Don't be fooled by Ivey's level

it seems like this thread has been looking for me... so here i am man myth legend poker player extraordinaire best there is was and ever will be
natural talent mvp of every poker room
you will be knowing me very soon

I disagree very strongly that "work-rate" isn't ruled by natural talent.

The ability to focus intensely on a single mentally demanding activity for long time periods is not something many people possess. (And I'd also say there's more than one ability here...being able to focus for many hours in a single day is separate from being able to do so day in, day out)

comparing poker to sports is soooo stupid. size/physical makeup/speed are things you can only improve to a certain extent.

And improvements to "non-physical" abilities are unbounded?

Do tell chap....how does one become more better...I've seen players become better....but what is this secret "more better"

Be very intelligent, play constantly and focus on developing your talent. That's it.

Ivey has all three of these qualities to an insane degree.

FYP

lol, i guess durrr can feel them trembling through the computer screen

honestly, tilt control and money management are like half the battle, then hard work putting in the hours

"natural talent" as in variance and rungood?

anyone with that on their side will win right from the start where as someone who tries just as hard in the beginning might be doomswitched.

That is the truth....a player's confidence is immediately determined in the first 1K hands more so based on variance than skill...

you run well and you stick with it....you play great, but have the deck hit all your opponents...well you get the pictar

Not unbounded, but certainly the gap between where most people currently are and their upper bound mentally is greater than the gap between where they currently are and their upper bound physically.

Natural Talent likely does not exist, and if it does, its pretty much irrelevant. People who say they can't do something because they aren't "naturally gifted" for it are just making up excuses for their failures.


Here is an article explaining why there is really no evidence supporting "Natural Talent", and also giving some examples of people who you would think were gifted, but really, they just worked hard.


http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/maga...tune/index.htm

Moronic thread. Yes Ivey is working all the time but there are a lot of players who play as much as he does who will never be a tenth as good as he is he works all the time and keeps his edge over other players who have natural ability like he does

it's a pretty simple game if you think about it, it's call, fold or raise, so dont think someone can be born with an innate ability to beat all these players...however, most people do not have the threshold to stomach the higher stakes.. the true gamblers are the ones that succeed, same players that are playing the highest stakes are the same guys with the insane prop bets, its not a coincidence... the great players never stop playing when they are losing, they just dont care and never quit....you can work at your game all you want, if you dont have the " i dont respect money" attitude you simply cant step out of your comfort zone and you cant move up.. so to a degree , it is natural , but not a natural ability to play poker, but the natural ability to gamble, and gamble with your life, and this applies to most things in life, whether it be finance , real estate, or your own business, those that succeed are the ones that took the chance with total disregard for stability and security... so it's all about risk and reward, higher risk=higher reward

What is his natural ability? Hes been playing cards everyday since he was like 6. lol, brb i want a poker bone transplant.

Try thinking before you post.

i see players on opr who have played double the volume i have yet have massively inferior results / stats. ( not to mention they have probs studied books )


mmmmmmmm

INNATE INNATE INNATE!

The article linked to above is really facile.

Comparing someone's golf skills (objective) with the resume of a successful executive (subjective) who worked hard is silly.

As if there are not tons of golfers who work hard like Tiger Woods, or scores of executives who have the burning desire to succeed like Steve Ballmer.

Opportunity is a big part of it, but also our brains have particular predispositions for certain kinds of achievement that vary from individual to individual.

If I was raised to be a professional chess player by my father and he and I did everything we could for me to get there, I would indeed become a very good chess player. But I would not become as good as Kasparov in his prime - no way. And believe me, there are hundreds of parents out there who have tried to make their child into the next Kasparov.

There is/was something special about his chess ability. I think any grandmaster who has ever played against Kasparov would agree.

Thousands of his contemporaries in Soviet and Eastern Europe had the same opportunity to become chess champions. No one has approached his achievements. How can this be anything but a special talent, allied with hard work and opportunity?

Chess is both a mental discipline and (unlike poker) has clear objective standards that allow us to compare the skills of players against one another. If there were no such thing as talent (the term "natural" talent is redundant - all talent is natural, or else it is simply skill/ability we are talking about), a Bobby Fischer, a Garry Kasparov, or a Tiger Woods, or Michael Jordan would be impossible.

<--- natural

OCD obviously. The ability to do repetitive tasks without getting bored is a great way to increase your winrate.

saying theres no natural talent in poker is an insult to people who work extremely hard but are mediocre winners at poker

I think people can have a innate ability to read people. Look at how kids are good at getting vibes from adults. Good and bad.

Why "certainly"? As I see it, the typical person is years of focused training away from their physical and mental peaks in most (and frequently all) specific areas of physique or mental ability you might choose to focus on.