You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again. Poker is a solvable zero sum game. Of course your opponents are not going to be playing exactly GTO, and everyone has leaks that you can exploit, but as the game develops, and as time goes by, strategy will become less and less important because poker is not complex enough (like chess) such that there is an extreme mathematical or logical barrier to entry. Someone will figure out how to start a farm of Chinese players who are perfectly content grinding out more rakeback than Trippen does. Thus, the key to success in the future is not by having the best strategy, but by having the best strategy strategy.

On Educating the Competition

(part a) **** Cardrunners

Pre-IJizz, Pre-Jungleman, and even Pre-Durrrr, the first real superstar of online poker was Brian Townsend, aka sbrugby, or 'aba20' on these forums. He moved up from the micros to the nosebleeds in about 6 months, at a rate that no one had done, or ever will do again. To give you some perspective on what it was like to play the games back then, I have some quotes from his well...

Longest breakeven stretch? I don't know my longest breakeven strench, but I would guess around 20K hands.
Biggest downswing? I don't know my longest breakeven strench, but I would guess around 20K hands.
Biggest downswing? Biggest downswing was 9.5 BI just recently.
PTBB when you played at 50NL, 100NL? I dont' remeber but it wasn't that great, I would guess around 4 or 5. stop bitching jrock

I am a former SnG player who is just starting 6 max cash games. I have $400 and play 50NL currently. What strategy could you give me to move up in the levels the most efficient way possible? Don't tilt, post 2 hands a day. Play 1K hands a day and in no time you will be at 5/10. All it takes is some hard work. I would also reccomend playing 25NL until you have 600 dollars before trying 50NL as 8 BI is not alot.

"I feel that with 1000 dollars I could be playing 50/100 NL in 4 weeks with 200K". How confident are you in this statement? I feel confident, but I don't want to get in some prop bet unless it was very lucrative if I suceeded. So bassically I am not going to be backing up what I am saying. Also don't get me wrong it would not be easy. I figure you would have to play 30 days straight of 3K+ hands a day. It would be very very challenging, I just feel that it could be done. Wow, 3k hands a day? Didn't know that was possible.

If you look further into his well, BT plugs cardrunners, and tells everyone to join it. They got about 10k people to join that year, and it (2006) was pretty much the beginning of the end of online poker (although UIGEA was obv more to blame). Obviously a lot of my spite is jelly hate. I wish I was playing in 2003. There's no doubt I'd be a millionaire right now (heck, I'm close as it is). I also would have liked to generate passive income from my poker knowledge (although not sure I would have had felt comfortable starting a training site). But I sure as hell wouldn't have multi-accounted to get action, and although I probably would have teamed up with my buddies to beat Isildur for 4 million (like that idiot Xela is trying to do in the regs thread for a few hundo from eunhobae), no chance would I gloat in a blog about it.

**** those ******s. The first people who started ruining these games are the most to blame. If it wasn't for them, we might not even have to worry about strategy strategy.

(part b) Current Education

Now you might be saying to yourself. That vini guy is the biggest hypocrite ever. He's a leggo coach and has posted a lot in these forums. Well, in defense of being a leggo coach, I think I'm a good player, but in the grand scheme of things, I have almost zero affect on the poker world. Phil Galfond is making PLO vids for chrissake. I'm good, but I'm nothing special.

Also, the compensation at leggo is a very very small reason for why I make videos. In the end, I'm hoping to use my connections and contacts thru leggo, as well as the added resume boost, to help me pursue different ventures in the future.

About posting in the forum, like a lot of you, I was just bored/curious, but that's no real excuse for any good player to say anything of substance in a public forum. I was just dumb and young when I did.

