Quote:
Originally Posted by Siculamente
Pretty much what pf and Phil said.
Lot of pros became "pros" because they found a gambling game they could actually win at for a period. Before they were "pros" they were essentially just degens being well degens.
In not so many words: they went from degen, to super rich degen back to a normal degen.
What is sad is that many fanboys are clinging to straws ie they think these guys are or were ****ing geniuses and the fact that they are playing way way lower / appear to be busto must be a prop bet or some other lol ****.
I mean they thought these pros were geniuses and extremely wealthy from watching all those poker after dark shows where they made truly horrible plays with garbage hands for lots of money.
Usually- the simplest answer is usually the correct one- they aren't weren't ever crazy mathematical geniuses making head scratching plays because they thought it was ev... No no no they did that **** (along with all the other degen stuff) because they are first and foremost degenerate gamblers.
What goes up must come down. I don't think anyone is laughing / feels awesome that these guys are back to busto. But there is some sort of satisfaction in the assurance that at least some things even out / come back to reality.
Too many broad strokes from a narrow perspective.
Having some degen traits is likely very +EV in the long run, especially back in the day because the skill discrepancy between players was much greater than today and there was a lot of easy $ at the highest stakes. Risking a huge chunk of ones BR on a soft game was not necessarily overzealous (as it would be viewed today) because the top players printed $ very fast (like get rid of ISIS fast) playing stakes below their skill level time and time again. You clearly missed out on that time period. This type of conditioning has long lasting effects and doesn't just mean someone is a degenerate gambler.
A lot of the theory that exists in today's game is the result of years of evolution within the game via piggybacking off strats of well known pro's. Anyone who invested a ton of effort in 2008 trying to solve poker (except maybe Ike) in a GTO sense was wasting their time or did not have the requisite skill set to crush in that environment. There was too much money to be had for a top player to spend that kind of effort away from the table without logging hands. In general pure "math" players (who I assume dominate today's games based on what I read here) from back then weren't as successful as "feel" players by a wide margin. Why was that? They certainly weren't playing the garbage hands you saw on PAD. Over time as the math became more correct the dynamic shifted. Poker players didn't all of a sudden get smarter as a population. I'm not at all convinced that the top online players in today's games would have the same relative success or trajectory in a premature poker environment. They would certainly be successful but it's likely only a couple would replicate their current level of success.
There's also BF plus all the unethical **** that flooded the high stakes games over time (before BF hit). The original online poker hero's had to deal with some unique lifestyle changes and challenges. The xyz reasons that made poker so appealing faded with the market. This decreases motivations and creates the logical "wtf am I doing with my life" factor that creeps into the mind of many poker people once they've reach the top of the mountain and accomplished some long standing goals. All these contribute to players plateauing and therefore adapting poorly. Attributing their rise to variance and being reckless gamblers with aggressive BR management is lol. It'd be more accurate to point to overconfidence (in many facets) as the factor that made them the top players they once were while also driving their downfall. The more I think about this it seems so ridiculous that I wonder if you are just trolling.
This feels incredibly similar to the young online vs. old live pro debate that was all over 2+2 10 years ago. I'd bet it repeats itself 10 years from now too. Dedicating your life to maintaining perfect frequencies on the poker table will eventually get old. The lifestyle that accompanies so much success will not.
Last edited by Kidman411; 08-15-2016 at 08:30 PM.
