POTD #155 Final Table Friday: PSC Panama $10k 4-Handed with Two Canucks and Two Pirates

Photo Credit: Twitter user @YesIamAPirate

An interesting phenomenon that occurs throughout the world is when several people from a small area all succeed in the same professional arena. Two of the best hockey players of this millenium— Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon— grew up in the same town with a population of under 100k people: Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. 10% of the players playing “America’s Pastime” professionally in Major League Baseball were born in the Dominican Republic despite the Dominican having 3% of the population of the USA. Sometimes this happens due to a fluke (it’s not like Crosby and MacKinnon were training together), sometimes a culture is built that breeds that sort of success, and sometimes just being around people who have succeeded makes the impossible seem attainable.

By my back of napkin math, if you were a male born in the Dominican Republic, you are probably around 1/1000 to play in MLB, which means you are maybe around 1/200 to play in the minor leagues, which means you are a big favourite to know someone who played professional baseball. When being the best player in your town or city actually means you might be able to play professionally, that goal seems very attainable

In poker, there are some schools or regions that have been incubators for poker talent. Scott Seiver and Isaac Haxton went to Brown University at the same time and got into online poker at the same time. I don’t think Brown is necessarily a great poker incubator, so much as two people went to the same school and were talented and succeeded in an arena. The flipside of this coin is the success Brazilians have had in online MTTs. They have an almost farm system where players are recruited, developed, supported and moved up stakes. It makes sense they succeed, because they have created an infrastructure to breed success.

In today’s post, we look at another interesting case: East Carolina University. It’s a pretty big university; it looks to have around the 100th largest undergraduate enrollment in the USA.¹ It has produced two poker players in the top 100 of The Hendon Mob’s All Time Money List: Chris Hunichen (#81) and Steve O’Dwyer (#15), as well as two-time WPT Champion Randall Flowers. Steve, Chris, and Randall all know each other, but all matriculated at different times and did not study poker together. Is ECU a school primed to develop poker talent? Is there something in the water in Greenville? Is Carolina BBQ a nootropic? Or was it just dumb luck? It’s tough to say, but in today’s hand, I was four-handed in a high roller in LAPT Panama with Steve and Chris (and Francois Billard). I would end up chopping the tournament vs. Steve, but I took a big bite out of Huni’s stack first. Did I play the hand well or was it just dumb luck?

2017 PokerStars Championship Panama $10,300 High Roller
4-Handed (15k/30k/5k) (SB/BB/ante)
1st: $274,740 2nd: $188,860 3rd: $123,780 4th $100,300

Chris (1.28M) raises to 65k in the CO, I (1.27M) make it 180k on the button A♣️9♠️, Steve (1.6M) folds the SB, Francois (1.35M) folds the BB it folds back to Chris who makes it 390k, I call.

Flop (845k) A♦️T♣️6♥️: Chris bets 175k, I call.

Turn (1.195M) 3♠️: Chris checks, I bet 200k, Chris calls.

River Jh (1.595M) J♥️ Chris checks, I check, I beat his K♣️K♠️.