It depends on location. In areas where poker has relatively recently opened up to NL, there are still new rooms opening up. However, if you have followed Dynasty's "state of LV poker" articles, you can see that LV poker has been declining for years with fewer and fewer tables open and a number of rooms closing.

GG, congradulations on your results. I remember the online world 10 years ago where people were quoting all kinds of winrates and thinking about how much I had to suck because I wasn't even close to the winrates everyone was claiming. Then Poker Table Ratings started tracking micro games and reporting them. All of a sudden, while not a crusher, I wasn't very much off from the best actual players in the world. Lot's of "world beaters" suddenly scurried in their holes and never came out. I believe if a PTR existed for live play, you'd find yourself in a similar situation.

Sure, because people dont have to go all the way to Vegas to play poker anymore. Lots of people, including me, used to go to Vegas for a 4-5 day poker trip and I havent done that in 6 years. There are too many other poker rooms all over the place to need to go to Vegas for poker.

@ V

Really miss Dynasty's yearly updating of his thread (hasn't updated in years?), I remember that thread as being a great read.

Ha, if there's anyone else in here that gets more "OMG U SUK" comments, it's probably you. Congrats for taking the heat all these years!

Regarding the state of live NL, I guess obviously it can be different in every market at this particular point, but history has shown exactly what will happen (to not just this form of poker but all kinds). When I first played live pokrs in a casino in the 90s it was of course 7 card stud which undoubtedly would never die (lol); ditto for Limit Texas Hold'em in the (lol). If your market is different right now (as it sounds like Mike's and Feely's and others may be), then that's great, enjoy it while you can.

My game is still very good, so I'm going to enjoy it while it still exists. As I say, I still doubt it will be around in another 4000 hours in my market, but I guess I'll find out.

Gthereisaseason,turn,turn,turnG

I do think there's a difference for the current NLH post boom era. And that's the TV coverage / marketability. This year was the second largest main event field in the WSOP. So while it's clearly on the decline that doesn't mean it doesn't have a chance to stick around for quite some time. I wont take the over on the next 8 years in your market, but overall I'll take the over that NLH is still alive and will in larger markets.

Every 3 months, the 2+2 magazine does a "state of LV card rooms" update

Mason Malmuth published an article years ago about people continually coming up to him and saying, "You need to see this guy (always a different guy) play. He's crushing the game with his modern play." Almost all them crash and burn within a year. Although Mason did point out that one time he saw someone disappear and finally show up again at this table a year later.

He was the waiter.

Lol!

GawesomeG

RE: State of the games in my market, I thought it was coincidental that as I was playing my most recent session on Saturday that I hear a buzz around the room and everyone is referring to a newly posted statement on the wall, which reads that as of August 1, 2018 the daily morning tournament will be cancelled.

So in the heyday of our room:

- 8 tables in an actual room (floor, phone staff, cage + cage staff, chip runner)
- twice daily tournaments (one in the morning, one at night)
- 2/4 Limit and 4/8 (with kill) Limit
- 1/2 NL and 2/5 NL
- sometimes other games

As of August 1, 2018:

- 5 tables, no actual room, just a floor person (who also handles phone, chip running, cash in/outs, etc)
- no tournaments
- no Limit
- maximum rake increased by $2
- only game that runs is 1/3 NL (as of late a single 2/5 NL table sometimes runs on Wed night)

GanothernailinthecoffinG

GG, Congrats on your impressive results. To be able to take 80K out of your game is nothing to sneeze at to play a game you like.

Lots to learn from this thread. Thanks for taking the time to share.

DOC

So you think it's right to just play really tight. But the worse players are closing the skill gap between them and you. So you're best course of action is to improve a lot less than your opponents?

Why don't you try to do things that keep the skill gap as large as it was?

I'm not sure I understand the question?

Basically, I've just come to the conclusion that splashing around in a lotta maximum raked small pots with a bunch of other players that are likely not too much horrible than me is pretty meh. Add to that that the biggest errors my opponents consistently make is being too loose and aggressive preflop, and that plays right into my very passive limp/reraisey / shortstacked playbook.

Unless I misunderstand the question, to "do things that keep the skill gap as large as it was" is kinda like asking why don't I just run faster than everyone else when they start improving their running times. Obvious answer is, "gee, why didn't I think of that" / "no **** sherlock". Real answer is: I'm just never going to be that good of a runner, so I do the best I can within my skillset.

GworkinprogressG

Good answer there and a pretty good analogy, but I think the typical enthusiastic poker reg can improve a lot more through a little bit of study (which they generally neglect) than the typical enthusiastic runner can do by just training a bit harder.....

I've stated my opinion on this in other places, and not all agree with it / think it may be too cynical a viewpoint, but I'm of the belief that most people are capped with regards to skill at almost everything they do.

And even if you don't agree with that opinion, I'm guessing the amount of work to progress to "the next level" (whatever that means) would likely be incredibly difficult / daunting / exhaustive / etc., especially for simply a rec player (of which I am), especially if the improvement on the rate of the return (if we could even measure that accurately over the lol live hours we'll get in over our lifetime) may be relatively small.

