20 Tweets: Anything You Can Do

This past weekend, Todd Anderson took down the Star City Games Invitational, an invite-only tournament with a huge per-attendee prize payout that caps off each season of SCG Open series tournaments. As Todd popped a champagne bottle and confetti and dollar bills rained down on him from the rafters, he decided to make a casual observation: winning an SCG Invitational is harder than winning a Pro Tour.

Alright pros, semi-pros and opinionated durdles. It’s time to drop your shorts and get a ruler ready. As you can imagine, this comment immediately met resistance from Pro Tour Regulars and former Champions. And then we started ranking the “best Americans.” What do you think?

Man, I was always trying to get to the Pro Tour to try and challenge myself as much as possible, but Todd says I chose the wrong tournament.

— Alexander Hayne (@InsayneHayne) September 23, 2012

@benc86 Todd Anderson says the SCG Invitational is tougher than the Pro Tour. While I'm sure its a hard tournament, I doubt it.

— Alexander Hayne (@InsayneHayne) September 23, 2012

@strong_sad are they not advantaged at the Invitational too? I feel like at the PT you have the world's best, at SCG (most) top Americans.

— Alexander Hayne (@InsayneHayne) September 23, 2012

@pvddr If the formats weren't brand new each Pro Tour, I think you would see a lot of different faces doing well. Teams are a serious edge.

— Todd Anderson (@strong_sad) September 23, 2012

@strong_sad Value evaluation + metagaming a new constructed format is a rarer and more valuable skill than grinding a single one IMO @pvddr

— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) September 24, 2012

@thepchapin that seems like a straight up fact. I out swim the dudes at the gym, Olympians only do better because of coaches.

— Casey Hupke (@hackeyesup) September 24, 2012

can't imagine a tournament where i had 2 byes to be harder than one with 0 byes @strong_sad #scginvi

— Ty Thomason (@ceciliajupe) September 24, 2012

@braunduinit I've never played the invitational, but from watching the coverage it definitely doesn't seem so.

— Paulo Vitor (@PVDDR) September 24, 2012

@braunduinit well, aren't you likewise biased by who you happened to play in those tournaments? Maybe you got soft pairings at a GP

— Paulo Vitor (@PVDDR) September 24, 2012

@tommartell @strong_sad yeah, either way you slice it, a good number of top Americans were not there. Some were, not trying to rank anyone.

— Alexander Hayne (@InsayneHayne) September 24, 2012

@pvddr @insaynehayne @tommartell @strong_sad 1. Todd 2. Costa 3. Gerry 4. Reid 5. Sam 6. MJ 7-20. The rest of the Invi top 16.

— Brad Nelson (@fffreakmtg) September 24, 2012

I think doing it in tiers is better, impossible to rank people who are very close. Sooo... Tier 1: Luis/Owen. Tier 2: Ben Stark, Finkel

— Paulo Vitor (@PVDDR) September 24, 2012

@pvddr @strong_sad you probably just haven't played with or watched @efropoker play at all.

— Owen Turtenwald (@OwenTweetenwald) September 24, 2012

@pvddr Probably both, but only because Efro thinks he is MUCH better than he actually is...at everything. <3

— Todd Anderson (@strong_sad) September 24, 2012

@pvddr But Todd Anderson won the #SCGINVI so he must be the best player in America

— Simon Copp (@simonodocopp) September 24, 2012

My friends are underrated, people I don't know aren't that good, events I did well at were really hard& I could win more if I wanted. #today

— Patrick Chapin (@thepchapin) September 24, 2012

@nextlevelspec When any of those other guys can make two top 8s in a year while holding a full time job and only playing occasionally, LMK.

— Mark Schick (@markdash12) September 24, 2012

@strong_sad @thepchapin @pvddr Not to diminish your accomplishment, but you have a drastically skewed perspective re: the field strength

— Brian Kibler (@bmkibler) September 24, 2012

@strong_sad @thepchapin @pvddr You realize that to do well at any PT you're going to play against multiple PT top 8 finishers, right?

— Brian Kibler (@bmkibler) September 24, 2012

@strong_sad also, this isn't an argument you can win or look good in right now, since it's so much better for you if you're right. Max bias.

— Sam Black (@SamuelHBlack) September 24, 2012

Heather Meek
@RevisedAngel on Twitter
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