Poker is harder?

[bkholdem]

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There is no doubt the game is getting harder to win. As the losers get better, the winners win less. This process continues until everyone is a loser to the rake. Sure, we're not there yet, but its coming closer every day.

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[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] This thinking just makes me laugh, no offense.

I mean we see all these threads about "poker is about skill," "poker is about skill", "poker is about skill" and yet the underlying idea to posts like the one above is, "poker is becoming less about skill."

There are all kinds of reasons why this thinking is totally wrong. As Sklansky has written, you make money by playing well and exploiting others' mistakes. And as you yourself get better, (in theory) you can move up in stakes, making more money in absolute terms.

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this is the information age. imo up until a few years ago or so there was really no subculture driven to learn to be proficient at poker. there are now thousands of players dedicated to this. opponents who make less mistakes on average than opponents did 10 years ago means less mistakes to exploit.

[tommo]

maybe its a stupid point. But to those saying that poker is all about "adjusting" and that it will never become -ev. We know from math that there are strategies that cannot be beaten. Thus it is possible (and from a logical standpoint probable) that the vast majority of players are getting closer and closer to finding optimal strategies (humans are really good at this pattern finding stuff).

The counter argument would be that nobody is ever going to find an optimal strategy of playing poker (its just too complex a game). However, this isn't even necessary since the rake is ENORMOUS in these games (especially medium stakes-low stakes). Thus everybody could play pretty good sub-optimal poker and it would still be impossible to make any money long term at poker.

This is a silly point because in my opinion (and this is something that can be proved) poker is still very beatable and will remain so for a long time. Fortunately, the big companies are on our side. If poker can remain profitable they want it to be profitable so that more players will play.

Guess I just have beef with the opinion that no matter what you can always just adjust to the games and make money. The truth is that there is a static unchanging strategy out there that cannot be beaten and that people are playing more in line with this strategy every day (unless there are more new players coming in...but that wasn't really the point of this post).

[Rotating Rabbit]

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There is no doubt the game is getting harder to win. As the losers get better, the winners win less. This process continues until everyone is a loser to the rake. Sure, we're not there yet, but its coming closer every day.

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[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] This thinking just makes me laugh, no offense.

I mean we see all these threads about "poker is about skill," "poker is about skill", "poker is about skill" and yet the underlying idea to posts like the one above is, "poker is becoming less about skill."

There are all kinds of reasons why this thinking is totally wrong. As Sklansky has written, you make money by playing well and exploiting others' mistakes. And as you yourself get better, (in theory) you can move up in stakes, making more money in absolute terms.

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Before you 'laugh' think about it because you're not getting it.

Its a closed system. Consider the simplest case where there are two players. Player A is better than player B.

Money won by A = money lost by B - rake

Now, all learning curves are concave. Thus, in time, if both players play together, the difference in skill between them will narrow. Player A may always be better than B, but the difference will be less pronounced as time goes on. An analogy: consider you're an expert tennis player and you start playing a beginner. Obviously you cane him. Over time if you play enough, he will get better quickly, but you won't improve much. You may beat him every day for ever, but you'll win less easily as time goes on.

This is important because while your relative skill difference decreases, the rake does not. Thus there will come a point when the loser has improved enough such that the winner does not beat the rake. Ie they both lose to the rake. In a world where all players are equal, all players lose.

The only way to avoid this eventuality is if enough newcomers to the system are introduced on an ongoing basis. The exact craeteria for this is hard to calculate.

What I have said above is NOT (as you say) mutally exclusive with the point that 'skill is important'. Skill IS important, but the above is still true.

[5thStreetHog]

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maybe its a stupid point. But to those saying that poker is all about "adjusting" and that it will never become -ev. We know from math that there are strategies that cannot be beaten. Thus it is possible (and from a logical standpoint probable) that the vast majority of players are getting closer and closer to finding optimal strategies (humans are really good at this pattern finding stuff).

The counter argument would be that nobody is ever going to find an optimal strategy of playing poker (its just too complex a game). However, this isn't even necessary since the rake is ENORMOUS in these games (especially medium stakes-low stakes). Thus everybody could play pretty good sub-optimal poker and it would still be impossible to make any money long term at poker.

This is a silly point because in my opinion (and this is something that can be proved) poker is still very beatable and will remain so for a long time. Fortunately, the big companies are on our side. If poker can remain profitable they want it to be profitable so that more players will play.

Guess I just have beef with the opinion that no matter what you can always just adjust to the games and make money. The truth is that there is a static unchanging strategy out there that cannot be beaten and that people are playing more in line with this strategy every day (unless there are more new players coming in...but that wasn't really the point of this post).

[/ QUOTE ]Very good post,i agree with alot of it just not so much this static unchanging strategy out there that cannot be beaten theory.I think there are just to many variations in this game for this to be true.Who is at this level??? I think most good and even great players are still learning and making adjustments in their play even after years and years of playing.This is a game of skill.I do agree with you that as the games get harder there is a certain leveling effect that occurs.But even if you got the top 1000 players in the world there will be players that dominate relative to the field.The gap will be smaller but not as small as to be negated by rake especially online.