I do the "best I can" within the constraints of how I want poker to fit within my life (I already likely put in too much time, tbh), so I'm satisfied enough with the rate of return versus effort. Obviously a full time player who is doing this for a living / feeding themselves / paying the rent / etc. should have a different idea of what "doing the best they can" is compared to us lowly rec players.

Gdoingmybest,butadmittedlywithinreasonG

Yeah you're probably right GG seeing as humans use 100% of their brain capacity already

Everyone makes this sound *so easy*. I'm guessing you're well on your way to using 100% of yours?

Doing the best you can, within reason (and everyone will have to decide for themselves what that means), is a perfectly acceptable approach.

GworkinprogressG

That brain percentage meme is somewhere up there with the flat earthers and area 51 conspiracies.

Poker isn't so mathematically hard that you can always keep a huge skill gap between you and your opponents, especially at higher stakes. Like most things, at some point you're spending an exponentially large amount of time for a logarithmic improvement in skill.

I have no idea if that applies to gg's game, but there are certainly games where that is true.

DWM just recently referred to the Law of Diminishing Returns in the chat thread, which I'm not totally familiar with, but I'm guessing it's somewhere along the lines of 10% of the effort gets us 90% of the results but after that it takes a whole heckuva lot more effort to get fairly little in return.

So with regards to poker, in a nutshell, as soon as our opponents improve to the point of not being complete morons it becomes quite a lot more difficult to beat at the same clip (especially in smaller stacked games where the effort to improve to non-moron status isn't very difficult). Not sayin' we shouldn't strive to improve; just sayin' it ain't as easy as some will make it out to be.

Don't get me wrong, I still play in a very beatable / very good game; there's no way someone like me could continue to win at the rate I do without it being so (clipping along at 8.9 bb/hr this year, although lol 103 hour sample size so whatever, ldo). I just think the way to beat it has shifted slightly over the years and thus my strategy has been tweaked appropriately, imo (with me putting in a reasonable-for-a-live-rec-player effort into tweaking this strategy, nothing more, nothing less, while also admitting there are undoubtedly other winning strategies).

GcluelessrewardversuseffortnoobG

GG I totally agree with you about most people's skill level being capped.
Sure, everyone is capable through hard work and study to constantly improve. And that's what we all should be striving for. But we all have to realize that no matter how hard we try we just can't all be the same; are all not blessed with the same ability. I wonder somehow if all the time and effort you have to put into poker is even worth it for most.
On another note. You describe yourself as a rec. For all the years you've been a steady and consistent winner GG, surely you must fit into your own category.

Yeah, it is an obvious solution, which is why I was wondering why you weren't doing it.

Okay, that's all I wanted to know. You'll only do it if it's easy.

Setintostraight’s expression ”exponential effort for a logarithmic skill improvement” is a good one and does have a big recognition factor for me!

GG

What is your biggest downswing now?...I found that data pretty useful amongst your first 10k post. Ty.

Up until this point at 4374 hours, I've had two identical tied-for-first biggest downswings. Both fun little 3-7 session streaks where I lost exactly $2866 (955 bbs) both times.

GcluelessdownswingnoobG

We had a huge derail on this in chat but:

It’s not exactly doing what’s easy, it is balancing required effort with desired gain.

I bolded that because it’s good. I’m stickying it on my phone.

A lot of people think that to be the best you have to be this absolute superstar crusher. Let’s take a look at the most competitive force in existence, evolution. It IS competition.

If we put “effort” into units, evolution’s desire is to use exactly the amount of units required to sustain existence. Not a single unit more.

In poker, we use about 1 unit of effort to achieve a wr of 2-3bb/hr. We use 5 units of effort for the next 2-3bb/hr. For the next 2-3bb/hr possible, we’d need to use 20 units of effort. GG has simply decided to allocate those units of effort elsewhere.

People that have a limited understanding of evolution think that it is constantly making superior organisms. Bigger teeth, better eyes, stronger muscles.

However, that is not what evolution does. Evolution has 1 goal. Continued existence. What has been demonstrated over the last ~3.5 billion years is that while certain very complex organisms have come to power (tyrannosaurus rex, megalodon, lions, tigers, bears oh my), the most successful organisms are the ones that use the least amount of energy possible in their existence/reproduction.

The turtle was more successful than T-Rex bc it used less energy for the same desired outcome.

This is super condescending with the idea that GG's sole purpose in life is to be the best poker player he can be, which hes clearly stated is not the goal.

If he has to devote extra hours to study to increase a WR minimally that comes at the cost of something else, maybe relationship with his wife, kids, or close friends.

For all but a real select few people, making poker your end all, be all in life is going to leave you with a pretty miserable existence.

Maybe learn what peoples motivation is, instead of being a prick? just a thought.

Exactly. My goals with poker are to:

1) Relax.

2) Make enough money to pay for all the hockey I play.

3) Make a little extra to pay for other 'vices'

I enjoy the challenge of the game and thinking about strategy and whatnot ... but not *that* much either. I suspect GG is in a similar situation.