improvement in my positioning!

Hopefully have close to secured a spot on the Confederate Team at least which is the main goal by far, to make the Finals on whichever team. And after the way I've run this week, good chance that I've set myself up for an extreme doomswitch for quite awhile (perhaps for the entire remaining ~4 weeks) . But as I said, even if that happens, hopefully still make the Confederates at least!

Using the marks at the approximate midpoint of this contest as a guide, the cutoffs to make each team will probably be roughly:

World: 4250
USA: 6400
Confed: 5350
Canada: 2700

[sinmiedo]

You are always a major contender and one of the strongest SBR players over the years.
Best of luck Arun, however, you do not need it, you are a great poker player.

[Triple_D_Bet]

You are always a major contender and one of the strongest SBR players over the years.
Best of luck Arun, however, you do not need it, you are a great poker player.

I'll second that, Arun a solid player and adds value to whatever team he ends up on. If we can keep bobbo off the team, we'll have a pretty good shot at de-throning the Canadians this year

[Optional]

I'll second that, Arun a solid player and adds value to whatever team he ends up on. If we can keep bobbo off the team, we'll have a pretty good shot at de-throning the Canadians this year

Dream on. World has this. Will be strongest team ever.

[Auto Donk]

it must be evening whereever opti is, and he's nearing the end of a day of long drinkin'

[4uk4life]

Team Pizza for the win!

[chico2663]

I hope i miss by an inch. Cash all the free plays and don't have to take shit for being a shitty player. Just remember the sun shines on every dog's ass one day.

[USCPHILLYGUY]

Don't think I've played in 2 weeks. Just not enough time in the day.

Can someone beat this freaking canucks

[Triple_D_Bet]

Dream on. World has this. Will be strongest team ever.

Sure, but strongest ever world team isn't saying much, right?

[4uk4life]

This place is like the NBA draft, people shove or call all ins on potential. Who cares what the hand is at the point of calling. Of course the river rewards

[USCPHILLYGUY]

This place is like the NBA draft, people shove or call all ins on potential. Who cares what the hand is at the point of calling. Of course the river rewards

this man gets it. During my down time at work this week I've probably played about 6-8 hours on PokerStars. Mainly .25/.50 - .50/1. I can remember ONE bad beat. I'm SB with KQ off. Button raises $3.95 with 66. I call one other caller with QJ. Flop QQ4. We go Check check button bets $18. Both call. Turn Card 5. Now 38-39 $$ in pot. Check check 66 guy goes all in with rest of his stack ($30). I re raise to $80 other guy goes all in so another $45 for me to call. I'm thinking he has 4's but what the hell. This is now close to $300 pot at .50/1 table! Of course river J to beat me. This scenario would happen 5 x a tourney here.

[ArunSh]

Thanks for the nice words sinmiedo + Triple_D. Hope to be an asset to whichever team I'm on though frankly in the past while I've done ok in the World Cup, definitely never anything great! I think the format of the final tourneys definitely is more suited for aggressive players like you guys than tight players like myself. But ok, that's part of poker, have to adjust style accordingly to the tournament that you happen to be in. But as you correctly said in the other thread Triple, it's much easier to be a tight player than an aggressive player - similarly is much harder for a naturally tight player to suddenly play aggressively than it is for a naturally aggressive player to suddenly play tight.

That said, I don't entirely agree with another thing you said that "being aggressive is the better strategy". That is a rather broad statement, and of course different successful players have different styles, some tight, some aggressive. In certain situations (especially in SBR dailies given the payout structure) tight play is probably called for while in tournaments with more normal payout structures or the World Cup finals, the general play should certainly be more aggressive. But overall, sometimes tighter play is better given the circumstances and other times aggressive play is - really depends, which is why I personally would not make such a sweeping statement that "being aggressive is better". To me it's more as they often say, knowing when to be tight or aggressive, practicing "selective aggression" is key to being successful in tournaments of all kinds in the long-term.

Anyway, all this said I personally think the format for the Finals is a bit too luck based, my performance this week is a good indication of that. 0/4 in first four days last week for cashing while 1st/1st/3rd/12th in first four days this week - which is the same amount of tourneys as the Finals, shows how huge the variance can be for anyone over only four tournaments, and as a result a rather large amount of variance for the overall teams as well. Sure the better players/better teams will win a bit more often, but given the fair amount of short term luck, I personally would be surprised if any one of the four teams is better than say 35% to win it all and likewise if any team is worse than 15% to win it all, rather narrow margins if I'm right! That's why I said it's not a big deal to me which team I wind up on as long as I make it - as they say in baseball, the most important thing is to be in the playoffs since once you are there anything can happen.

Of course that's one of the things that makes me not crazy about the World Cup Format (ok those tourneys they have where Top 100 qualify for one big tournament might be even more short term luck based) - that in addition to the US players having a much tougher road to qualify than non-US players. But is what it is, it's free and has very nice prizes so certainly no real justification to complain though I do feel some small minor changes to the general formats would really improve the health of the poker community here a decent amount.

[4uk4life]

It'd be cool if they could do a CUP series without the regions part. Say at the end of the series, the top 4 cashers get to choose their team of 12 draft style from the remaining 44 top cashers. Would be fun to team up with a mix of guys regardless of where they're from.

[ArunSh]

It'd be cool if they could do a CUP series without the regions part. Say at the end of the series, the top 4 cashers get to choose their team of 12 draft style from the remaining 44 top cashers. Would be fun to team up with a mix of guys regardless of where they're from.

Yes, I agree that would be a fun idea which would be more fair to all involved. That plus maybe making the Finals a bit longer (say two weeks instead of one week) to lower the variance would really improve the general format in my opinion.

