Hows the form?
Gary Clarke, 20/01/09 | Print this article
When a player is in-form, it seems like the good results just keep flooding in.
One factor that few people weigh up before a tournament they are entering would be their current form. It may seem silly as every tournament is a fresh start but players who have been winning lately have a remarkable tendency to run to form. The added confidence seems to drive players into a purple patch of wins. Many people say that in life “success breeds success” and in poker it seems no different.
Case in point. 2008 saw a remarkable double by the Russian player Ivan Demidov where he final tabled both the WSOP main event and the WSOP Europe main event. Having came as if from nowhere to final table this year’s WSOP he followed up his runner-up position with a 3rd place finish at the WSOPE in September. Having played for several years with modest success he accomplished an unprecedented achievement in 2008 by coming 2nd out of 6844 players in the most difficult tournament of the year at the WSOP in Las Vegas AND coming third out of 362 in surely the toughest standard tournament of the year at the WSOPE in London.
When examining the results of many players there is certainly a pattern to a lot of their successes. Roland de Wolfe had an incredible run between July 2005 and April 2007 which saw him win both a WPT and EPT double, a second place finish in the Irish Open and a third place in the Bellagio five-star poker classic. Other players such as Julian Thew, Annete Orbestrad and Ram Vaswani have all enjoyed highly fruitful periods for short patches in their poker careers.
The trend is not limited to the big names or the world poker stage either. Home players too have benefited from golden spells at the felt in Ireland. Just last weekend the Celtic Poker Tour final in Clonmel saw last year’s winner Francis McCormack produce another impressive showing by coming third on the defence of his title. The pattern is continuing all over the country in fact.
Take the recently held Irish Poker Championships in Galway. This tournament saw a bevy of in-form players make up the top positions. Rory Rees Brennan had two excellent results in both the Fitzwilliam festival and the Fitzwilliam monthly tournaments in the weeks leading up to the first major of 2009. The runner-up Chris Dowling too was in form with results in Killarney, Toughers and the Green Isle: the previous three tournaments he had played.
Likewise the 7th place finisher at this month’s Irish Poker Championship has echoed the benefits of form, perhaps like no other. The most in-form player of the past 12 months has undoubtedly been Drogheda hitman Pete Murphy. In the last year Murphy has reached final tables in the European Deepstack in Drogheda, the Irish Classic in Cork, The International Poker Open in the Regency, the Irish Masters in Citywest and the latest big poker instalment at the Irish Poker Championships in Galway. A truly incredible run. Finally, 10th place finisher in Galway Rory Brown was yet another player bang in-form.
There is no doubt that form has played a part in the rise of a lot of tournament players. Players battle through barren periods only to see their first result in an age open up the floodgates as such and suddenly the money comes tumbling in. In Ireland and afar, good form gives poker players both belief and confidence. It helps them make plays which they otherwise would shy away from doing. When a player is in form, this is when they are playing at their absolute prime.
Gary Clarke can be contacted at gary.clarke@pokerireland.ie
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