this would always be the case..wenever there is change, people have a problem, coz they are in their own comfort zone and are not ready to accept the new

Maybe, the competition and money to win is the score? I have found manytjings in the "new" approach that show how much they haven't studied over their sources. Mr. Sklansky promises real money also theydo not.

Poker is one of the few "sports" where you can go from top 10 of a million players to bottom 10 in a micro-second.

Some American professional sports (I don't know about other countries) do not have guaranteed contracts. A sports star could sign a contract for millions of dollars, be injured before the first game, never see a dime and never play again. You can't go from hero to zero much faster than that.

In fact, in some sports you can be killed. I watched televison one day and saw a match where a boxer was killed in the ring (he didn't actually die until a few days later.)

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:

"Minutes after the fight was over, Kim collapsed into a coma, and was taken out of the Caesars Palace arena on a stretcher."

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

I remember that one Poker Clif. It is a very fine line we skirt sometimes. (pugilists more so than most)

The only observation I can contribute to this thread is that the chatter around the table these days is to a much higher degree than what it was in the 70's, 80's and 90's. (maybe just the last 2 of those decades for Oz casinos).

Probably reflective of the fact the poker dictionary has increased 20-fold. Many players feel they need affirmation or whatever by showing they can utilise poker language (and let's face it, its only real function is to allow for more complex communication between players) and so they talk sometimes just for the sake of demonstrating they know the meaning of a phrase from the poker lexicon.

I only worry about silent players.

(and on a side issue I can still recall Joe Nobody dying in ?Nevada in the mid 70's. Changed his name by deed poll but still died young. Must have some significance somewhere..........)