LOL, she’s not a chess wizard or a genius. She is a personable, attractive woman who is a very solid chess player with a good business sense.
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I think she’s losing money at live 5/10 almost anywhere it runs. Maybe not in LA.
The streamers and Alan were awesome. Hopefully something like this goes off again soon.
Massive fail inviting Phil and Dwan. Dwan didn’t do anything egregiously bad, but was just super boring, isn’t sociable, and was falling asleep half the stream. 2 people like JRB, Negs, Laak, Antonio, etc. would have been perfect.
Just sucks that we had such a great opportunity to expose poker to new viewers and their perception of “poker pros” will be a whiny bitch Boomer and an awkward, quiet, nerdy guy.
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I thought in any well-run cardroom the rule is that hands can’t be mucked after being flipped open at showdown.
The Queen’s Gambit coming out at the right moment probably accounts for about 95% of her net worth.
That’s true, my place is at the extreme other end of the spectrum.
He was socializing with them quietly but isn’t the type to try to carry the show. It’s hard not to be boring playing in that lineup because they’re like 25xing it preflop. Usually the way you give some -EV in a vacuum but +EV metagame action is calling some hands pre that are losing money. But you can’t put $5K in with $40K back with 86o or whatever. Dwan played the right strategy basically, if he ran up a stack he might have been more fun to watch.
Given that he didn’t top off, I assume either the pros agreed not to buyin over a certain amount or they underestimated how big the game would play.
I think the ideal pro to play that lineup would be Antonio. Has more gamble, is very personable, won’t berate a fish, etc. In fact swapping him for Dwan would have been hilarious cause he would have needled the shit out of Phil. “Did you just limp reraise for a quarter of your stack and fold to a bluff by a guy named Slime??? You’re the best Phil!”
I think the low key best moment was Alexandra asking Phil why he does this to himself and saying she doesn’t understand lol…
On the other hand, if what they learned is that poker is where you go to make whiny bitch Boomers suffer and take their money…
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Overall, the Botez sisters hit the genetic lottery. The younger sister Andrea is also a personable, solid chess player, in addition to being a knockout.
What was the time stamp for that?
Hand starts at 5:52:30, comment comes after at like 5:54:00. Keating needles him good too. Also great moment when he facepalms in reaction to Phil bragging about his bad laydown.
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“Phil, how do I cheat my way into winning this one?” lololol
lol Phil “I’ve never seen a game quite like this”
Poker is great if you have heroes you can root for but is even better if you have heroes you can root for and villains you can root against.
In the world we live in, someone acting outrageous and over-the-top, who provides meme-able moments, is better for poker than someone who is a low-key gentleman.
This feels sexist. I’ll grant I know basically nothing about the chess world but from my look at her bio it seems she has been studying chess at a very high level since a small child, won some awards and been highly ranked (whatever that means).
Seems like decades of work has gone into her current success. Not just the coattails of one tv show.
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There are certainly others who have put in similar work. Her financial success is most likely due to the luck of being the right person at the right time.
It’s 100% a commentary on how chess blew up in large part due to The Queen’s Gambit. I’d say the exact same about the other top chess streamers. It has nothing to do with gender.
Her massive success as a streamer isn’t due to her chess skill, which is solid (low master strength), but definitely weaker than most popular chess streamers.
It was awesome watching her invent advanced poker strategy in real time. I commented to my wife at one point something like, “She is wicked wicked smart, you can see her figure this out as she goes.”.
Ya, I was super impressed.