[Crane]

My take.

These young Internet hotshots who think they're the be all end all of poker just don't have the seasoning to really understand what the poker world is all about.

People like Baldwin have been around for a long, long time. They've seen lots of hotshots come and mostly go over the years, but nobody ever gives them any credit.

Some of these kids just think they know everything there is to know about poker. What with all of their two to five years of experience.

And some of them haven't hit the variance roller coaster on the downhill slope yet either. It can be a long, long ways down to the bottom of that hill.

I would love to see how some of these new superstars would have fared in the old days with Baldwin, Brunson, Moore, Reese, Zee, Zewin, Tomko, Chan, Ferris, Berman, Ungar, Strauss et al. There used to be some mighhty big no limit and pot limit games around. I used to watch these guys push around 200K pots back in the early 80s. What's 200k in 1983 worth in today's dollars?

I give these kids their props though. They made the money, and they've got the balls to step up and play in the biggest with the best. They'd just better be careful. What goes up, usually comes crashing back down.

For those who haven't read it, Bobby Baldwin's book, Winning Poker Secrets is a very good read. This guy's been through eveything these kids are facing now--and then some.