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  1. 1. Who would win in a Heads Up No Limit Hold 'Em match between Phil Ivey and Stu Ungar?

    • Phil Ivey
      58
    • Stu Ungar
      55


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Just ask any major pro that was around back then. If you win 10 out of 30 high stakes tournaments that's a great %. Think about it, if you enter 30 tournaments in a year and win 10 of them, that's a heck of a year. Stuey controlled the no limit game like no one else has since. And with the larger fields today he probably chews them up even better. Now he's probably not one of the best people ever involved in poker. That's putting it nicely.
I just asked all of the major pros that were around back then and they all disagree with you.Again, please allow me to repeat that i find it wildly unbelievable that he kept accurate records, and even if he did and that win rate was accurate, no one will ever have an expectation anywhere near that, no matter how good they are. The nature of poker makes this impossible. Results and skill are not correlated in the same way that they are in other endeavors. Even the greatest player gets sucked out on often enough to prevent him from winning 1/3 of the tourneys he enters.Please explain how you think that Ungar "chews up" the larger fields of today, consisting of thousands of entrants, more effectively than the fields he played against, often consisting of dozens of people. Sorry, that is insane. This reminds me of a thread i read ages ago on RGP, where paul phillips said something like: "just what do you think Ungar did that everyone else is so incapable of figuring out? Being aggressive? Wow. Holy sh*t, did he just reraise?! I have heard of a raise before, but did he just invent a second raise?!! Better fold these aces. He must have super aces."No doubt he was a fine player. But he wasnt the player that the hero worshipers would have you believe he was.
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I don't think there was much need for "accurate record". It's not like there were a lot of 10K events at the time or the fields were huge in any of them. I'm not sure there were more than 2 or 3 10K events a year before the boom and with them only drawing < 200 people it's not like Stuey could play one, bust early and be unnoticed. Clearly his win rate was a big part luck. I'm not sure a top player could win 33% of tourneys made up with your average low limit donkeys let alone anyone having that kind of real edge over a field of top pros.

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I just asked all of the major pros that were around back then and they all disagree with you.Again, please allow me to repeat that i find it wildly unbelievable that he kept accurate records, and even if he did and that win rate was accurate, no one will ever have an expectation anywhere near that, no matter how good they are. The nature of poker makes this impossible. Results and skill are not correlated in the same way that they are in other endeavors. Even the greatest player gets sucked out on often enough to prevent him from winning 1/3 of the tourneys he enters.Please explain how you think that Ungar "chews up" the larger fields of today, consisting of thousands of entrants, more effectively than the fields he played against, often consisting of dozens of people. Sorry, that is insane. This reminds me of a thread i read ages ago on RGP, where paul phillips said something like: "just what do you think Ungar did that everyone else is so incapable of figuring out? Being aggressive? Wow. Holy sh*t, did he just reraise?! I have heard of a raise before, but did he just invent a second raise?!! Better fold these aces. He must have super aces."No doubt he was a fine player. But he wasnt the player that the hero worshipers would have you believe he was.
for a guy with only 32 posts you're quite good.
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Wait, wait, we all agree that the best MTT players in the world make the money (cash, NOT win) between 12 and 15% of the time, right?And the biggest advantage someone could have in 1 HU NLHE match is something like 65 - 35?

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No doubt he was a fine player. But he wasnt the player that the hero worshipers would have you believe he was.
Did you ever play with Stu?
No
Then you don't know for sure.Most of the people that really worshipped his game played with him.
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Did you ever play with Stu?Then you don't know for sure.
The legend of Ungar is based largely the natural tendency to wish to equate poker to other sports like golf, chess or bowling. Again, borrowing from a thought that i read elsewhere (specifically from PP on RGP, i think), and despite never having played with him, i know that no one in poker will ever dominate the competition in the way that Fischer did in chess, tiger does in golf, or who freaking ever does in bowling. But spectators long for someone to do so. By the way, did you hear the story about him winning the biggest gin tourney ever (at the time) without losing a single hand? Not a single match, but a single HAND. That's right, no one was ever dealt a pat knock. No one ever pulled their gin card off the top of the deck. If you believe this story, you probably also believe that the 33% win rate is accurate.A total donkey with zero conception of hand values could move in on Ungar on every single hand and win occasionally. I would never, ever defeat tiger woods in a round of golf. See the difference?
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I always wanted to learn how to play Gin.I play a similar game at work called Conquian that is essentially a Rummy game but I always wanted to learn how to play Gin. I'd just like to see why exactly Stu was so dominant in that particular game. Is there not a lot of luck involved, or what?