[questions]

Even if every player lives forever and plays poker everyday, an eventual skill "equilibrium" will still not make the house the only winner (the rake) over the long-term. People will still be predictable, make mistakes, get tired, misread their cards, etc. That is, there will always be some players who are better than others. They have an inherent skill. For example, the wikipedia entry on Stu Ungar claims he had an exceptionally good memory, and that this is why he was so good at poker. No amount of experience can make up for that. Likewise, some people are just smarter, or think faster.

[questions]

And also in Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, he concedes that he isn't the best player, which would imply to me that, as an expert, he recognizes that some players are just simply better than him.

[questions]

Ah, I see where I think you're incorrect - you assume that experience will eventually make two different players equal in skill. I disagree. It's like any other pursuit - some people will always be better than others.

[plano]

Imho it is not that the 2 players will ever be qual in skill....but they will approach being equal. Given that the fish as any kind of intelligence (some of them dont but most do especially after they lose enough money)

Thus the fish becomes harder to beat. Yes he is still beatable but at a lesser rate so the game becomes tougher.

There was a cardplayer article about this. It reminds of a section in The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide king where he talks about the next big fish with money to play the pros. The more the fish plays he gets better because he is essentiually getting lessons from the best players in the world so he approaches not being the fish. He either goes broke or gets better so he is not losing money at such a rapid pace.

This is the same with online poker. I used to mow through the 10-20 and 15-30 games at party. Those games are still beatable but the bb/hr have gone down.

The games are tougher to beat! Unless you are an allstar or dellusional.

[jukofyork]

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maybe its a stupid point. But to those saying that poker is all about "adjusting" and that it will never become -ev. We know from math that there are strategies that cannot be beaten. Thus it is possible (and from a logical standpoint probable) that the vast majority of players are getting closer and closer to finding optimal strategies (humans are really good at this pattern finding stuff).

The counter argument would be that nobody is ever going to find an optimal strategy of playing poker (its just too complex a game). However, this isn't even necessary since the rake is ENORMOUS in these games (especially medium stakes-low stakes). Thus everybody could play pretty good sub-optimal poker and it would still be impossible to make any money long term at poker.

This is a silly point because in my opinion (and this is something that can be proved) poker is still very beatable and will remain so for a long time. Fortunately, the big companies are on our side. If poker can remain profitable they want it to be profitable so that more players will play.

Guess I just have beef with the opinion that no matter what you can always just adjust to the games and make money. The truth is that there is a static unchanging strategy out there that cannot be beaten and that people are playing more in line with this strategy every day (unless there are more new players coming in...but that wasn't really the point of this post).

[/ QUOTE ]Very good post,i agree with alot of it just not so much this static unchanging strategy out there that cannot be beaten theory.I think there are just to many variations in this game for this to be true.Who is at this level??? I think most good and even great players are still learning and making adjustments in their play even after years and years of playing.This is a game of skill.I do agree with you that as the games get harder there is a certain leveling effect that occurs.But even if you got the top 1000 players in the world there will be players that dominate relative to the field.The gap will be smaller but not as small as to be negated by rake especially online.

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You are correct that when playing HU there exists an unbeatable static strategy (NE), but sadly when playing with 3 or more players this doesn't hold true as the combined maximal strategies of the players can work together to put one of the players at a disadvantage (implicit collusion). This was recently discussed at some length in this thread.

On another note, one thing people seem to have forgotten in this thread is the fish themselves! If good players are having a harder time beating poker then it stands that the fish are also finding it much harder, and will be losing their money even quicker that they did before. Since most of the fish play for enjoyment then the fact that they lose their money twice as quick is going to make them decide to stop playing poker much quicker than before. Also if a fish just sits down with a table full of rocks (eg: current online F/R LHE games), then the chance for some positive variance to make them think for a while they are a winner is going to be lower than it once was also putting them off playing.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[jukofyork]

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Even if every player lives forever and plays poker everyday, an eventual skill "equilibrium" will still not make the house the only winner (the rake) over the long-term. People will still be predictable, make mistakes, get tired, misread their cards, etc. That is, there will always be some players who are better than others. They have an inherent skill. For example, the wikipedia entry on Stu Ungar claims he had an exceptionally good memory, and that this is why he was so good at poker. No amount of experience can make up for that. Likewise, some people are just smarter, or think faster.

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That's very true, but if you playing low/middle limits the rake is HUGE in comparison to higher limits. People in another similar thread quoted the fact that Doyle Brunson made most of his profits from playing other tough players - do you think he would have made much if he was paying 5% rake?

Poker will most likely always be beatable by a few players to some extent, but "beatable" might end being 0.1BB/100 and collecting empty drinks cans would end up netting more (not to mention the mega-variance you suffer as you approach break-even).

The real question is: "will poker be beatable for a decent winrate in the future?" and projecting the last 3/4 years into the future doesn't look good to me.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]