Were they? pretty sure Chip Reese was a math wizard. And Stu played in games with Chip. This wasn't the poker boom, you didn't have a bunch of fish playing in these games, it was mostly vegas regs.

Also, Stu only made 3 mega in tournies, but this was the 80s and 90s where a million dollars went a lot further than it does now.

Do you know how stupid those arguments sound? Seriously, are you a moron?

So, for example, you would say that Jim Brown was not a great running back or arguably the greatest football player ever because guys playing today through advances in diet, training, and supplements are so much larger and faster. Huh? So guys today have learned concepts to play poker better than they were playing in the past. So what!

You think a guy from the past who had the skills to make him the best in his day couldn't play now and learn and apply the same concepts that guys use today (or, perhaps build on them or push them in a direction that guys today have yet to do because they are not innately or intellectually as good at the game as he was)?

If you are over 25 you are a lost cause. If you are under it, I would say you are a typical greasy new millennial who thinks he invented the wheel because he once drove in a new car.

I think you missed his point and then invented a brand new point which you then railed against.

He wasn't saying take the guys from years ago and give them all the advances we have now and then see how they match up. He was saying take the guys from years ago how they were years ago and see how they match up. I find it hard to believe anyone could argue that the average player or even say the top 10% of players from decades ago could be transported here with only what they knew then and actually be a good player at any sort of significant stakes (maybe at smaller micro stakes).

Sure if you take those guys from back then and show them everything now and then give them a while to learn, they will obviously be better than they were back then and likely some of them will "continue" to be the among the best in the world and some won't.

97 percent of the kids under 30 who are good at poker have just copied the strategies they have learned online. If you grew up even in the 1980s these strategies were not around.

People in the 1970s could have easily learned these strategies. They simply were not around.

Obviously there were some smart math guys ahead of their time. But without computers, odds calculators and strategy forms you just simply were not as good.

Put some smart kid who beats online sit and goes transport him back to 1977 have him sit at a poker table without any tools and he'd be just as bad as these guys were.

There is probably a top 2 or 3 percent in every generation who are just ahead of their time. But the 97 percent of good young players today are just unimaginative copy cats of good sound strategy.

That's part of the reason Stu Ungar was good. He learned poker from a young age, and he learned some math because his father was a bookie.

I think that was his whole point.

My point is you have to compare people relative to the competition. It's like looking at sports the average nba basketball player today is likely a lot better skill wise than the players of the 1960s. Better coaching, better training. Take Jerry west straight out of the 1960s to the nba today. He might not even make a roster. Does not mean he was not great.

the amount of work that went into being a good player back then was not advanced at all

it's absurd to think that every old nit from the 70s and 80s who was good then would be good now. obviously some would adjust and still be great players.

look at how many people who 5-10 years ago could crush big games online wouldnt beat 25 nl now and add 20-30 years to that

your jim brown analogy is terrible btw and by all accounts ungar sucked at cash games.

to a certain degree this is true. it is funny watching guys who are basically trained only to play in tight 6 max nlhe online games play live and see so many who cant adapt to games that are very different as players come and go.

by the same token how many of these old school guys who aren't dead and aren't rich (2 good reasons to stop playing) have kept playing at a high level? almost none.you'll see some of these older well known guys still playing 2/5/-5/10 nl. many short stack and almost all are marginal winners or losers. if they're so great why in 20 years have they not adapted?

a lot of the older players knew just to play tight which was good enough back then,
there is a wsop video where puggy pearson has 88 on a 844 flop in the main event and some poor sob has ace 4. they get all in on the flop and everyone is saying what a great play pearson made and what an idiot the other guy is. pure comedy.

I think by all accounts he did not suck at cash games. Unless he was tilted or on drugs which became a huge problem for him later on. but you don't go broke and win 30MM over your life time by "sucking" at everything.

IMO Ungar would've done better in cash games had he been playing these days. Like you said, most people back then were nits and would wait for extremely good hands. These days, pros are more than willing to play marginal starting hands and this might've worked out to his advantage.

