The Shark Tank

Here are a few things I deduced from the simulations we did.  We did one with exactly the current table layout, in fact.

1)  Dennis Phillips will either get lucky and accumulate a ton of chips or get in big trouble in a hurry with his combined tendencies to open limp and call down light.  I’m cheating a bit because I know he already did lose a pot like this, but we really did see this as a big problem with his game.  In fact, we thought it such an obvious leak that in some of our sims we corrected for it and stopped having him open-limp.

2)  Demidov with a big stack will go into hard core pot control mode.  I will be very surprised if he makes a big bet post-flop without a really big hand.

3)  Chino Rheem and Scott Montgomery will tangle in a big way and either Chino will be crippled or he will double and take control of the table.

4)  Darus will be more active than people generally expect.  He’ll find good spots to 3 bet and to raise and take the blinds.  His bets will get a lot of respect.  If he gets in trouble it will be when Chino and either Demidov and Eastgate both call him.

5)  Schwartz has a good spot at this table and he has been working with JohnnyBax (he is another PokerXFactor guy).  I think he is in good position.

6)  Kelly Kim will not play a great short stack and he’ll get called when he shoves.  He needs to get lucky a couple of times to avoid being the first out.

7)  The low-mid stacks of Schwartz, Montgomery, Chino, CraigMarq and (to a lesser extent, Darus) are prone to have a knock out confrontation.  If I had to bet, I’d go for the tangle described in #2.

I haven’t read any updates since the first break.  I’m off to check it out.  Go go go Darus!

By the way, in every single sim we ran, Darus slowly accumulated chips.  We didn’t run one where he lost chips, or one where he doubled up.  I’ve given the most thought to his situation and barring some kind of real cooler, I think that is what he will do here too.

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