Just how young (and why) are the top players online?

[Whitewash]

Would you guys stop killing my thread over some stupid donkament hand w/ 10BB effective stacks. TY.

[fees]

Actually I think I might have figured it out.

All of the people who have the capacity to do so that are older probably already lead very fulfilling lives and have $$ or have no need for it...

prob

[fnord_too]

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it'd be hard to dedicate enough time to be super successful at poker if you have a full time job. So most 25+yr olds already had jobs by the time poker had it's big boom. Also, wives + kids wreck your dreams.

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Yeah that's pretty much it. If I were 16-25 when the poker boom hit, I could have devoted 60-80/week to playing and working on my game. Now I can devote maybe 20.

[player]

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PA: How do you call that bet with that hand ?
DB: How do you make that bet ?? We're playing poker; not solitaire!

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Classic!
I lost some respect for PA after seeing this.

[Wowliksom!]

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Wow, thats a terrible call by Doyle.

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I must be a terrible player then, because it seems to me that: 1) PA made a terrible bet; and 2) Doyle made a terrific, if risky call.

By way of illustration, there's another clip of Doyle playing Chip Reese. Doyle has queens, and raises pre-flop, reese calls. Flop is rags. Doyle bets pot, Reese raises. Doyle thinks. And folds. How many people would fold there?

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Well, Doyle can only hope for a coinflip because he can obv not be that specific to put a X2 on PA. I don't know the blinds but if Doyle had a 10 bb-stack this is an autopush not a limp/complete-call. Which is a terrible play obv.

[antisocialgrace]

I have a sneaking suspicion that ZeeJustin, JJProdigy and BuustedJ are not alone amongst their peers. I believe young people are much less mature and constrained by conscience in terms of what they are willing to do to for an easy buck.

A lot of you haven't been around long enough to appreciate the social consequences of exploiting and taking advantage of your fellow human beings, but maybe one day you will.

Speaking for myself I'm just not motivated enough to figure out how to beat the "security" protocols on FTP, Prima and Stars, but I would guess there are plenty of kids with too much time on their hands who are.

ZeeJustin said all his friends (presumably players who have done as well as he has) were multi-accounting and I believe him. Reading all the misogynistic bile and reports of scam-mongering in NVG leads me to believe Poker Stars ethical guidelines concerning collusion aren't going to be taken real seriously by a lot of the resident punks either.

So basically its a combination of three things .. more leisure time to learn the game, more computer savvy and less scruples about using that knowledge to gain any and every advantage ethical or not.

JMHO.

[fnord_too]

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Most old people that I know of aren't smart. They don't have the stamina. There not good with computers. That is pretty much 100 the reasoning behind it.

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The problem with this quote is that the 'old people' part is redundant. Actually, the percentage of dumb asses in an age demographic drops as age increases due to dumb asses being more likely to die in an accident (the leading cause of death for like 1-25 year olds).

Additionally, who do you you think fuels the poker economy? These old people who cannot even multi-table or the thousands of young idiots who hit a bit of positive variance then degen it up?

An interesting study would be to see what percentage of players with 100K+ hands are winners in various age groups. People seem to be making the leap that because the best players are young that young players tend to play better than old players, which is an incorrect leap to make. (It could be the case, though I tend to doubt it, but it does not follow logically, that is, you cannot say because the best players are from group A and not group B, the average group A player plays better than the average group B player).

Of course the people who dominate the highest games will be younger on average for reasons cited: they have the time to commit fully. Intelligence really does not change much as you get older. Personality changes a lot, but not intelligence, so if you are young and smart and can devote 80 hours a week to a game you are going to get a lot better a lot quicker than if you are old and smart and just don't have that kind of time. About the only other good argument I can think of is that people tend to get more risk averse as they get older, which could hurt there game greatly if it translates to it. The counter there, though, is that the best poker players are either degenerates with a lot of talent (and degeneracy does not discriminate on age) or exercise good bankroll management and do not let emotion affect their play.

[Pudge714]

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I hope you kids save this thread. One day it will make you laugh, too. You're reinforcing the tradition that young guys have no clue about much of anything other than what it's like to be a young guy. As for being older...clueless.

About "old people" being clueless about computers and the "internets"? Who do you think invented them? Uh, someone who's now in his late 50s and 60s and older. Duh.

too funny

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Wow, please tell me this is a level. The guys who invented the internet, cpus, etc are such a small sample of 50-60 year olds. The number of hours an 18-21 year old uses the internet on average is much greater than 50-60 year olds. The answer to the question is basically a lack of responsibility which leads to risk taking and more 18-21 year olds discovering online poker in the first place.
Doyles limp call with 33 there is really bad shoving is so much better. It would have been awesome if PA shoved 76s or 44.

The scruples thing is also really dumb. First the percentage of succesfull online pros who cheat is very small. Secondly all the old tales of guys like Johhny Moss and Amarillo Slim they are "characters" not cheaters. What about guys like Men Nguyen, etc.

[Triumph36]

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I hope you kids save this thread. One day it will make you laugh, too. You're reinforcing the tradition that young guys have no clue about much of anything other than what it's like to be a young guy. As for being older...clueless.

About "old people" being clueless about computers and the "internets"? Who do you think invented them? Uh, someone who's now in his late 50s and 60s and older. Duh.

too funny

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i think if you ignore the rhetoric, there are some very valid points in here that go beyond the fact that old people have more responsibilities.

btw i'm pretty sure the players mentioned were never close to busto and had v good br management skills - so saying 'well being broke at 19, who cares, so's everyone else' isn't really fair - there wasn't *that* much shot-taking going on.

[cts]

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old people stupid

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