[markksman]

[ QUOTE ]

But that's the best way to make money in those endeavors. It's not like these guys are getting to choose from sixty different tournaments in a given week. If you want to make a lot of money at tennis, you will end up playing the best players.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is something I was trying to get at earlier, when I mentioned money being the ultimate scorecard. In individual sports, you have to play the top competition if you want to win the most money. It is the way it is, because the top players want a chance at the big money, so they all compete in the top events.

Poker seems a bit different as a lot of people are content to play in their own little pond and not test themselves against others. So does money provide an accurate measure? I suspect some people out there make huge money playing people who are way below them and taking all their money. You can't be a succesful tennis player doing that.

As it stands in poker right now, the biggest events don't always, allegedly, attract the top players. The question is why? Why don't the top poker players want to seek out those top events? I suspect it is value. They can make nearly as much money with much less risk playing players who are worse then them.

If Federer could make 30 million a year playing high school kids, he might choose to do that, as the risk reward is way out of whack. Plus individual sports cost time, training and money to get to the events, but you are not actually risking any money in the competition itself.

I guess part of me wishes poker were more like tennis and golf, where the top players were forced to play against each other in order to succeed, but that is not how poker works.