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

[ActionStan]

Playing devil's advocate here, the online game is dominated by midstack poker where analysis and early street decision making dominates the play. Brandon was pretty clear that the online players have the strongest skills in these areas right now. Saying that these two players aren't winning online players doesn't discredit his argument at all. It is his argument.

[Sciolist]

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Also, I think that top chess players are better at chess than basically anyone is at anything, and I don't think poker will be that way any time soon.

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I agree with this completely too. If you look at the effort and complexity of thought required to be at the top of chess, or perhaps something like maths (or any science), it's so far from what we do right now that it doesn't even bear comparison.

However, it's highly unlikely that there will be (m)any more huge improvements of play in poker, it'll probably just be a series of small adjustments. I say this because there are already a large number of smart people working on the game and we're fairly close to solving a few forms: Think ICM, think headsup limit. Adding things in that we don't already - wider use of sophisticated analysis, better fitness, better directed learning - I don't think they'll shift the poker landscape all that far.

Thus everyone will get closer and closer in skill level and the rake will become a bigger and bigger factor. Who cares if I'm 1% better than you if neither of us can beat the rake any more? Whoever is amongst the best in five years will be better than whoever is best now, but if they came back to our games today they'd not win more than 10 or 20% more than people do today.

Even now, rake is typically about 5ptbb/100 at SSNL, which is the same as the good win rates. I think that the gap between the best players and the new players will become big enough that the new players won't come in to the games fast enough to stop them becoming too tough to beat.

[jogsxyz]

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However, it's highly unlikely that there will be (m)any more huge improvements of play in poker, it'll probably just be a series of small adjustments. I say this because there are already a large number of smart people working on the game and we're fairly close to solving a few forms: Think ICM, think headsup limit. Adding things in that we don't already - wider use of sophisticated analysis, better fitness, better directed learning - I don't think they'll shift the poker landscape all that far.

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The next massive see change in poker will be to change the betting structure. Assuming the public actually wants to see the best players win. Reduce the luck factor.

[JanelleBB7]

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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. I believe that there is something inherent in the game of poker that makes it difficult for one to steadily increase one’s ability over time. Namely, I think that the chief attraction of the game- it’s ability to kick up adrenaline and other stress chemicals- actually subtly damages the brains of poker players, making it difficult for them to study their game and improve over time. There are mounds of evidence suggesting that even relatively mild stress can damage the brain’s frontal lobes and impair learning and memory.

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Wow this really discourages anyone from ever wanting to be a professional poker player. [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[Christophers]

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.

[JoeKing]

wow

[RikaKazak]

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wow

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[LearnedfromTV]

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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.

[A_C_Slater]

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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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Just 2 years ago no one really had any idea who the best online NLHE players were. But now some railtard could at least make a top 10 list of online players due to all the tracking sites. Of course, live there is really no way to determine since people can lie about winrates and not enough hands are played before a game will break down.

[duffy99]

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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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Just 2 years ago no one really had any idea who the best online NLHE players were. But now some railtard could at least make a top 10 list of online players due to all the tracking sites. Of course, live there is really no way to determine since people can lie about winrates and not enough hands are played before a game will break down.

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sammy farha obv