A lot of modern players kind of miss the point. They overemphasize the competitive/sport aspect of the game and ignore the hustle. The most successful guys in poker then and now are the guys that can maneuver their way into absurdly huge games with terrible recreational players. Whoever is the best technical poker player today, they are making chump change compared to the pros who play in private games with billionaire businessmen. The old school nosebleed guys likely had a lot more skill in this area than almost all modern players.

this is a very good post. hell limon gets paid to play with huge fish in 10/20 plo and some people on here think it matters if he can beat 25 nl on stars.

llayne flack is a good example of a guy who is a ton of fun to play with and gets people to play awful.

when i comes to live poker 2 people can have the same fundamental poker skills with drastically different results.

he was basically tilted or on drugs when he was awake.he couldnt get any action in gin rummy but nobody was turning him down in poker cash games.

lol@30 million.

He finished 9th in 1991. Coked out of his brain no doubt

It is easy to win 80-100 man tourneys because you can apply bubble and ICM pressure the whole way down the stretch. But in todays big fields you can't really apply any pressure bettween bubble and the 13 person mark.

http://www.majorwager.com/forums/mes...ing-contd.html

This is an old school US gambling forum which is pretty much dead now. Great insight in to Ungar and the fact he possibly cheated. Supposedly he wasn't alone - he owed so many people money and his drugs were out of control. He was a liability to everyone. Fixing the WSOP gave him a way out of his debts and a chance to sort his life out.... Shame it never worked out that way.

On a separate note - An old school US bookie guy I used to know told me that the last time he saw him he was playing blackjack in a Vegas casino with an auto-shuffler - he knew he couldn't beat it but he craved the action so much.

He was def an action junkie, playing in -ev games. In his book when he first got to vegas he gambled his whole stake in pits.

Playing tight was always "good enough" and still is. That said, the best players back in "the day" didn't play "nittard" poker - they would never get rich playing that way. "Loose" play is nothing new.

The example you mention - I haven't seen the video and don't know the context but A4 is the hand I want my opponent to hit when I have 88 on that flop. And that flop is the last one I want to hit if I have A4 and my opponent is in the process of getting it all in. Maybe you should play (where there are situations as well as spots) more poker rather than letting the sim run itself - then you might understand why "everyone" was saying what they said.

Hahaha. Those allegations were made by Russ Georgiev-the biggest troll in the history of online poker forums.

lmao
well no **** if you have 88 on an 844 flop ideally your opponent has ace 4- and if you have ace 4 ideally your opponent doesn't have ****ing 88.
thanks for that wonderful insight.before i read your incredible post when i had 88 on an 844 flop i wanted my opponent to have 92 offsuit so he just folds and I don't risk getting 1 outed.

what's tomorrow's amazing lesson from you- 9 is a bigger number than 8?

everyone said what they said because they're idiots who played way too tight back then. it's a complete cooler hand. When I cooler someone I don't think I'm a genius and I don't think my opponent is an idiot.

the funny part is I see all of these weak (not awful) players who feel the need to chime in when someone gets a cooler about how he could have folded the 1% of the time the hand is beat who don't say **** the 99% of the time it's good and they stack their opponent.every single time it's some break evenish player who thinks they're a lot better than they are who swear they run bad.they're always just such ****ing experts when they see all the cards- and miss so much value against god awful players because they're scared of that 1% situation happening to them. of course when they 1% situation does happen they think they're geniuses for saving a little money not realizing how much their chicken **** play has cost them over the years in spots with similar hands.

another good example is when fowler won the main event. he called half his stack on a gutshot draw on the flop against pocket aces, smashed the turn wins the main event and these dildos think the guy should have folded aces.

this is a great thread. I'm in an Ungar mood.

the consensus seems to be that a lot of his stuff was done for revenge, but some sizable percentage was accurate.

Ah but you seem to think I am an idiot for "pointing out" that way back then with way the game was played way back then that getting it in there with A4 was not a good idea. And you also seem to think that the winning players way back then were idiots - would today's moves have been winning moves for them? Way back then? Or do you just like to call people idiots?