chess genius is sick at poker

saw this at 2p2 nvg and it was quite interesting. the guy has barely played but seems to be pwning

http://tv.pokernews.com/featured-vide...moura+2009%3A+Jeff+Sarwer/51724066001


his website on his earlier chess life and success
http://jeffsarwer.com/

so sick with like 5 year old kids being sick good at chess, scary shiet

and this is suprising coz?

a poker player that looks happy thats somewhat refreshing lol

oh nice he was the villain kid in searching for bobby fischer it looks like. Looks like he had a horrible childhood... after the clip on his website aired on the news (and I guess a vanityfair article), it looks like he and his sister got taken away from their father and put in foster homes... which they ran away from and went living with gypsies. pretty crazy

as a kid he did act kinda nuts lol

"hey, wanna play chesssss!!! WANNA PLAY CHEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ?!?!?!?"

[x] chess prodigy
[x] cashed in a couple tournaments
[ ] proof he is a sick poker player

Being an amazing chess player covers a lot of important aspects of being a great poker player, but not all of them. It's still too early to say anything about his poker game. Jeff does seem like a very cool guy though and didn't have it easy growing up as a kid so I hope he indeed turns out to be awesome and I wish him all the best.

The chess prodigy that the movie Searching For Bobby Fischer was based on moved on to martial arts and won some martial art tournaments. It's definitely not unheard of for champion chess players to move onto a different field and excel in it.

On November 29 2009 08:14 tomson wrote: [x] chess prodigy [x] cashed in a couple tournaments [ ] proof he is a sick poker player Being an amazing chess player covers a lot of important aspects of being a great poker player, but not all of them. It's still too early to say anything about his poker game. Jeff does seem like a very cool guy though and didn't have it easy growing up as a kid so I hope he indeed turns out to be awesome and I wish him all the best.

Well, a bunch of pretty well known players in the 2p2 thread (first name to mind would be Shaun Deeb) were singing his praises.

True, but that's not the reason he's getting the acclaim he does. I'm just saying people are very naive in their evaluation if a guy is very good in poker (especially when it's based on tournament results). This probably shouldn't bother me much, but I always liked to think that credit should be given where it's due and it tilted me when I heard about the 'best poker players'.

Deeb praising Jeff's game is impressive and certainly makes one wonder, but still it's not proof. He might have been subjected to the same biases ('chess prodigy, started playing poker not so long ago, was very good and aggressive at my table -> therefore he will be absolutely amazing')

well he has to have a great strategic mind, and willingness to learn/study hard, which he says he does in the interview. Is he one of the best player ever? only time will tell really but he definately has a very good start.

it's not like an MTT player actually plays significant samples to have an accurate picture of how someone plays anyways. it would take years of grinding MTT with someone to actually have a grip on their game.

I dont get it, even if he is a chess prodigy and sick good at poker, it doesnt set a precedent of being good in more than 1 game, rmmbr elky or slayer?

A lot of winning poker is understanding how weaker players rationalize their decisions. This only comes with experience.

On November 29 2009 08:46 tomson wrote: True, but that's not the reason he's getting the acclaim he does. I'm just saying people are very naive in their evaluation if a guy is very good in poker (especially when it's based on tournament results). This probably shouldn't bother me much, but I always liked to think that credit should be given where it's due and it tilted me when I heard about the 'best poker players'. Deeb praising Jeff's game is impressive and certainly makes one wonder, but still it's not proof. He might have been subjected to the same biases ('chess prodigy, started playing poker not so long ago, was very good and aggressive at my table -> therefore he will be absolutely amazing')

Hehe, he wrote something along the lines of "This kid is why I'm quitting poker - I'll never be as good as he has the potential to be". Something like that. A couple of other tournament pros (I forget who exactly tho - Imperium maybe?) also chimed in saying they thought he had amazing potential.

That carries a lot more weight than a couple of decent tournament results, for sure.

i mean come on lol

its an interesting story, but being good at simultaneous and speed chess is a lot less impressive to me than being rated 2700+. however, from the video it seemed like he did have a really rare natural talent for the game but just never nurtured it enough to become top notch grandmaster level and would have if his father allowed him to get long term coaching from bruce.

i seriously doubt this guy is even fundamentally sound at this point. being a genius doesnt really mean much of anything. hes probably played <10k hands in his life. its going to take years before hes even competent in a lot of areas of poker.

