He claimed that he'd need a lot of training and coaching to beat Pokerstars high stakes players at NL Hold'em. He was referring to 10/20 and 25/50 games.

Why is this?

If he (presumably) is able to play at high stakes cash games against top pros, then why would he need a lot of help to compete against high stakes online players?

Additionally, why can't these high stakes online players take their technique to high stakes live cash games and **** on everyone, if they're that good?

Online players are usually better for the most part than live players.

In your own home you can set your schedule. Be comfortable and play a much higher volume than live.

Most high stakes live games require you to know people.

Most nosebleed online guys don't have the connections to get themselves in.

"Live players suck" - Timex, about 5 years ago.

Ah after the hand with jamie gold

Online, hands can be played at about 30x the speed of live, rake isn't as high, you don't have to have connections to get into the higher stakes games and you don't have to hang around near casino scum.

Somehow I feel like all of these answers are wrong, and it's something more specific to PokerStars high stakes players compared to live cash game players.

Come on, you're seriously telling me Jason is scared to play against online players compared to Ivey, Hansen, Antonious, MacDonald etc?

Yes. Ivey has been losing online lately and although volume is low and such, I do think his game has been overtaken a little bit. Antonius has played lots and lots online so that's not really fair, he would avoid him whether it is online or live. Timex is for the most part a tournament player if I say correctly so he would actually want to play with him even if the edge is small. Oh and Gus is a total mark in nosebleeds.

Your perspective of poker sounds like it's only from high stakes poker and ept telecasts.

Jason has been around long enough to know that the best technical players in the world sit at 5knl on stars daily.

Fun fact: Most of the best poker players in the world are people you've probably never heard of.

Fairly confident each of those people would lose against the tougher 25/50 lineups on Stars

Gus

http://www.highstakesdb.com/profiles...rs/broksi.aspx

http://www.highstakesdb.com/profiles/Gus-Hansen.aspx

Wow...

Holy ****.

This just blows my mind.

Why aren't these guys the most famous/respected/televised/popular players in the world then? o.O

Yeah sure, some might not want to travel, might not want to be famous, but do you really think that's the case for most of them? I don't, however, I'm not denying the fact that these 25/50 players are better than the names I listed as there seems to be a consensus on here that there are.

Will someone help me make sense of this? It's very interesting.

Well, you can start by seeing Mike acknowledged the post with his name in it.

You heard it straight from the horses mouth.

I've watched a lot of his runitup videos. He was playing 400nl and the games played like 5nl if not 10nl on pokerstars. He seems like a good thinking player but seems to rationalise himself into making really bad calls at times. Like he was careless.

he made his money from tournaments didnt he.

Because no-one is stoked about producing a TV show starring Serguei The Amazing Neckbeard Autist. Being an excellent poker player is not guaranteed viewership. No-one gives a crap about someone's super technical ultra balanced min-6 bet range from CO, they want to see sick bluffs and big pots and Helmuth throwing a tantrum.

Especially that McDonald guy. He's nothing without his staredown, Ron Burgundy t-shirt and legendary EPT rungood.

But seriously, Mike is a boss (and one of my favourite people in poker). But he's a realist. He plays the games in which he has a well-defined edge. Realists tend to be long-term winners in poker and life.

It's a bit of a simplification, but most of the "well known TV pros" aren't much more than cartoon characters.

I don't want to shatter OP's illusions, but the best online cashgame regs are pretty nerdy guys that have studied the game like they would study astrophysics or the derivatives market. Ike Haxton is the rare "geek with a personality" that both crushes the online game and appeals to (some) TV viewers, but he could just as easily have become a math professor.

Some of the "nameless" people known chiefly by their screennames might have the social skills of a potato for all we know. They either aren't interested in playing live, or giving interviews, or they're too busy crushing online to care.

Pro-tip: If you ever find yourself in a live donkament and the guy on your left says, "Yeah, I play a bit online as punting-peddler" (or PostFlopAction/GVOZDIKA55/forhayley/TruTeller etc etc), fold pre!

Sometimes, the online cashgame wizards do play live. Tight-man1 only played 1 event at the World Series. It just happened to have a $1 million buy-in. And he came third. Hi Christoph! Nice Hendon Mob page you have there.

P.S. I cringe so hard every time a TV commentator describes Phil Ivey as "the best player in the world".

Variance gonna variance, but look at his cashgame graph ffs.

The recent Aussie Millions cash game had a few online sickos playing live, and I imagine they only did so because they managed to get into a game with the Asian businessmen where they wouldn't normally be able to.

FYP