WSOPE Caesars Cup: Team Europe and Team Americas
The WSOPE Caesars Cup winner is hard to predict. Obviously, European poker players would be intimidated playing against Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Huck Seed, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, and Barry Greenstein in a 16 player tournament. Likewise, Americans might feel a fetal position coming on playing against Annette Obrestad, Peter Eastgate, Dario Minieri, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Ilari Sahamies, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, and John Harvey– Betfair Qualifier.*
What makes it a toss up is Team Europe has home-field advantage. Although, this might not be a strong advantage because it should be called other-side-of-the-pond-advantage. While Team Americas ( it’s plural for guess-which-player) has age on their side. Age is like gender in that both stir up emotions and affect self-esteem. Call it stereotypical all you want but I believe that no matter how much self-help a person absorbs… there are universal traits via genetics, the subconscious, behavioral conditioning etc which affect competition. As in… how many younger people scare you? If you’re a man, do women scare you?
On the other hand, some might feel an urge to strive for perfection in the presence of experience. If this is true for Eastgate and Obrestad, it may be a strong advantage for Team Europe. Assuming they work harder to prove to the wise American Poker Buddhas by showing, they too have an “A” game. Not to mention the desire to be “good” for the team. This is bad for Hellmuth’s trash talk as it will only make them work harder towards perfection.
Of course, respected players who know each other always throws in an additional variable which makes the above… a waste of time to ponder.
UPDATE: Team Europe Wins!
* To my knowledge, Betfair Qualifier is not John Harvey’s nickname. Yet.
