The bolded is the entire point of the OP. Crushers can get complacent. Complacency leads to not adapting. Not adapting leads to the game passing you by. The game passing you by leads to losing and eventually, disappearing. I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to comprehend.

If you're a crusher and always adapting, you're not getting passed by. You're staying a step ahead of the complacent players.

Yup, still a 52 card game. The mental game is what evolves though. Also known as the Metagame in the competitive gaming world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

This I get. Nearly everyone needs to work on their mental game and I suppose adjusting to the zestgeist is important as well. I only play limit - mostly a really action packed 8-16 these days - and I have to adjust to the slightly less insane 20-40 when I occasionally play it but it's still the same value seeking in both (if that's the right way to put it). The thing is is that I know most players on here are talking about NL when this topic comes up and that's a game I don't play so I'm curious. So far post #16 is, imo, the most direct answer to the OP. It's a bit smh to me - 'calling 4 bets extremely wide' - but, OK, it's an answer.

There is a picture I once saw that sums it up pretty perfectly. It showed the difference between the stakes and how at the micros there is a lot of aggression and loose play, low stakes tighter with less aggression, mid stakes slightly looser with more aggression and high stakes is quite loose with a lot of aggression similarly to micro stakes.

The meta/adjustments/evolution of the game happens not only over time but by stake also. This really only applies to regs though and the strategy against fish will almost always be the same. Also want to say I am not making any definitive suggestions as to how certain stakes are played/level of competency of regs at each stake. Just as example of whatever term you choose to describe the metagame.

Even rake changes will have a big change on the meta game and may make some hands that were barely +EV now -EV and thus the meta changes because of regs adjusting. Those who do not adjust to a change like this, will have the game pass by them.

I wonder how much the answers would change based on what level the stakes are as well as the region people play in. I used to play in Southern California all the time but recently moved to Central California. That might not seem like a big difference but people in Southern California play MUCH more aggressively. I think they tend to have a younger crowd so maybe that's why.

I think that this has merit and if posters want to describe their local games that would be nice.

I'd like to get some discussion re calling 4-bets in NL w/ an extremely wide range. It seems to me that a 4-bet is pretty huge and the question - again from a non NL player - is how deep does everyone have to be to make those kinds of calls.

clearly depends on a lot of variables: opponent/tendencies, position, your hand, all the usual stuff. if u want to discuss strictly flatting 4 bets I think u should start a new thread ha.

I'm just about the last person that should start a NL thread and I know it!

But, what is a 4-bet at say 2/5 NL? It goes $15, $50, $150 or $200 and then $400 or $500? IMR, 'extremely wide' to me is something like J7, that's what ppl mean when they say it? Color me scared to play.

The $150/$200 bet would be the 4th bet

Ahhh........., OK. Dumb mistake on my part. Still, though, how wide do ppl call these days for that amount at that limit?

ETA: I hope this thread goes far bec I can learn much more than what I find in the SSNL forum where the strat talk seems pretty sparse, at least to me. One of these days I'm going to sign up w/ a training site out of plain curiosity bec I don't like not knowing a poker variant even though I play at Talking Stick that only has spread limit.

2003 - suited cards are good
2004 - suited cards are overrated
2017 - suited cards are good again

live poker is completely irrelevant to the discussion, as live pros are literally years behind the learning curve. Also, live is so full of bad players that attempting to play unexploitably is probably going to have less ev than just exploiting the **** out of completely clueless players (and that includes "pros" as well).

As for calling 4bets loose, I was talking about 100bb deep, you might have something like 2,5bb->12bb->27bb and people will peel stuff like 97s. This of course is only good vs a balanced 4betting strategy, which would not be used by a single live pro (why would they?).

I'm also curious what exactly he means by "calling 4 bets - everyone is doing it"

When was it clear that advanced decision tree software was being used? I know Patrik's famous quote was end of 2015 and it looks like pio solver started in beginning of 2015 (??).

It would be neat to see a tech evolution of poker where you start with the birth of online poker (wow! crazy innovation!) then huds then advanced huds/databases then piosolver and snowie and end with libratus.

it's actually not good vs a balanced 4bet strategy, 97s that is

Every time I try the ole 4-bet, I end up spewing chips. I'm thinking the game will eventually revert back to a tighter ABC style.

sry, I'm taking examples from HU as that's the only form of poker I've played in years, but my main point stands

if you've read this thread, you'd see that it already did revert, around 2-4 years ago, and is getting more aggro again

forget all the talk about four bets preflop. How about those Vanessa Selbst inspired late last decade years when the six bet/seven bet+ had it's place in some player's preflop strategy.

One myth is that players are getting better and better. They're not.

Betting frequencies are lower because people realised you don't have to bet less than pot. When you bet 7x pot you're only gonna have a hand that warrants this every so often. Not sure if that makes the game more passive though.

I was tempted to type /thread. But you might have made it interesting.

The people who don't get complacent with their crushing strategies, and then succeed long-term are so few and far between.

I can think of Ben123 Sulsky, Apparently not Howard Beale, Definitely Libratus, Phil "I ride a hotdog" Smellmuth in donkaments, Jungleman (questionably if you look at those 8-game results), Doug "I don't get any action, and I made a lot more money than highstakesdb.com says, and so I bankroll Donger Kim" Pork.

Who are the adaptable long-term crushers?

As OP of the thread, I would think it's safe to assume that I have read the thread. The conclusions that you seem to draw from the thread are different from what the thread actually states. I've noticed a few different opinions on how the game has changed and mentioned that maybe regional and/or levels of play are different on how the game has evolved. Had you read the thread and listened to other people's opinions in it, you would realize that there hasn't been a cut and dry consensus on how it has changed.

If live pros don't need to use the strategies of online pros, what does it matter if they are behind the learning curve?

This online versus live is almost starting to sound like the old tournament poker isn't real poker like cash games discussion.

It's a cycle. When things got super aggro around 2008 eventually some smart players realized "Hey wait a minute, I don't want to be a maniac losing all my chips pre-flop like these maniacs. Imma dial it back a bit" and slowly their results started to improve. Other players noticed this and got tighter as a result. Then once everyone got super tight the ahead of the curve players started to realize "these nits are folding to every bet, I'll just ramp up my game a bit" and they started to rake again. Then players realized this as well and so on and so forth. And it'll keep going and going

it's a very simplistic approach and not really how crushers see the game