You also might also be saying to yourself, well what's even the point of holding back on the forums. What's done is done. I felt this way from 2010 to a bit after black friday, but after spending a decent amount of time playing live poker, I would strongly disagree with this statement. Live players, fish and regulars alike, are absolutely horrible. If poker gets legalized in the US, we'll be making a TON of money. I am very confident about this. It is absolutely critical that live players have as little good content available to them as possible. To give you some insight of how bad live players are, I'll show you some excerpts from the Live Low-Stakes NL forum :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-have-1118809/

The first interesting thing to note, is that the OP references Phil Galfond, but his posts, as well as those of his peers are absolutely hilarious. Kind of reminds me of that drooling idiot Yodachoda, who finally figured out that he was posting in the wrong forum, but recently got inducted into Mensa: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...orrow-1119414/ (you're welcome for that gem!).

Back to the Galfond wannabee, the question and OP is absolutely trivial TT >>>>>>>>>> 67s >>> J10o >>>>>>>>>> A9o. But it's also incredible how much these guys are misapplying concepts/axioms that they learned from strategy. I was talking to someone at a live game yesterday, and he made a tough fold on the river, and said outloud "playing another big pot out of position. this is probably why I'm a losing player." I was really surprised he was a losing player because he was using words like range/equity etc., but he just laughed at me when I asked him further and told me that you could pick up any poker book and read those terms.

Here are some excerpts from that live poker thread, if you don't want to skim through it:
- J10 for me, less likely to get into questionable situation, and more outs than 1010 to an overpair.
- 76s if villain is a solid LAG reg. Reason being, we can get away easier. Two 10s we will think villain is fos and peel light on the flop.
- http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=23
- http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=123 (lol. would you rather flop a flush or have the third nut flush draw a mono board?)
- http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=178 (I HAS POKERSTOVE)

Strategy Strategy Conclusion 1: Don't start strategy threads. Don't post in strategy threads. Don't tell people when games are good. Don't try and analyze a reg's leaks in a public forum, especially when they are better than you and won a UGL badge at a limit you're getting destroyed at. Don't tell people how much you make playing poker. Don't tap glass. Do make poker fun for fish. Do let people play badly and suck out on you. Do contact your congressperson about poker legislation.

On the Future:

(part a) Future of Poker

First and foremost: Legalization in US. Legalization in US. Legalization in US. Legalization in US. Legalization in US.

But also, the easiest way to see where the future of poker is, is to see where bad regs are having the most success. The first place we all realized we could push an edge was in bumhunting. I won't get into the subject because it's a bit too contentious, but it was one of the first real signs that people were transitioning to strategy strategy.

This is something that Durrrr has been brilliant about (not the bumhunting - the figuring out what the next step for him is). He transitioned into live poker beautifully, and I'm assuming his logic was something like (wtf?!? Phil Laak actually makes money at 500/1000 live? I need to play all these games as much as possible). And then he got invited to HSP, played like a complete boss, and is now a regular not just in Vegas games, but everywhere around the world. Whatever money he made online is a pittance compared to his potential in live games. The players are horrible, will always be horrible, and his action style is a catalyst for good games.

If you're very stubborn about playing online poker, then it doesn't take a genius to see that PLO is about 3 years behind hold 'em in terms of regs figuring their **** out and people 24 tabling the winnings out of the games. Galfond said himself on BFP that PLO is where it's at (about 2 years ago), but he also said that it's getting worse every day as well. If PLO becomes a lot like hold 'em in the next few years, there might be another game to learn, but I honestly don't know. The key is to keep your eyes open.

(part b) Future for You

In 2003 people were dropping out of school to play online poker. In 2008 people were putting off careers to play for a few years. These days more and more people are leaving the game to pursue other interests. If you have any desire to do that, I strongly suggest that you look in the business/finance forum, and generally search these forums as much as possible. Every dollar that you make after the first is less important, and every day that you spend grinding is a day you become more obsolete in the work force, or are less exposed to interesting ideas and theories in other fields.

Strategy Strategy Conclusion 2: You have infinite options. Poker is just one of them, and 24 tabling a .5 pt winrate is just one of them within poker.

