4 cashes at first WSOP

At his first WSOP Dan Kelly won one of the most hard fought competitions, from here onwards he is sure to become a major player on the poker scene

There is often discussion about whether online poker players can make it in the live field and vice versa. However, unsurprisingly the online players are beginning to make the mark in the live events even if it did take some time for a few of them to adjust their techniques.

Take a look at the $25K buy-in six-max no-limit hold’em event at this year’s WSOP, this can be considered the biggest test of No-Limit Hold’em, it’s a tough competition and you have to fight for every chip. However, after all the fighting the last person left was Dan Kelly, this was his first WSOP as it was the first time he has been old enough to enter a Las Vegas casino. It was also his fourth cash at the WSOP, clearly he didn’t need to adjust to live play.

Doyle Brunson was quick to recognise Kelly’s talent, Kelly was donning Doyle’s Room gear as part of a competition to see who could join the “Brunson 10”. It is assumed that he won the competition, it is nice to see a man who can be considered the grandfather of poker giving props to players young enough to be his grandson.

As time passes the live versus online issue will fade away. In the modern world all serious players are likely to start online and then progress to live tournaments. Those who don’t take this route will be at a disadvantage, online players will have played millions of hands before they first come to a live table. If someone doesn’t make use of the resources online such as theory discussions and practice game play they will be seriously disadvantaged.

However, this is a few years away and the new players will have to be a bit patient. During the next few years the old hands will slowly disappear and the new younger players will become the household names who are featured on tv events and have their fame spread through ESPN. A quick glance at the WSOP shows that there are thousands more players now than there used to be, many of which have their roots online, some of them will rise to fame and others will fade away having been knocked out too many times.