"I can tell you from personal experience that the Jason Koon of six years ago played, on average, much faster per street than the Jason Koon of today. I played more quickly because the decision points felt simpler to me — the reason why is because I wasn’t playing the same game that I’m playing today.

Most viewers, and perhaps some of the players, don’t understand how much is going on inside a top player’s head at each real decision point, and I don’t expect them to. It’s more engaging for a viewer to watch the fast-action poker of the previous decade, and by comparison, modern streams may seem slow. I’m not asking you to be entertained. What I am trying to convey is that the game we are playing today is much different than the game we were playing years ago. The best players in the world are deliberate because the best plays require deliberation. This is what poker at the highest levels looks like, and that isn’t going to change."

If playing at a high level requires this much deliberation, how can these players stand playing one table online, much less multiple tables?

To be fair online you are provided much more information whilst also being hard restricted on amount of time you can take

You can automatically see everyones stack sizes in chips or BB, payouts in your tournament, , size of the pot , hud stats for any spot ever played vs a person , starshelper can show you even the action sequence and bet sizes used on each street too , click 33% and automatically have the bet without even thinking about the math etc etc

A lot of tanking time live is most likely remembering the action , calculating stack sizes, counting out bet size to get close to what your optimal online bet size % would be , counting out the chips to actually make that bet etc etc all while trying not to give away 'tells' aka can't be too relaxed while you are doing all this- in general just way more mechanics involved in live poker instead of actually using your brainpower to interpret all the information laid out in front of you cleanly online then 'instantly' being able to make that action once you come to a decision.



OP did not link the blog Jason wrote but I think he talks about how commentators should have the responsibility to fill the gap / make it interesting to watch players take a long time - That commentators should communicate to the audience what a player is thinking about in a spot and basically glorify all of the long timebank plays was what i took away from his article.

It’s okay until you see Vogelsang playing...

This is straight forward narcissistic psychopathic narrative beyond disgraceful. Guess we now who the next Phil Hellmuth is going to be. And I that was sure Bryn Kenny was first in line.

This information is about Tony G screaming in Mikita's face after taking a million euro pot off him, right?

Douchenozzle

Here's the complete Jason Koon blog post that's being referenced in this thread.

the worst part about this is how many 1/3 and 2/5 grinders are going to read this and think the reason they only win 2 BB/100 is because they don't tank for long enough.

Jason Koon the pokers answer to Greta Thunberg

cue srslysirius making a "people are suffering because players are tanking...and all they can talk about is... EV and...fairy tales of eternal GTO" video

I`m crying

disagree. EXCESSIVE Tanking is mostly a problem in mtts or frowned upon more there atleast and postflop isnt any different to cahsgames, its just different ranges pre. The same concept applies postflop when it comes to range adv/disadv,position and sizing out your bet accordingly to that. More preflop to know in mtts but on the other hand, if you havent done that work you really are just winging it postflop and shouldnt be put into the hs-donkaments

The only thing that's psychopathic in this thread is your post

I don't see too much of an issue with the time players take to make decisions, at least in Triton & other series that use shot clocks. These players are generally having real thoughts during the time they take.

I do, however, find much of the recent WSOP coverage unwatchable because there tend to be a lot of low skill players who take 60 seconds to fold 3-6off UTG (point being, actual tanking with no purpose) and it's obnoxious. That being said, when you're facing 6 figure payjumps and you're not a rich pro already, it's very understandable that you'd tank as much as they let you. You're not really there to entertain the people.

PLEEEEEZE make this

This happens a lot in poker, usually with tournaments players but not exclusively.

They run well & then get to thinking they've reinvented the game &/or life.

Caught snippets when he was on Ingram's podcast after winning in some big TV cash game & he was talking the usual spiel about "being a better person" & dishing out life advice to anyone who would listen. All because his straight draw got there on the river. It's so cringeworthy.

Dude, you were one card away from being stuck infinite amounts of money. Shut up

never liked him, just had a read trough his blog and he still makes it out to be that the games hes playing in are tougher than 50z on stars LOL

hahahahaha

QFT

Some people feel that they need to make it clear to all of us rabble that they are special, and that they are operating at a level that the rest of us don't understand. This despite the fact that most of us can see that what they really need to do is take up a pruning saw and lop a few branches off of their decision tree.

The truth is that everybody is solid.

With all the resources out there, and the large number of people that have worked hard at exploiting those resources, the reality today is that even at a turbo 180 on Pokerstars you will find yourself at tables where everybody knows what they are doing and nobody has any big leaks.

The most successful players nowadays are identifiable by the fact that they are running better than the other guys, not that they are outplaying them.

How ironic is it that the universality of Poker knowledge and skill has led us to the point where poker has actually become a game of chance! which is what it is when everybody is solid and nobody leaks.

Very well said! The end game might be that you will see even more collusion and cooperation as the edges simply are to small to be sustainable. Or you can do as a couple of the German guys; when you run hot you end it on top.

It's instructive to contrast the quoted sort of mindset with that of top players. When top players review a session, they find mistakes constantly-- maybe they could have picked a better sizing abstraction, maybe they missed a timing tell, maybe they didn't play the right mixes for the spot, maybe they missed a blocker effect, etc etc. I could work for a lifetime on NLHE alone and I still wouldn't play close to perfect.

I agree with Jason's argument entirely. The best poker players have gotten a lot better over the last 1, 2, 5, and 10 years. One of the results of that is that there's more to think about at each decision, and thinking takes time and effort.

I see the vitriol against Jason's post as being motivated by two different visions of the game of poker. The old school vision is of poker as a skill game, but one where we need not take it too seriously and pros make most of their money from exploiting weak amateurs who are much less skilled than them, keeping the amateurs around by being entertaining. In the new school vision of poker (which I obviously endorse), pros are upfront about being serious students of the game and make no pretense about trying hard to win the most, the entertainment for an amateur comes from dueling it out with the most skilled in the world for big money. If I was an amateur, I'd want to be treated the second way.

The above distinction isn't black and white. Some new school pros are insufferable with their tanking and make the game no fun for no reason. Some (many!) old school pros are serious students of the game. Please contextualize my claim accordingly; I'm setting up a specious distinction so some people might rethink their initial reactions to Jason's post.

Hmm, Jason Koon didn't even list one of the biggest reasons to time bank, that is to balance the time it takes for trivial decisions. If you take your decision quickly with non-marginal ev spots then forever with marginal ev spots it is giving a lot of info away. In any case, i time bank every decision i make in cash games, even trivial ones, apart from most preflop decisions, for this reason. You just have to otherwise your giving away free info to any thinking opponent.

The analogy of chess is interesting, i guess most of the spectators in chess are chess players so it doesn't really matter as much with the time banking, but poker players are concerned with poker being interesting to the casual observer. Survival as a profession seems to motivate these defensive/ridiculing comments, it seems. You just have to find something outside of poker instead of trying to hold onto something that brings in less money each year.

I'll gladly wait 10 minutes to witness an original or interesting play.