The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs online)

[Nick Rivers]

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The level of skill that Gary Kasparov in his prime exhibited on a chess table has never been matched by anyone on the green felt. This is open to argument, but I believe it to be obviously true and I think there is a deep reason for it. Poker wears people down.
Forget for a moment the degeneracy that surrounds poker. The poker world is rife with addiction, drug and alcohol use, depression, and sleep deprivation, but we will ignore for a moment the effect of these things on one’s abilities over time.

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The chess world is rife with addiction, drug and alcohol use, depression, and sleep deprivation as well. Professional chess players are every bit the degenerates that professional poker players are so, in that sense, this aspect of the contrast between chess and poker is invalid.