How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/long)

[VanVeen]

"Is it possible to use the PSC to predict future developments in playstyles?"

strategy evolves almost entirely through trial-and-error and imitation, with thoughtful forum-based analysis only providing signposts to guide people away from (likely!) crappy strategies and toward good ones.

the simple answer to your question is 'no, we can't'. evidence? no one has done it before. almost every good player thought Bld was a donkey when he first arrived. many think cts is a donkey, or that durrr can't play omaha. thus far i'd say the track record is pretty bad.

that said, one prediction i will make is strategies will tend to become more complicated over time. pure 14/12 strategies with unchanging and simplistic criteria to evaluate hand strength are not going to result in big monies anymore. more variability in preflop ranges, more variability in bet sizes, more variability in post-flop ranges.. this is what will happen. strategies can only get so complex, though, because we're all so dense. how complex they'll get is anyone's guess, but we're prob not quite there.

pretty cool article on a related topic.