On November 29 2009 11:27 TianYuan wrote: Show nested quote + On November 29 2009 08:46 tomson wrote: True, but that's not the reason he's getting the acclaim he does. I'm just saying people are very naive in their evaluation if a guy is very good in poker (especially when it's based on tournament results). This probably shouldn't bother me much, but I always liked to think that credit should be given where it's due and it tilted me when I heard about the 'best poker players'. Deeb praising Jeff's game is impressive and certainly makes one wonder, but still it's not proof. He might have been subjected to the same biases ('chess prodigy, started playing poker not so long ago, was very good and aggressive at my table -> therefore he will be absolutely amazing') Hehe, he wrote something along the lines of "This kid is why I'm quitting poker - I'll never be as good as he has the potential to be". Something like that. A couple of other tournament pros (I forget who exactly tho - Imperium maybe?) also chimed in saying they thought he had amazing potential. That carries a lot more weight than a couple of decent tournament results, for sure.

meh... Deeb saying something like this doesn't do much for me tbh he's not really an elite MTT player, just a ridiculously sick grinder who can play nasty volume w/o burning out.

FatalErrror

i'd crossbook him in any EPT against anyone but elky or ivey, he's probably the greatest mind to enter the tournament poker world in history, no exaggeration.

seeing people are taking part of this out of context i want to clarify, he has the best mind, not the most developed one, he is still at least a month or 2 of full time play to absorb enough general knowledge to actually have all the tools that the top 10-20 tournament players have. i admit i'd be taking the worst of it as near term as the PCA but would still be happy to crossbook vs almost anyone for a fun sweat, but the PCA is definately the toughest EPT by far and will present jeff with more challenging opponents of different styles to break down and adjust to. sorry to everyone who thought they'd get 6 figure crossbooks down, i'm wayyyyyy too busto for that

Shaun Deeb

FE is not leveling jeff if he sticks to poker for another 6 months I have 0 doubt he'll be considered like in the same sentance with menlo. I've spent a lot of time with him since I first met him in kiev and I wish I could teach him what I know about tourneys because he can take them so much further. And watching him in action was a factor in why I quit I'll never be as good as he will be and once people of his intelligence level see how easy they can crush poker they will all follow. Also, jeff is an awesome guy great friend I consider now as well. Also, I think everyone whose hungout with him so far out here has been so impressed with almost everything he does. He superuses people live including myself 100% of the time his thoughtprocess is so far above levels I could ever imagine it's sick to watch it in play. Also he actually has personality which will really help once the spotlight is on him again.

Imper1um

Played with Jeff quite a bit and also got a chance to get to know him a little bit these last 2 ept's. He's a super friendly/cool guy (he actually busted me out of EPT warsaw after pretty much owning me) I would definitely say that his potential in poker exceeds most good players. The way he thinks about the game and how he get's his opponents talking are his top two attributes as a player. Fundamentally, he's a little bit unsound but if he worked on his game hardcore for a few months I could definitely see him being a top player. Happy to crossbook vs him for now in a few months to a year, i might change my mind

Timex

Talked to him a bunch, a few things to point out -after this event hes played 6 EPTs with 3 cashes - as everyone else has said hes a super cool, reasonable guy - its tough to get an idea of exactly how good he is since he definitely has a very different approach and doesn't really disect hands in the nit-picky way that twoplustwoers do, and his approach is definitely much more of a broad gameplan than a specific one, I really want to see what happens after he travels the circuit for longer, or better yet strarted putting in legit volume online since I honestly have no idea... I do know as I spent more and more time talking to him I became more and more confident hes a sicko - his approach is kind of the complete opposite, 2+2 thrives off of staying out of tough spots at all costs, he intentionally tries to get in as many tough spots as possible -he said his playing strength is probably about 2500 FIDE, and despite being 31 he thinks he could become a top 100 player if he really dedicated himself to it- but if he hadn't quit at a young age and had been studying properly, he thinks he could have one day been a top 10 player - he hates online chess and doesn't really like the idea of playing much online poker either - Despite talking to him a decent amount about poker, his approach is just so far different from mine and every other 2+2ers that I don't really know how much merit I give to the "it will take him 1 month to get good" or "1 year until hes the best claims" since I honestly just don't know what that much about his game, and how its changed in recent months, what he plans on changing in the future etc, I feel like sweating his hole cards while having him like annotate his thought process would be extremely interesting since he didn't do that much specific poker talk, and mostly just talked about broader ideas - The thing I am most interested in seeing is whether he maintains being as lag as he is. It seems like the majority of players start out lag and then become nittier as time goes on, I'm curious whether he'll tighten up or become even more hyper-lag(to give an idea how lag he is, he mentioned that often after really steamrolling a table he'll really tighten up to try and get paid and only play 20-30% of hands... which I'm pretty sure is about what most lags play during their laggy phases in live tournaments)

Since December 2008 Jeff has been playing on the European Poker Tour, where he has three cashes including a 3rd place finish at EPT Vilamoura.

- Wiki

Don't feel like reading the other 2 pages right now but he's definitely someone to look out for if nothing else.

good posts tian, I def. am curious to see how good this guy can get.

of those posts the only i really trust is timex's.