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ESPN's fifth annual fantasy poker draft

May, 24, 2010

By Andrew Feldman

There are only a few times during the year when I truly look forward to getting on the phone for more than an hour. The conference call that was held Friday was one of those times and the 11 other individuals on the phone were (hopefully) all feeling the same way in anticipation of the fifth annual ESPN fantasy poker draft.

Last year Daniel Negreanu crushed the rest of us. In fact, the other 10 teams were pretty much drawing dead after the first two weeks. Negreanu's squad was led in 2009 by the three bracelets of WSOP Player of the Year Jeffrey Lisandro, the two bracelets of Phil Ivey and a very impressive performance by Daniel Alaei. It wasn't close and Negreanu reminded everyone in his latest blog of that very fact.

This year we have 12 teams in action. First-time drafters Chad Holloway from Poker Pro Magazine and Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin made their debuts and hope to grab some first-time glory. The other 10 teams come with repeat managers and at this point, I'll call them fantasy poker veterans. Those veterans include myself, Gary Wise and Bernard Lee from ESPN.com, Lance Bradley from Bluff, Chops from WickedChopsPoker, and professional poker players Negreanu, Howard Lederer, Dennis Phillips, Mark Seif and Gavin Smith. The teams are below, along with some analysis. We'll update the standings as the action goes down and best of luck to the entire league and all players involved at the 2010 WSOP. Keep in mind that each team can make one add/drop throughout the WSOP.

ROUND 1

My thoughts: The key here to remember is that the $10,000 and higher buy-in events are worth double points, so everyone in this round needed to be someone who is going to play the majority of those events. Everyone in the top 12 fits that category and I think everyone did pretty well here with their first picks.

Best value: Holloway -- Hellmuth. Not only is Hellmuth the leader in bracelets with 11, but he also owns the most WSOP cashes with 75. Like him or not, he's consistent and is definitely a good pick at No. 12.

Biggest stretch: Baldwin -- Clements. He's intense and has probably one of the best ROIs in Omaha events for the WSOP this decade, but picking Clements in this spot might be a reach. That said, Clements has made at least two top-10 finishes in each of the last three years and will definitely earn Baldwin some points.

ROUND 2

My thoughts: This round started off with a solid pick at front-runner for the player of the year title, Sorel Mizzi, and ended with one of the game's best players in Carlos Mortensen. It's amazing to think that Lisandro lasted until the 19th pick after his performance last year, moving up only two spots from his draft slot in 2009.

Best value: Lederer -- Juanda. While Lisandro might be the easy answer here, John Juanda is probably the best pick of this round. Juanda excels at all games, has 50 lifetime WSOP cashes and will most definitely be one of the most active players at the WSOP. In 2009 Juanda had four top-10 finishes in non-hold 'em tournaments.

Biggest stretch: Seif -- Galfond. Galfond is one of the best cash game players on the planet and has proved it time and time again online, but how often will he be at the WSOP felt? Seif will have to hope that Galfond really wants some more jewelry to make this second-round pick pay off. Galfond didn't have a single WSOP cash in 2009. Other drafters also reacted with laughter after Seif made his selection, but wouldn't reveal if they knew something about Galfond's WSOP status.

ROUND 3

My thoughts: Now we start to see just how much preparation was done by each of the drafters. The majority of this round consisted of well-known players who will be playing the high-stakes events, but there are some surprises and more about that below.

Best value: Wise -- Bloch. Bloch is still one of the best players without a bracelet and we know he's ready to remove himself from that list. Bloch will most likely be in action in just about everything this summer and Wise capitalized by selecting a hungry player with 10 WSOP cashes over the last two years.

Biggest stretch: Lee -- Wasicka. There's nothing bad to say about Wasicka at all, but at this pick in the third round, I believe he was a stretch. Wasicka got back on track by joining mindset coach Sam Chauhan and then winning a WSOP Circuit event earlier this year, but besides his WSOP main event run in 2006, he hasn't had a ton of success.

ROUND 4

My thoughts: This was a tough round to gauge as the teams were split in the type of player drafted. Elezra, Singer, Brunson, Seiver, Mackey, Brown and Smith have all had notable mixed-game and high-stakes success. Jaka, Timoshenko, Baldwin, Sung and Obrestad are primarily hold 'em players who will be attempting to make their way through the larger fields. With bonus points added for larger fields this year, how this round fares might be an indicator on potential draft strategies in the future.

Best value: Negreanu -- Smith. "Boosted J" has seven WSOP cashes and six of them come in $5,000 events or higher. Smith has proved to be quite a talent on both the virtual and live felt, has great potential to have a big score this year and will definitely be adding to his $717,159 in live earnings to date.