[USCPHILLYGUY]

Yes, I agree that would be a fun idea which would be more fair to all involved. That plus maybe making the Finals a bit longer (say two weeks instead of one week) to lower the variance would really improve the general format in my opinion.

the "mighty" Canadian team would have 4 participants tops

[Chili_Powder]

lol, guys keep talking about this promotion being free. In my opinion, the three most valuable things in this world are family, health and time. When you consider the sheer time involved in the World Cup (especially for US players trying to qualify), and also that it takes away from the other 2 on that list, it is anything but free. I'm not saying that this promotion doesn't have it's benefits or anything....but being free is not one of them.

[sinmiedo]

It'd be cool if they could do a CUP series without the regions part. Say at the end of the series, the top 4 cashers get to choose their team of 12 draft style from the remaining 44 top cashers. Would be fun to team up with a mix of guys regardless of where they're from.

not a bad idea, in fact many year ago i proposed something in those lines. nevertheless and after reading many complains about the format, i see 24 usa players that against 12 world and 12 canadians.
the sbr payout format also allows multiple cashes to guys that would never make any team or points in that effect. paying an absurd 30% creates a big distortion, in my oppinion this type of 40 sng should pay top 6 or 7 not 12, if so you will see where the strong players from any teams are.
for the time been i enjoy the free tournaments,the fun rollover, and the great sbr poker comunity.
gl tall and let the best team take the championship over again.

[ArunSh]

lol, guys keep talking about this promotion being free. In my opinion, the three most valuable things in this world are family, health and time. When you consider the sheer time involved in the World Cup (especially for US players trying to qualify), and also that it takes away from the other 2 on that list, it is anything but free. I'm not saying that this promotion doesn't have it's benefits or anything....but being free is not one of them.

You may be right that time is a very valuable commodity - that said, it is everyone's choice to choose to devote their time to this, obviously no one is forcing you. Compared to those who play online poker for real $ - those people can lose both $ and time, here you can only lose time and are guaranteed to make some amount of points in the long-term pretty much no matter how good/bad you are.

In regards to people's general comments about how the tournaments paying 12 players being out of wack with normal tournaments which would only pay 4-5 given the number of entrants, not sure. If they kept the same total amount of payout, paying only 4-5 people, I would not object to that certainly (yes this would definitely favor the players with the more aggressive styles, but ok if you are a good player you would need to adapt to that, and it would be more like poker tournaments in the real world).

However, if they kept same payouts for Top 4-5 while eliminating the other placings entirely, I think it would discourage a lot of people from playing, those small cashes do add up considering you do devote at least an hour of your attention to get them. Obviously this would be bad for everyone's bottom line, no matter the style, so I certainly can't hope that they do that! But changing the # of places paid while keeping the same total payout is not at all unreasonable (even if it probably is not good for me personally, pretty sure I did better when the tourneys paid out to 20 places a few years ago haha).

I do think the draft style of Top 4 players drafting their teams amongst the next 44 top cashers would be a very fun format. I doubt SBR will do it, but can still can suggest it, if for no other reason that having the same format year after year has gotten a bit dry - let's shake it up a bit!

[Chili_Powder]

I do like the draft idea being discussed by a a good number of players. There seems to be a decent amount of support for that, so perhaps that will consider that in the future. I can only imagine the level of trash talk leading up to and after the draft, it would be quite entertaining.

[firekillex]

i like it the way it is
go canada

[Auto Donk]

i like the idea of the draft as well.... it'll remind us all of third grade recess, when captains picked kickball teams, and the same scrubs were always picked last.....

it will be yet antoher day to celebrate the impotence of bobbywaves, as he is last to be chosen, and the rest of the "kids" laff at him as tears well up in his eyes.....

sbr must televise the draft, or at least send a camera crew into the slums of trenton to capture waves' anquish and dejection.....

[Auto Donk]

speaking of the slums of Trenton, it may finally be time to take the "waves neighborhood tour".... a photo journey of small b's decrepit and crack-filled world amid the hood of he calls home, along with the crips, bloods and latin kings......

it is coming soon!!!!

[4uk4life]

i like it the way it is
go canada

I would pick you

[bobbywaves]

i like the idea of the draft as well.... it'll remind us all of third grade recess, when captains picked kickball teams, and the same scrubs like myself were always picked last.

Took some guts for you to admit that Donkey.

[bobbywaves]

speaking of the slums of Trenton, it may finally be time to take the "waves neighborhood tour".... a photo journey of small b's decrepit and crack-filled world amid the hood of he calls home, along with the crips, bloods and latin kings......

it is coming soon!!!!

Don't forget to knock on my door when you arrive Donkey. Myself, Mr. Smith, & Mr. Wesson, are all looking forward to meeting you.

[Auto Donk]

that gun part of it would be your only chance.... without it, youre going to get the shit beat out of you real quick......

now, run along and go board up all the broken out windows of your neighbor's home two doors down from your shithole......

[bobbywaves]

that gun part of it would be your only chance.... without it, youre going to get the shit beat out of you real quick......

now, run along and go board up all the broken out windows of your neighbor's home two doors down from your shithole......

You'll get the shit kicked out of you way before reaching my door, Bloods thrive on fresh Donkey meat.

[Auto Donk]

suck it waves, you pussy

[sinmiedo]

Yhuuujyuyuui

[sinmiedo]

Uuuuuujuy uyyy uy uy ujuuu uy u ujuuu hty

[bobbywaves]

Uuuuuujuy uyyy uy uy ujuuu uy u ujuuu hty

Yhuuujyuyuui

Just when I thought your English was finally coming along, we get unreadable posts like this.