The pro poll is supposed to reflect MTT skill, right? Jeff put his names back in his profile and has had great results even if he has't played as much lately as he used to, he should really be rated higher.

I just think that a player who is one of the biggest winners in all of the tournament should be ranked higher than 33rd on average by his peers.

I mean I know biases and personal feelings about people influence the pro poll, but the guy has over $400k profit in MTTs just for this year, and drops a dozen spots on the pro poll every week.

His names are back in his profile and IMO it would be disrespectful to the system for other ranked players to not recognize a true poker talent, even if they don't like him. Otherwise, why have the pro poll at all?

just my outlook...

yawning or opening your mouth for food?

C Allen = Jeffs Mom..

There are undoubtably players out there who have the skill to be at the top but don't have the other ingredients (such as dedication to online tournaments). Maybe at one time, they did have those other ingredients and don't anymore. The rankings will reflect that as well.

right, but this isn't the case with ActionJeff.

I think a lot of people might have removed his name from their rankings because he took his names out of his profile, but recently put them back in.

Thanks for the thought out response. I hope to rise to the level of some of these players one day.

I have an opinion.

I think Jeff is a great player.

I ranked Jeff highly even though I think he will be a better human being when he grows up.

I think most people actually do vote what they believe, despite personal agendas.

I think Jeff way overrates his own game.

I think Jeff loves his groupies to call him a genius when he makes horrible plays.

I think Jeff loves to berate and attack players who are geniuses just like him but get their money in bad sometimes, but they are all donkeys in his esteemed eyes.

I think Jeff is in stage 3 and 4 of being a poker player.

Stage 1 was playing horribly and learning the game

Stage 2 is tasting success and learning how to deal with it, both good and bad

Stage 3 is people learning your game and playing back at you and now it's time to retool.

Stage 4 is permeating a conspiracy theory into your brain that you can't win and every player is hitting two outers on you.

Stage 5 will be learning to let go of bad beats

Stage 6 is he's lucky will be to become a better person, and thus a better player.

I Action Jeff

brsavage,

I haven't posted here before, but as a friend of Jeff's who has benefited a lot from his help I feel the need to.

Not to disrespect you, but there are major flaws in your reasoning, and I think your post is very condescending and naive.

You choose to degrade others and then throw in compliments to make it ok. "He's good, but not on MY level". Newsflash for you sir: ActionJeff is a much better poker player than you are. Ask any of the top players and they will say the same. I am sorry to say that you are not considered to be on par with Jeff or top players like slimshaggy, kwob20, Roothlus, Imperium, etc.

As a former magic player who was fairly successful, and who has now made the transition to poker, I am very interested in the stories of players like Action jeff. I think it is silly of you to think that Jeff just was successful, then people started playing back at him and now he doesn't win. The fact is, Jeff has been a consistent winner in MTTs (not that this is hard) and NL cash games for a long time. A NL cash player even at middle stakes has to constantly adapt their play to trick their opponents and remain a winner, and in the higher stakes this is especially true.

I don't think Jeff overrates his game or makes horrible plays very often. I think he goes on tilt much too often, and I think he has improvements to make. I also have seen some of his hand histories and talked strategy with him, and am pretty confident when I say that, on his A game and focused, ActionJeff may be one of the best NLHE tournament players ever. It was funny to see your PXF video, I thought you were likely very skilled up to that point, and was extremely dissapointed.

I don't personally know why Jeff plays tournaments or why he doesn't try harder to play his A game all the time. I was an avid reader of Jeff's blog, and the stats he posted from tournaments and pokertracker, even inclusive of his big losing sessions, were very impressive and certainly inspiring to me.

I agree that Jeff has maturing to do. He "tilts off" or "throws away" a good portion of the tournaments that he enters. The fact that he has such staggeringly good results anyway gives him a lot of credibility in my mind. When Magic was big, Jeff cracked format after format. He is clearly very intelligent. I believe that, to become a top poker player, this is necesarry. Motivation and practice will only get you so far.

Sorry to rant like this, but other than staking me and teaching me the finer points of tournaments in the past, Jeff has helped me a lot with my game and I feel the need to defend him. Apparently he managed to get himself banned from this forum, for what he wouldn't say, haha.

I apologize if I came off as being harsh, its nothing personal.

-Chris

Hand analysis is AJ's forte, what I don't get is why anyone would care how an 18 year old kid acts on an online forum.

