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  #81  
Old 11-20-2007, 09:44 AM
ActionStan ActionStan is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

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.
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  #82  
Old 11-20-2007, 09:50 AM
jmill2511 jmill2511 is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

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The thing is, the general public may view the WSOP main event as the Wimbledon of poker, but any real poker player knows that it's just the powerball of poker.

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  #83  
Old 11-20-2007, 10:15 AM
AaronBrown AaronBrown is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs online)

This is a great post, but I think it's too pessimistic.

Back when I learned the game in the 60's, it was conventional wisdom that a top player had to learn in his pre-teen or early teen years, and drop out of school to focus enough time on the game. That fits with the brain work that says you need to fix those analytic skills early; before your brain performance starts to erode after 19.

That meant there was a very small pool of potential top players. You had to be born in a place with good poker players, be enough of a geek to master the analysis and focus on the theory, be introspective enough to know yourself and shy enough to observe other people closely; and yet have the nerve to walk into an illegal backroom game populated by tough-looking adult strangers, with the intention of walking out again with their money.

Today, anyone in the world with an Internet connection can practice top poker 24/7, with minimal risk. That's a million-fold increase in potential top players, which is the main reason I think we'll see vast improvement in play. On-line players may not get the people-reading or life management skills on-line, but that's the stuff adults are better at anyway, they can learn it in their 20's.

The reason I'm more optimistic is I don't think poker destroys your brain, I think it hones it, like a steel with a knife. Of course, if you keep honing a blade, you grind it away; so if you play poker only to get better at poker, you do wind up in bad shape.

But poker can shape your brain for tough, creative risk-taking in any field. The intensity Brandon mentions; the hormones and sleep deprivation at ages when your neurons are plastic; these things change your brain. All poker, all the time, is a drug addict's life. All poker, some of the time, and some poker, all of the time, is a source of super powers.

The biggest reason we don't have a Kasparov or Federer of poker is you can do other things with your poker skills. Chess ability is not much good outside the game, you can be crazy and be a great chess player (but not a good poker player). Tennis skills haven't been useful since the neolithic age. So if you're great at one of those games, you stick with it. The most successful people in both sports, in terms of money, respect and life success, are not the best players, but some good players with outside talents who write or coach or manage or produce or whatever.

Traditionally, most of the best poker players went off to do other things. They focused on poker for a few key years, then moved on. They still played enough to be very good, and accumulated experience does count for something, but they didn't do the constant practice and refinement necessary in chess or tennis.

It's true that the rewards for being the best poker player have gone up. A top tournament player is a celebrity and can make a nice living. But I don't think people who want to be celebrities and make nice livings have the fire to be great at anything. The quality of play will go up a lot, but the potential best players will never devote the necessary time and discipline to reach the level of mastery possible in other pursuits.
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  #84  
Old 11-20-2007, 10:16 AM
n2p n2p is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

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well, for six months, Viffer had a policy of never bluffing Kenny. That is, if he bet big on the river against Kenny, he was never bluffing. For him, that was optimal... if Kenny knows when you're bluffing, your optimal bluffing percentage is 0. Something like that just makes no sense in the context of online poker.

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having any percentage of a certain play at 0 can not be anything close to optimal no matter what

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If your cards are face up (essentially what hes saying) yes it is.

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but the cards arent face up...especially after a few months of kenny knowing he wont bluff him

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If Kenny always knows when your bluffing optimal bluffing percentage is 0.

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The only way your bluffing % can be zero is if you only bet when you have the nuts - doesn't that present a few problems?

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we can maybe make some thin value bets with the 2nd nuts occasionally
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  #85  
Old 11-20-2007, 10:21 AM
mntbikr15 mntbikr15 is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs online)

Aaron,

Best post Ive read in a long long time
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  #86  
Old 11-20-2007, 10:34 AM
CASINOCASINO CASINOCASINO is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

Top 5 article of the year.

heres a comment, this pretty much certifies that there will never be a poker boom to the same extent as it ever was.
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  #87  
Old 11-20-2007, 11:13 AM
Vacant Vacant is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

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Top 5 article of the year.

heres a comment, this pretty much certifies that there will never be a poker boom to the same extent as it ever was.

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Why do you say that, based on anything to do with this thread?
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  #88  
Old 11-20-2007, 11:38 AM
jeff329 jeff329 is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

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The story of my poker life in 07 is that I was a big loser online, but I was the biggest or second biggest winner in live poker from May-August. On the whole, that has left me pretty flush.

I am not claiming you aren't a very solid player here. But the reality is, the amount of live hands you played in the three months of summer is probably comparable to the amount of hands an online grinder can put in within a week or two. That being said, it does mean that the variance involved with your summer rush is pretty high, which implies that, while it can prove you to be a solid player, it really can't show anything more than that. A player online who has a big 20k hands would be laughed at if he took from those stats too much.
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  #89  
Old 11-20-2007, 11:48 AM
AKoffsuit AKoffsuit is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

Interesting post but has some academic pesssimistic point of view
I know taht now at 30 my intellect and learning ability is much greater now than it was at 19
and i expect it to continue growing i am sure there are many others who agree
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  #90  
Old 11-20-2007, 12:00 PM
Gary Stevenson Gary Stevenson is offline
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Default Re: The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs onlin

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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++

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i guess there aren't enough MSNLers reading nvg. A+ indeed
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