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Just ask any major pro that was around back then. If you win 10 out of 30 high stakes tournaments that's a great %. Think about it, if you enter 30 tournaments in a year and win 10 of them, that's a heck of a year. Stuey controlled the no limit game like no one else has since. And with the larger fields today he probably chews them up even better. Now he's probably not one of the best people ever involved in poker. That's putting it nicely.
Not that it's actually worth debating, but you realize how bad people, even pros were at NL Hold'em back in the day? There were literally only a handful of players that were actually good at that time, and even they have evolved and gotten better at the game and at tourneys nowadays. Stu was ahead of his time, for sure, and he was the only guy to implement that type of tourney strategy back in the day which would obviously make him successful. These days even the bad players play LAG and are tough to play against. I'm sure if Stu did no drugs and was still around he would have adapted to the new generation of play, but I wouldn't give him a better shot at winning the tourney than any random top 50 live tourney player.
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lol stu ungar by a mile.u people are idiots.
when people talk about the greatest player of all time, everyone says Stu.. Doyle.. anyone.. Stu entered 33 major tournaments and won 10..yea, fields are so much tougher today.. or there's just that many more complete donkey dipshits..I think that's probably it.
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The fields in Ungers day were a lot smaller than the onesIvey is competing in today.Ivey has more cashes in the larger fields, thus Ivey comes out on top.But I still believe that Doyle is the greatest player alive today.If it were a contest between Doyle and Ivey, or Doyle and Unger, Doyle would comeout ontop any day of the week.

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So true.Hey! Have any of you heard of this Jerry Yang guy?!? Legend has it he won at least 100% of the $10K buy in tourneys he entered. Clearly the best ever. He makes that 33% win rate look downright embarrassing!
Just quoting this to point out that this is likely the first time I've seen the name Jerry Yang in print in almost 6 months. In the middle of an online media age. Could be the quietest champion ever, with the least impact on the game as a whole.As for the rest of this blah thread: if the HU match was sufficiently deepstacked, Ivey would give Ungar fits. Deepstacks would make it much harder for Ungar to play longball and any overbets would eventually be exploited.One thing for certain: we'd all sure as hell *watch* the match if it could happen.
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The fields in Ungers day were a lot smaller than the onesIvey is competing in today.Ivey has more cashes in the larger fields, thus Ivey comes out on top.But I still believe that Doyle is the greatest player alive today.If it were a contest between Doyle and Ivey, or Doyle and Unger, Doyle would comeout ontop any day of the week.
ivey's already probably played in many more events than him.
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The fields in Ungers day were a lot smaller than the onesIvey is competing in today.Ivey has more cashes in the larger fields, thus Ivey comes out on top.But I still believe that Doyle is the greatest player alive today.If it were a contest between Doyle and Ivey, or Doyle and Unger, Doyle would comeout ontop any day of the week.
Yet Doyle said Stuey was better than Doyle. At least when the subject was tournaments.
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I voted Ivey but there is no way to really tell. It is 2 different era's and there are so many more people nowadays that play poker compared to the 80 man fields for the main events back then. Ungar was definitely ahead of his time. IMO, in a heads up match between the 2, Stu would win probably 75% of the pots because he is so aggressive but the 25% Ivey wins would be huge pots. I think Ivey would be good enough to set him up and trap him like no other.

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This reminds me of a thread i read ages ago on RGP, where paul phillips said something like: "just what do you think Ungar did that everyone else is so incapable of figuring out? Being aggressive? Wow. Holy sh*t, did he just reraise?! I have heard of a raise before, but did he just invent a second raise?!! Better fold these aces. He must have super aces."
<3 Paul Phillips. Pity he stopped playing poker and stopped posting here.
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It's entirely pointless even discussing this.We view poker players like we view politicians, we judge them on their image, i'm not doubting the Ivey is an incredible player, but part of what makes him so famous and adored is his image, you look at Ivey and see a razor sharp gambler which we are envious of, if he was fat,white, wore glasses and looked like a freak, he wouldn't be as well reknowned as he is.An example is Chris MoneyMaker and Dario Minieri, we all think Chris Moneymake sucks because of his accent, appearance and because he speaks kind of moronicaly, people hate on Dario for nothing more than the fact he wears a scarf.

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I voted for Phil Ivey and I think this one is a no-brainer. It would be difficult for Unger to outplay Ivey, seeing as he's dead and all.OP, I know what you meant by the spirit of the poll, but I really think this is a hard question to answer.

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