This MUST be Jeff, damn cry baby!

LOL

I respect your opinion that you don't respect me as a player. My results over 3 years speaks for itself, so I'll focus on the AJ issue. As far as other peoples perception of me, that is fine too... I respect the game of all of the players above that you mentioned, both long time and short time winners. The truth of the matter is that I have grown to not care whether I am the "best". That word is subjective. What I care about is the quality of my play and how poker fits into my life as a whole. I play about 10-20% as much as most players, and as a result I'm sure my play is not as sharp as some others.

By the way, your post certainly smacks of pure AJ talk, such as him always saying I degrade him but then throw in compliments. Hmmm, how else do I make the statement that he is an exceptional poker talent but sucks at life? You are right, what started as my perception that I was being a wiser more experienced player trying to get Jeff to quit attacking other players turned into a pure me vs him issue, and that is simply not what I intended.

If you really think my post is condescending compared to how immature and brash AJ has acted, then you actually are naive. For the record, many young top players despise AJ, and they do so because he disrespects other players repeatedly. I don't despise AJ, I despise the fact that he hasn't figured out that if he acted better towards others then he would indeed be a better overall player and person.

I can only say this so many times. AJ is a brilliant poker player. I like many others loved reading his posts as they were very insightful. That being said, AJ has brought criticism upon himself for all of his ridiculous berating of other respected players.

You can believe what you wish, I wish him the best, and that has nothing to do with winning at poker, it has to do with growing up.

On a further note, I apologize in advance to all of the community members who believe that this forum is no place for all of this "drama". I do in fact think it is poker related, as learning to have an even keeled disposition is better for our game at the tables, and this is part and parcel what this is concerning.

Also, mtg, I had Jeff ranked in the top 5 of my pro poll for the first week. I have moved him down since I think others are genuinely playing better than him at this point in time, but my personal opinion of Jeff as a person has never influenced my opinion of Jeff as a player. There are so many talented players, I think Jeff is certainly one of the best, but he is not light years ahead of many of the other top players, although you would have a hard time convincing him of that.

Chris.

How can anyone honestly think there is a clear-cut top 10? Does ActionJeff really play better poker than Ozzy87, Shaniac, Bax, Imsolucky0 etc. etc.? Does Bax really play better than all those guys? Is Colson10 actually better than guys like Foshio, Sheets,Apestyles, LilHoldem etc etc? It seems to me like everyone of those guys and a whole lot more players are every bit as capable of winning any MTT they enter as the next.

I have a son exactly like Jeff, very intelligent yet very immature. There will come a time when his maturity will catch up with his intelligence. It is only a matter of time. When that happens, Jeff will be a deadly player. I personally feel that he is one of the best players on the net right now. His abilities to analyze situations quickly and correctly are a gift.

In the meantime he will continue to be a miserable human being. He will get there.

Brsavage hit the nail on the head, he is absolutely right. No player will ever live up to their potential until they become mature and satisfied with their abilities and have the composure to move past the variance and beats.

We have all had the attitude at one time or another where you feel you played a hand perfectly and someone misplays a hand and beats your "superior play". The real genius in that moment is getting past it and playing that person accordingly, not crapping your tourney or cash game because your pissed. No one will ever be able to win 100% of the time by making great plays. There are way too many variables in the game. All you can do is work towards making the right decisions 100% of the time. That comes with maturity and introspection.

Can you take anyone seriously who says this

"The fact is, Jeff has been a consistent winner in MTTs (not that this is hard)"

Not hard to win MTTs?

Is everybody winning them consistently then? Who is losing? Where is all the profit coming from?

Alllllrighty then...

"It was funny to see your PXF video, I thought you were likely very skilled up to that point, and was extremely dissapointed."

I dont think that sounds harsh, just childish.

It isnt hard, Brett. I win every single tournament I win. I also have a winning session on the cash table every time I have a winning session.

No one knows the truth about who is winning what, because we dont know how much a player spends to win the tourneys that they do win. I know for me, I can win one tourney and all it does is pay for the 7 that I didnt win. I am ahead, yes, but certainly not getting rich.

Can anyone think of a player that plays few tourneys and regularly goes deep in them. TheBeat comes to mind. NSXT2 comes to mind.

(even though todd REALLY needs to work on his live game etiquette BIG TIME)

has nothing to do with online rankings.