They're recretional players meaning they're not striving to be the best nor do they necessarily want to play against the best when they do choose to play. All those tools used by the online pros is just a massive turn-off for most of them. Why play against guys who are better than you AND have all these tools at their disposal, tools that don't interest you because you're a rec?

Been 10 years since I last played as a pro. Back then it was HUDs that were chasing away the fish. Today it is the solvers. Some things never change I guess.

in other words why play against people that are willing to work harder then you? Its fine if some rando wants to splash around but dont hate on people that have spent 100s or 1000s of hours honing their craft From what ive seen this attitude is unique to the cyber world. See it a lot in competitive gaming as well. Of course If someone has pio open while they plays thats a whole different issue

The fish are probably ignorant of these things for the most part. And those who aren't probably don't realize how much of an advantage it gives their opponents. But they will realize they rarely win and will eventually swim away.

Solvers are a way for players to improve their games and are fair game as far as I'm concerned. The same with books, training sites and players talking strategy amongst themselves. RTA is another thing and is cheating. HUDs are a more primitive form of RTA and are also cheating in my book. I'm glad some sites are preventing their use. But I wish there was a way to prevent players from compiling data on their opponents without also preventing players from compiling data on themselves.

Like any other human endeavor, if it involves money, people are going to look for ways to improve their chances. The more money that's involved, the more they're going to try. Also, the more money that's involved, the more people are going to try to cheat. Like you said, some things never change.

Do not underestimate people’s inability to be introspective. Some guys stop playing when they realise they are outmatched, but most only stop when they run out of money. The real danger to the online world is not people hearing about solvers and recognizing they can’t compete, it is that they lose too quickly or doubt the integrity of the games after hearing about them. Anyone who has played live poker for any period of time can attest that many of the losers that were there at the beginning are still there now, playing exactly the same way.

in his post-match GG Poker interview, and on his Run it Back with Remko discussion the following day, he strongly indicated that he wants to continue (sounds like 99% probability) but has not confirmed yet

It's not always about assisting their games or having an unfair advantage it's the "you're trying too hard" aspect that kills a lot of recreational players enjoyment ... chess is fun to play, but if your friend is reading chess books all day it becomes exhausting because you have to do the same ... pool is fun to shoot, but at the pro level no one misses and you end up sitting there watching other ppl play ... gambling is fun but if your opponent is hellbent on winning your money you are presented a choice; as your opponents put intensive work in, either put the work in yourself, or quit because people have ruined it for you in a sense ... many people quit

Of course Polk wins online with all his solvers and ****. Real poker is played in person and you actually have to play yourself instead of using computers to make all your decisions for you. We can see how true this is just from looking at the live portion of the challenge. When Doug had to actually sit face to face with a poker genius instead of hiding behind a computer screen like the stupid clickbait keyboard warrior troll that he is, he got completely owned. Negreanu demonstrated why real poker is live poker and he was able to make so many live reads on Doug and completely destroy him. Doug was giving off all kinds of tells that Negreanu was expertly able to spot and capitalize on. That's how Negreanu was able to make $42 million dollars pure profit playing live poker while Doug and all these other solver GTO HUD online nerds were using charts and not playing real poker because they know that IRL they have no chance against the true poker GOAT.

And also Dnegs masterclass is a absolute steal at current price, easily worth at least 50k!

Deep down you know there's a lot of truth to what's being said, and you can't make a legitimate argument against it. So you resort to making an ironic post.

This may be true for some fish/recs but I would guess it’s like 50/50. Just bc ppl are recs doesn’t mean they are oblivious or stupid

from Dnegs Twitter 30/12 seems a lot less than 99% chance of continuing
"We reached the halfway point of the match last night and here's the recap as we debate whether or not to keep going."

I'm not suggesting they are stupid. It's perfectly reasonable not to realize how much of an edge some of these things can give a player if you haven't made a point of learning about them.

Its fine to outplay a fish when the playing field is even , but using huds and solvers would be like in tennis if you were playing against Roger Federer and he had a superior tennis racket. Not only are you better than the amateur but you also have better tools that the amateur doesn't have. I don't necessarily blame any of the regs for using huds and solvers , they're simply trying to keep up with the other regs. I blame the sites for allowing the software in the first place.

Can someone point me in the direction of the polk/dengs thread, I thought this was it.....

Are they playing on?

I'd like to know what he means by this.

His internal monologue.

Negreanu is done with the challenge. I said it at the end of last session and stand by it.

I agree. He won a little last session and that combined with the "but I'm down 200k in all in ev" narrative is enough to fabricate a plausible (in his mind) reason to quit with his dignity intact. Oh yeah I could keep going and I think could win if it wasn't for variance but I've got a lot of other stuff going on etc etc....

I believe it means that the challenge may continue or it may not.

Enough with the riddles!

Stupid question, but if he keeps going he can still give up at any point right? It's not like he has to commit to 25k, he can still quit at eg. 16k right?

No. He is honor-bound to play the full 25k hands if he continues. I don't think there is a financial penalty that they agreed to for quitting before time - it would just be very bad form.

In all seriousness, if the people helping Dnegs are good they would give him good honest advice.
Regardless of the short term results its unlikely he comes out ahead in the 2nd 12.5K hands let alone wins the challenge.
If they are worth their salt they would tell him to quit.

But I'm now almost 100% sure he will not quit.

Maybe he feels his branding wont take a hit if he is seen as the "plucky underdog"
Which to be fair might be true amongst his fans who are mostly rec players.
They totally understand his "bad beat rants" although its noticeable that he has pulled back a bit on those lately. Which makes me think its a bit of an act sometimes.

maybe they are renegotiating some of the terms for Daniel to continue, I would think he would like the option to quit for giving Doug all this extra EV.

His branding shouldn't be hurt by this. No one expected him to beat Polk HU, and he didn't make a fool of himself. Many sponsored pros would be crushed by Polk a lot worse. It created publicity, which probably attracted business for GG. The sponsored pros are there to attract fish who don't know or care if the pro is really a top player currently.

However, the terms agreed to were terrible for DN. He could have insisted on lower stakes, only playing live, etc. rather than just take Polk's terms.

Re bold: I don't see why it's hard. Surely you could have randomised names showing at the table, but it uses your real username when it stores the hand history locally on your PC.