Cliffs:

1st

Great post. Extremely necessary

i hope i explained my thoughts clearly. if anyone wants me to expand on a topic further or open up an idea for discussion, i'm all ears. (although the cardrunners section of this isn't really relevant. whats done is done. i just felt a bit spiteful)

Vine giving all the secrets away these days, taught me how to treebet from blinds recently

i figured if someone is coaching coaching (it's true. check in the coaching thread if you don't believe me) that there should be strategy strategy.

nice read, ^^ lol

great post. i'm done w the strat

A lot of people aren't going to agree with you about the not posting any strat concept but I doubt they will post in here. I myself 100 percent agree which is why probably 10 of my 8k poasts contain any sort words resembling strategy and instead ramble on and cussing. Not all people only care about themselves and actually enjoy (wtf) helping others out. A lot of people on 2p2 now think they got to be as good as they are from reading 2p2, whether it was strat posts, wells, or HHs so for them they feel an obligation to give back to others and continue on with strat posts

actually one of the best posts ive read lately on this site, even though most of it should be common sense, I guess it really needed to be said

only gonna post levels from now on, i swear it.

nice post man.

truuuuuuu

it seems there are a lot of trite posts so far so here's a post that people can actually respond to or discuss. it's kind of a sensitive subject that could easily generate a 100 page discussion, but since i post a lot of strat, here are my thoughts:

- on the internet, information on correct strategy is going to propagate for this game like it has for any other. yeah, if you discuss strategy you may be a contributor, but i think it's rather conceited to think that the effect is going to be anything other than incalculably minute, especially since a lot of the information that is released and spreads within the poker population is wrong, and people must still filter the good from the bad. to urge the totality of poker players to withhold information is rather futile. people like to share knowledge - you're not going to change human nature.

- you have a point for preparing for live players in the event of legalization. i'll just say that if this happens, we'll all be rolling in cash anyway so it doesn't really matter. there will easily be enough terrible players to go around for decades.

- kind of a tangent, but i just want to say that strategy that you post won't affect the online games as much as you would think. information posted on 2p2 is going to reach a tiny fraction of all online players. as a stars player, a huge chunk of my opponents don't even speak english, so for my opponents to find and use strategy on 2p2 they must
~ speak english
~ find this forum
~ have a willingness to learn and improve that will drive them to read strategy
~ be smart enough to correctly assimilate the information in a manner that will help their game

ok, so those were my thoughts about why posting strat is not "that bad" - but they are still not arguments for posting strat. there are advantages to posting strat, though, and it kind of irks me that you ignore this subject altogether, seemingly implying that there are no benefits whatsoever.
~ posting on 2p2 creates networking opportunities, i have come in contact with a lot of good to very good players that i now discuss with daily. this would not have been possible had i not been a regular poster on 2p2.
~ posting strategy is not solely giving information, it is a give/receive process whereby you are keeping your logic in check and improving.
~ i think there's something rather selfish about trying to totally withhold information from newbies. you did not learn to be a good player on your own. no one did. players better than you have helped you in the past and that has contributed to your success. wouldn't it be nice if the same courtesy was returned to noobs? i know that poker is a game that is cannibalistic by nature, but to me it feels that noobs are human beings and deserve at least some level of respect. after all, when i was a noob myself, i was grateful for any help i received. while we're on the subject, for the same reasons, you are a douchebag if all you do is level in strat threads. if you think that posting strat is unforgiveable, fine, don't post. but if all you do is level, i think you fail as a person.
~ similar to my last point, i owe a lot to 2p2. i learned a lot here and it made it possible for me to make a living at a game that i enjoy. really, it changed my life for the better. if it weren't for poker, i'd be a miserable cubicle drone. if i can give back, i will.

i know i have a convoluted writing style, so sorry for the long post.

posting strat is like 3 betting the fish out of the pot, so tilting

good post. Thing is these strat forums aren't just going to disappear and ppl are not going to stop posting hh after hh, going into detail over every little concept. It simply wont/cant stop. The thing is it really does help your game a lot by posting/reading those forums and that is the reason they will never slow down.

What can be done? Nothing really. A few posters boycotting them wont stop it imo.


Major +1 to hurt about withholding info from newbies being selfish. ALL of you learnt this way.