May
28
by Chad Holloway
One of the fantasy poker competitions I am doing this year involves a great deal of the PokerNews crew as well as some other members of the poker community. The league, run by Tim Duckworth (who writes a great blog called “Tilted Behaviour”), costs $100 and allows each participant to draft a team by choosing players to fill certain categories. There are two chances to win: a prize for the team with the most cashes at the WSOP, and another prize for the team that earns the most money throughout the WSOP. Here is a look at my team:
Categories:
Female: Kathy Liebert
American Nationality (USA, Alaska and South America): Phil Ivey
Canadian Nationality: Pat Pezzin
European Nationality: Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Other International Nationality (includes far east Europe such as Russia and everywhere else not mentioned): Eugene Katchalov
Previous WSOP/E Champion (includes WSOPE): Phil Hellmuth
Online Player (must have honed his skills playing online - ie more none for his online game than anything): Vivek Rajkumar
Full Tilt Sponsored Player: Erik Seidel
PokerStars Sponsored Player: Daniel Negreanu
Minor Site Sponsored Player (includes Doylesroom etc and even Ultimate Bet as we will disregard the dumping of their pros): Phil Laak (Unabomber Poker)
The real difference maker in this draft is the non-traditional picks as most teams have Ivey, Seidel, Negreanu, and the like, which just cancels everything out. If I succeed, I have a feeling it will be because of Liebert, Pezzin, Rajkumar, and Laak.
In other fantasy poker news, I took part in the 2011 ESPN Fantasy Poker League along with Dwyte Pilgrim, Lance Bradley, Dennis Phillips, Daniel Negreanu, Chops from Wicked Chops Poker,Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, Eric Baldwin, Bernard Lee, and Mark Seif. If you recall from this blog, I managed to win the title last year. The league proved very popular with poker fans and this year was no different. Here is a look at the teams, with the roster listed in the order they were drafted.
PILGRIM: Eric Baldwin, Scotty Nguyen, Thomas Marchese, Shaun Deeb, Steve Gross, Allen Kessler, Darren Alias, Josh Brikis
HOLLOWAY: Phil Ivey, Alexander Kostritsyn, Andy Frankenberger, Sam Trickett, Galen Hall, Justin Young, Phil Laak, Sorel Mizzi
BRADLEY: Erik Seidel, Scott Clements, Robert Mizrachi, David “Bakes” Baker, Isaac Haxton, Brett Richey, Chris Bjorin, Allen Bari
PHILLIPS: Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, Bertrand Grospellier, Mike Matusow, Chris Ferguson, Jeff Madsen, JC Tran
NEGREANU: Erick Lindgren, Daniel Alaei, Scott Seiver, David Benyamine, Justin Smith, Michael Thuritz, Yuval Bronthstein, Yueqi Hu
CHOPS: John Juanda, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Ted Forrest, Dwyte Pilgrim, Shawn Buchanan, Alexander Kravchenko, Chris Bell, David “Doc” Sands
FELDMAN: Jason Mercier, Tom Dwan, Vivek Rajkumar, Justin Bonomo, Matt Hawrilenko, David Oppenheim, Ali Eslami, Yevgeniy Timoshenko
WISE: Barry Greenstein, Jeffery Lisandro, Huck Seed, Vanessa Selbst, Nick Schulman, Jason Sommerville, David Pham, Roland De Wolfe
BALDWIN: David Chiu, Eugene Katchalov, Carlos Mortensen, Andy Bloch, Frank Kassela. David “ODB” Baker, Vladimir Schemelev, Michael Chow
LEE: Michael Mizrachi, Shannon Shorr, Chau Giang, Phil Galfond, Faraz Jaka, James Mackey, Jen Harman, Jonathan Duhamel
SEIF: Mark Seif, Gavin Smith, John Racener, Michael Binger, Matt Glantz, Chad Brown, Freddy Deeb, Todd Brunson
First and foremost, Pilgrim taking Baldwin with the #1 overall was both unexpected and amusing. Pilgrim was diligent in his defense, but it put me in a quandary . . . Ivey or Seidel? I assumed Pilgrim would have taken one or the other and my decision would have been made for me; however, that was obviously not the case. I decided to play it safe and go with Ivey, despite Seidel’s amazing 2011. Needless to say, Seidel was drafted immediately after.
I’m really happy with landing Ivey and felt it gave me a little security to gamble a bit on my draft picks. Kostritsyn is a solid performer and a pretty conventional pick in the late stages of Round 2. In Round 3, I went with World Poker Tour Player-of-the-Year Andy Frankenberger. This is one of those gamble picks as Frankenberger plays primarily no-limit hold’em events. However, he has been on a heater as of late and is hungry to qualify for the Federated Sports + Gaming League, so I expect him to play a lot of events.
I’m really pleased with my 4th and 5th Round picks in Sam Trickett and Galen Hall. Both are young and have hit their stride. I believe both are playing at their peak and will play a lot of high buy-in events, which could translate into some major points. The only downside is that Trickett is a no-limit hold’em specialist, meaning he’ll pass on the mixed games.
Rounding out my team was Justin Young, Phil Laak, and Sorel Mizzi. Young is a solid performer, although I’m not sure of his schedule. Like Frankenberger, Laak is intent on qualifying for the FS+G League, so he has said he’ll be playing a full schedule of events. I’m really counting on the Unabomber to pull through. Finally, I got Mizzi in the last round, which I believe was a nice way to end the draft. He hasn’t been putting up results like he did in 2010, but if he can recapture some of that fire it’ll mean big points for my team.
I will say that I had my eye on both Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and David “Bakes” Baker; however, they went taken by Dennis Phillips and Lance Bradley respectively, right before my next pick I might add. That left me scrambling and I rushed into picking Trickett. He is a great player, but I’d probably do things differently in hindsight. For a great analysis on the whole draft, be sure to check out Feldman's article on ESPN.
I’ll be posting a lot of fantasy poker updates throughout the WSOP, so be sure to keep checking the blog for those. In the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway.