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

[Mr_Mxyztplk]

The peak for a live player is 33? , you might want to tell Freddie Deeb and Chip Reese.

[Pudge714]

Nice post.
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I think that online poker is much more processing-intensive than live poker and depends much less on accumulated knowledge (about behavioral tendencies, for example). It’s not surprising that the top online players tend to be much younger than the top live players. My guess is that the expected peak for a serious online player would be 24 or so, and the expected peak for a live player would be around 33. I would further expect the skills of the live player to fall off more slowly after the peak than the skills of the online player.

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I think young players success online is mainly due to demographic issues. I started playing online poker before I could set foot in a casino. A lot of people in older generations don't trust playing online or can't mechanically download the software, create an account, etc. I also think online players have a lot more knowledge in certain facets of the game because they play more hands. I think this is enough of a concern to reconsider whether live poker is more knowledge intensive.

[jogsxyz]

Makes much more sense to compare poker to bridge. In bridge the top players play well into their sixties and seventies. Over fifty, players will no longer be able to play at a high level for 16 hours a day. But if they restrict their play to 8 hours a day they can.

[pedercina71]

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Nice post, but I think the lack of variance in chess and tennis makes the Kasparov/Federer analogies fairly meaningless. I think that's the real reason why there has never, and probably will never be a well-defined "best player" in poker.

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I disagree, because I think Brandon is focusing on skill sets rather than results. While it's true that it's impossible for someone to show the session-by-session or tournament-by-tournament dominance that Federer, Woods, and Kasparov show(ed) in their games, it is not impossible for someone to similarly command the full set of poker skills.

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But if the command of those poker skills can not be measured in a result over time then there is no way of knowing they exist. If Federer did not dominate we could not deduce his skill is high even if it is possible he had the skill.

[Todd Terry]

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Nice post, but I think the lack of variance in chess and tennis makes the Kasparov/Federer analogies fairly meaningless. I think that's the real reason why there has never, and probably will never be a well-defined "best player" in poker.

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Golf is probably a closer analogy in this respect. The best golfers in the world lose much more often than they win. Prior to Tiger coming along, due to the depth of the modern fields, it was generally believed that no one would ever challenge the all-time records in golf -- Nicklaus' 18 majors, Snead's 81 (I think) wins. Utter domination was thought to be unachievable. Not only has Tiger achieved what was perceived to be impossible, he has inspired others such as Vijay and Phil to raise the levels of their games and put together seasons which but for Tiger's brilliance would have to be considered among the best of all time given the level of competition. Perhaps someone will come along in poker and make our current beliefs about maximum win rates, ROI and variance look naive.

[Yeti]

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Perhaps someone will come along in poker and make our current beliefs about maximum win rates, ROI and variance look naive.

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he's already here, he's called themetetron

[Stinger88]

Very nice post Brandon. Unfortunately as a 19-year-old I am distracted from completely mastering the game by things such as college girls and alcohol, but I try my best [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[VPIP100]

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Very nice post Brandon. Unfortunately as a 19-year-old I am distracted from completely mastering the game by things such as college girls and alcohol, but I try my best [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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QFT

[spino1i]

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Very nice post Brandon. Unfortunately as a 22-year-old I am distracted from completely mastering the game by things such as college girls and alcohol, but I try my best [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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[Xaston]

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Perhaps someone will come along in poker and make our current beliefs about maximum win rates, ROI and variance look naive.

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he's already here, he's called themetetron

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A++