By all accounts 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Champ and poker pro, Jerry Yang, is a very nice fellow. I am guessing if your choices were to sit down for a few hands of Texas Hold’em with either Jerry Yang, Hitler, Bernie Maddoff, Barack Obama, a group of Amway recruiters, or Phil Hellmuth, most people would probably lean towards playing with Jerry. Masochists would perhaps take Phil and those in the “Jamestown Kool-Aid” demographic would most likely lean towards the rest of the field. While it is true that Jerry has a good reputation as a person, and a wonderful personal story, maybe he should avoid commenting on other poker players who have won the WSOP Main Event.
Jerry Yang recently made some comments about the new World Series of Poker Main Event Champion, Joe Cada, and about how lucky he got in his quest for the WSOP’s top prize. His exact comments were "Joe Cada is a good player, but he got incredibly lucky. Especially with the pocket threes (all in pre-flop against Jeff Shulman's pocket jacks) and the pocket deuces (all in pre-flop against Antoine Saout's pocket queens). I'm happy it worked out for him.” This compliment is like delivering a love note by tying it around a brick and chucking it at your beloved face. By saying this, Jerry is not only diminishing the effort that Cada put forth, but lowering the game of Texas Hold’em to the status of bingo when it comes to skill. As a poker pro, and veteran of hundreds of thousands of poker hands, he should know better.
Joe had plenty of luck during the Main Event, but any experienced poker player knows just how good somebody has to be in order to put themselves in position to be lucky at that level. Let’s face it, luck is as much factor in every major sport as human error. While a few poker hands obviously involved luck, there was plenty of skill on display as well. This comment probably had very little to do with “sour grapes”. Jerry was probably just having an “off the teleprompter” moment. I am not sure he meant anything disrespectful by it, but he should think twice before saying such things in the future.
