Is this Isildur then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen

This is unbelievably irrational. For someone who has played poker for a few years I am suprised that first of all you assume that there are many people of his type of intelligence level walking the earth and secondly to assume those that have his type of intellect are going to quit the types of areas in life they excel in to suddenly play poker is just hilarious.

To have this guy impact your decision is pretty much a joke. For most other people its probably an inspiration to see the level the game could go to.

Just my 2 cents.

I'm a Fide Master, and I seriously have never heard of this guy until I heard them bring him up on the 2+2 podcast.. I know plenty of chess players who made master when they were super young.. What I've found about chess players crossing over into poker is their biggest problem is dealing with the issue of losing.. In chess you are so used to just playing good games and winning over and over again, and when you lose you know you messed up and analyze it..

There is more to poker than just straight intelligence, IMO strength of character is extremely important. In chess this isn't a very important aspect.. Perhaps this is why many chess players play donkaments and not cash games, tilt is not a major issue cause when you take a bad beat you're often just out of the tourney.

I wish the guy the best of luck, but just because the dude is OK at chess (and 2300 is really nothing in chess), don't think he's gonna be the best poker player ever..

i'm curious about learning more about jeff sarwer. Does anything know more about him than what's on his wiki page? What did his father do. What happened to his sister?

Jeff's father didn't allow Jeff to continue his chess career when it became apparent that he wouldn't be able to keep full control over Jeff's life. He moved the family away from New York City and ran into trouble with The Children's Aid Society of Ontario. A featured article in Vanity Fair magazine by John Colapinto detailed child abuse of Jeff and Julia and prompted the C.A.S. to take him and his sister into protective custody.

Jeff and Julia ran away from the C.A.S. back to their father and hid out from authorities in order to not be taken away into custody again. The Sarwers lived in various countries and got used to living an anonymous lifestyle.

Chess may seem like it's more complex than poker because of the people that play it, and the skill level of the GM's, but it's still not more complex.

Poker players are simply much worse at poker than chess players are at chess, and that makes the game seem easier, when it's actually much more complex.

Chess will be solved long before HU 100BB NLHE is solved. And as for multiplayer poker, that's not even solvable.

MTT-poker is way more solved than Cash HU due to ongoing multiaccounting primarily online, but also live mainly due to certain teams like the one led by Men The Master Nguyen. Members of same horsetables like Sheets and Baxes and the Russian ones should be announced and reported publicly before the tournament both live and online due to honesty and legitimative issues IMO.

i'm more wondering if detailed child abuse is physical abuse, or the government just took the children away because of their weird lifestyle and not having them enrolled in school.

Should be only physical due to a Scandi (native Finn) parent who are used to strict physical disciplines and orders if you don't behave (as being aware of) accordingly as a child. And chess is considered as a pussy career anyways Finns rather like your children to become a kendo professional instead of something else sport or other activity.

Consider the amount of time to get top at poker, for some reason the top 3 poker players in the world (Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Benyamine) are in their ealry-mid 30. It does take time and effort to become the best at poker, and its very likely you dont reach your peak at both games until 35-40 like you do in chess.

If we take avg internet "pro" and average GM then obviously it takes alot more time to become a GM but poker is a mainstream game just the last 5 years and the number of players exploded, I dont think that in few years, it will be still so easy to study poker just for few months and almost instantly make decent money.

LOL at putting Benyamine in the same league as Ivey and Antonius.

In a live league he is tough. Online he sometimes does not care as much as Pat and Ivey. Matusow says he is the best allaround.

Seems like his sister is in the process of having a biography edited about their life. Sounds like it would be an interesting read

Anything Matusow says should be taken with a grain of salt.

Anything someone from Manchester says should also be taken with a grain of salt.

Sorry, haven't read the entire thread, but - 'he claims to only have played for 9 months' - doesn't really add up to the fact that he cashed in EPT Prague 13 months ago!

after talking to jeff it appears the project has turned into a movie that will detail their lives from the point they disappeared until some time in the recent past, and from the little i know about where he has been and what he has done it could really be an incredible film. i could be wrong though in which case there would be 2 separate projects.

One measure of the complexity of a game is the ability to program a
computer to play at a top level. Computers have been programmed
to play chess at a world class level, and have beaten the world champion. By contrast, in spite of many years of efforts by AI experts to program a computer to play go, these programs cannot play the game beyond the beginner level. Go is simply more complex than chess.

I know that computer programmers have made some progress developing programs to play heads up NL holdem. But I really don't think that the
worlds top poker players have any fear of playing either full ring or a tournament against a computer.

By this measure, poker is more complex than chess.

i highly doubt this sir

thats like saying go will be solved before chess

YOU QUIT???

well done, a completely valueless measure of which is harder.

doesn't matter how great you play or smart you are, you have to get lucky to win tourney. be it lucky that your hand holds up or set your 33's vs QQ

This pretty much sums up the argument IMHO. Well said.

On the other side the whole apples and oranges argument could be applied to this comparison as well. Poker has so many variables especially in multiplayer poker that it really is no comparison to Chess, a game that is much more rigid and defined.

It is completely idiotic to compare chess to poker for one reason....CHESS IS A GAME OF PURE SKILL!!!!!! THERE IS NO LUCK....Take Ivey vs Kramnik,they agree to play 1000 games of chess for 10k and 1000 games of HU poker for 10k..Who do you think will have all the money when it is over??? Ivey wouldn't win or draw 1 game out of 1000 while Kramnik will win at least 400 HU poker and probably more..Point being a world champion poker player may be about a 2-1 fav(at most)vs a amateur.. a chess champion vs a amateur is at least a 10k/1 fav.

If there was a 10k buy in world series of chess with 6k players in the field there would be no chance of an amateur making the finals or even getting out of the first day.You could pick from about 7 or 8 people who the winner would be no matter what the field size.

This is only because of the relative places chess and poker hold in society and has nothing to do with the games themselves. 4 year olds who show an aptitude for chess are often whisked away to practice 12 hours a day for the rest of their lives. This doesn't happen with poker. If it did, everything you said would hold equally true for poker.