Ten players who failed to meet expectations at the 2011 WSOP Part 1

Every World Series of Poker sees a number of players come out of nowhere, or rise from the ashes of poker purgatory, but there is also the other side of the coin, with a number of players who come into the WSOP with huge expectations heaped upon them -sometimes self-imposed– that fail to deliver. While this says nothing about their ability at a poker table it still makes for an interesting story!

So here are the first five of the 10 players who failed to live up to expectation at the 2011 WSOP:

1. Howard Lederer/Chris Ferguson - Lederer and Ferguson make the list not for their lack of results at the WSOP, but for their lack of results in resolving anything to do with the current Full Tilt Poker fiasco that continues to unfold. Even worse is that the duo have decided to simply “disappear” from the poker world, and in the immortal words of The Steve Miller Band, it seems that they “Took the money and run”.
2. David Williams - Williams had his second straight WSOP with just a single cash in 2011, and although we’ve seen the 2010 WPT Championship winner go through some dry spells before, he really needs to become a more consistent tournament performer if he wants to break through to the upper echelon of Poker Pros.
3. Mike Matusow - Matusow did make the money three times at the 2011 WSOP, but all three of his scores were Allen Kessler min-cashes, putting “The Mouth” well into the red for the WSOP. His dreadful performance in 2011 comes on the heels of two small cashes in 2010, and one cash in 2009. For a player that enters as many events as Matusow these results are dreadful.
4. The Ladies - Despite two runner-up finishes by Maria Ho and Stephanie Nguyen, for the third straight year the ladies have failed to win a WSOP bracelet in an open event -Vanessa Selbst’s win in the $1,500 PLO tournament back in 2008 was the last win by a female poker player at the WSOP-and are fast approaching the dubious record streak of 221 straight tournaments without a win set between 1982 and 1996! Currently the ladies have gone 213 straight open-tournaments without a bracelet.
5. Allen Cunningham - Cunningham, one of the most consistent tournament players in poker, managed only a single cash at the 2011 WSOP, and pocketed a mere $8k in prize-money. After six cashes, a bracelet, and a Main Event final table in 2006, Cunningham cashed four times in 2007 (including another bracelet) and another five times in 2008: Since then Cunningham has a total of four cashes in 2009, 2010, and 2011 combined with a top score of $24k.

Read Part 2 here