Do you believe ANYONE with enough experience and practice can become a winning player at low stakes? Or are there certain people, even with a lot of practice and experience will always lose their money?

Can a ADHD, impulsive, undisciplined, K3 limping in UTG fish turn in around and become disciplined enough and control himself enough to become a winning player? a person with little self control at the table gain the self control with practice and experience?

Questions 1: Short answer, no. It's not just experience/practice unless you are disciplined and intelligent enough to learn and progress from that experience/practice.

Question 2: Depends on the person (and the drugs).

In the same way that anyone can become an astronaut if they really want to be, yes.

the answer is yes 100% that certain personalities are doomed to fail since psychology is the main component needed in poker. You need to be patient, confident, and know how to handle big draw downs well.

Could they turn it around? yes.

If you put in the hours for practice and study, yes anyone can become a long term winner. They may not be much of a winner, but their effort will be rewarded because they'll toss those J3 or if they spazz with it, they can at least get away cheaply.

If you have for instance the combo of severe ADD and a very low IQ there is no way you become a winner even if the entire high stakes community pitched in with coaching.

Most people can though

In certain lineups, it would be possible for a well-trained chimpanzee to win.

But in most games, I think there is some threshold IQ + discipline level necessary to be a winner.

I think we could go back and forth all day about a combination of motivation levels and nature vs nurture. However the short end of the answer imo is that if you really stripped down most games and were only looking for strictly 0+/hr there are probably some very basic rules that could be followed, or enforced w a shock collar, that could turn most forms of low intelligence into a low stakes beater.

My inclination would be
A. Loose game
B. Low buy in, buy short
C. Jam JJ+
D. Play nothing else

Is pretty close. Probably in the absence of being able to identify/follow these rules higher concepts are lost and things go down hill.

Where is this really going though? What's the point?

Clone army of 1/2 grinders?

Rise of the omcs *shiver*

There is a reason why there are books dedicated to dealing with just "tilt."

If you have a permanent tilt issue, then chances are that you will fail in poker.

FWIW, there are many careers (not saying poker is one) that require passing of personality test.

Pretty much all of 2003 to ~2010.

how many angels can balance on the head of a pin?

seriously. A very small percentage of people who set out to make it as gamboolers do. There are certain types that have zero shot.

I have literally taught 100's how to play winning blackjack and plugged them into a well oiled machine. It is a very simple game...binary in nature (yes/no). There were a handful of people that just were not teachable and could not play. Poker, even 1/2 is much more complex. So based on my experience with teaching and running an insanely profitable blackjack organization I can say without any doubt that there are in fact people out there who are of average intelligence - who with unlimited training resources would still not be profitable at the lowest stakes poker

The more I play, the more I think 'yeah some people just couldn't do this profitably'.

Intelligence is one factor, if someone is just completely subnormal, they'll never get it. But also, there are numerous personality defects that represent high barriers for playing successful poker, examples are lack of patience/discipline, inability to control tilt, entitlement mentality, laziness and various addictions, including gambling, alcohol and recreational drugs.

A combination of these issues or any single one that is severe enough will prevent a person from playing winning poker.

Are you running a casino and teaching players who then come play at your place?

Quite the opposite. He was teaching people how to be part of a team to beat blackjack so that when they got to the casino they could win and not get caught in the process.

It was legal, but not welcome by the casinos.

As for the original question, the answers are no, and anything is possible. The paradox of poker is that to succeed requires patience, discipline and a strong work ethic while it attracts people that lack those aptitudes. That's why the games remain good. Most ADHD people would find poker too boring to put up with if they did try to play to win.

certain mentalities are doomed to fail
i could teach any non-idiot to crush llsnl

This is quite simply the best response to any question in human history.

I will add that beating the rake at LLSNL is less about personality and more about having the aptitude for behavioral adjustment. With the right set of rules, thinking is a moot point. So as long as mental illness, stress, fatigue, or other factors do not inhibit a programmed behavior, then ya, anyone can be taught to follow a simple, winning set of rules.

Fortunately, most of the world is still capped at mild ******ism