Biggest stretch: Holloway -- Obrestad. Annette's debut will be one of the most hyped stories heading into the WSOP and I had no doubt she would be selected during this draft, but Round 4 wasn't what I had in mind. Obrestad will be an amazing WSOP player, but she won't be part of a lot of the bigger mixed-game events where many of the points will be earned.

ROUND 5

My thoughts: A wide range of talent was selected in the fifth round, but most of these players have proved to be inconsistent at the WSOP over the last few years. On a random note, Pescatori was really focused on two things during the 2006 WSOP: winning a bracelet and watching Italy in the World Cup. Expect more of the same in 2010 from the "Italian Pirate."

Best value: Lederer -- Glantz. Very quietly Glantz has become one of the best players in the game that just doesn't get the media exposure. Not only is he a threat at any cash game table, but Glantz's tournament résumé boasts more than $3 million in earnings. He loves the high-stakes events and expect him to enter as many as he can this summer.

Biggest stretch: Bradley -- Antonius. Relax. I'm not saying Antonius isn't worth a pick here, but given his history, we just don't know how much time he'll spend at the Rio versus sweating high-stakes tennis bets or playing in cash games. The bracelet-less Antonius is always a major question mark for anyone who drafts him and Bradley took the risk on a potentially huge upside pick.

ROUND 6

My thoughts: The sleepers finally came out this round starting with Somerville at the first pick and Mosseri as the last. With the exception of Pilgrim and Somerville, the mixed-game players continued to be the at the top of draft lists with hopes of victories over the smaller non-hold 'em fields.

Best value: Feldman -- Kostritsyn. I have to brag about my own pick for a second and how the phone call exploded with anger when I took "PostflopAction." Kostritsyn has been enjoying tremendous success online over the last year and the 2008 Aussie Millions champion has five cashes over the last two years at the WSOP in $10,000 events.

Biggest stretch: Lee -- Pilgrim. Here's another one of those "he's a great player, but …" remarks. Pilgrim has been a force on the poker circuit over the last two years and is looking for his first WSOP cash. That said, he's primarily a no-limit hold 'em player and in order for this pick to be of value here, he'll need a deep run in one of the bigger low-buy-in events this year.

ROUND 7

My thoughts: This entire round seemed like a stretch with a few gems mixed in. I really liked the Richey, Shulman, De Wolfe picks here knowing that they're always involved in the biggest action, but they aren't the value pick during this round for a specific reason that I'll mention below. On the other hand a rough pick during this round included Phil Laak, who will be missing some significant WSOP time by trying to break the record for the longest poker session. Who knows how long it'll take him to recover and get back into the swing of things?

Best value: Seif -- Seif. Insert joke here. Mark hasn't been "the shark" during the WSOP for a few years now, but he knows what sort of schedule he'll be running and how he's feeling. If anything, he was looking for yet another reason to motivate himself to WSOP glory. Seif is one of the typical WSOP grinders who will be in action the entire time and if he can hold on to some of the chips he loves to accumulate early, he can make some deep runs and earn some big points.

Biggest stretch: Chops -- Marchese. Marchese might be one of the hottest players in the world right now, but he'll be looking for his first WSOP cash this summer. He will definitely be playing the bigger hold 'em events, but Marchese might not have the mixed-game strength yet to compete in the $10,000 World Championship events that are critical to this format.

ROUND 8

My thoughts: I really liked everyone's pick this round. Some teams took a risk with players like Katz, Kelly and D'Angelo, but the rest of the round was filled with solid, proven players who very well could have some solid success.

Best value: Negreanu -- Monnette. Negreanu found a real sleeper here in Monnette. It won't be much of a surprise that Monnette plays just about every game, as every player on Negreanu's team does just that. His six WSOP cashes in 2009 included a second-place finish to Ivey in the 2-7 lowball event and despite not having a bracelet, he's made some very deep runs in Las Vegas.

Biggest stretch: Feldman -- D'Angelo. On one hand I love my "g0lfa" pick. He's been simply impressive each time I've been able to watch him in person and online, but the problem is that almost all of his results are in hold 'em. Basically, I took the same player with my seventh- and eighth-round picks and it'll be tough for me to win with both of them on the roster.

So there are the teams and here's the scoring system:

1 point for making the money
2 points for making the top 50
5 points for making the top 20
10 points for making the final table (up to a tournament with a field size of 100 players) then one additional point for each 100 players after that, then:
1 additional point for ninth
2 additional points for eighth
4 additional points for seventh
6 additional points for sixth
10 additional points for fifth
15 additional points for fourth
20 additional points for third
30 additional points for second
40 additional points for first

Double points will be awarded for all events with buy-ins of $10,000 or more.