Some of the young players play old school poker. Some that gone deep do. Now, where were we?

It was mentioned on the live feed when he busted.
No need for a link. Just believe.

Try statistics. Determine # of old school players in event:# of new school players in event. Determine # of old school players in final 10%:# of new school players in final 10%. Repeat until relevant sample size (account for variance) and problem solved.

So that would be about the year 3000.

Nice. If PH lives that long.

Both camps are probably true.

yes, the top internet players have really pushed the game to a new level.
yes, the top live players have adapted and do more than hold their own.

The problem i see here is the bulk of the internet players misconception that because there are some truly amazing online players that somehow "online players are better" "game has passed the live players by" "durrr would crush xxxx" etc...etc...ad nauseum..

If theres a 50-1 ratio of internet players vs live in this gigantic tournament, then yes... obviously, they are going to be the majority.

The real question is out of the 6 thousand player field, how many are truly good?... both live and online.

This debate happens all the time...

100 random poker players
guessing the ratio is something like:

50 online
50 live

Maybe 20 truly "good" players in the bunch.

Are there more online players in this 20?

Isn't it possible that the medium is irrelevant and good players are good players?

Seems to me (much like everything to do with poker) there's a whole lot of ego and chest bumping among those who THINK they are better than they are. Both live and online... but since there are infinitely MORE online players, we hear them talk the most and they end up represented at final tables more.

Which of course circles back to "stfu and play the game, lets see who REALLY is good"

This. 100%

there are fewer old school players as well and a ton of new guys

There needs to be a feature on the forum that auto-locks threads after pineapple posts.

Do you even play poker ?
You don't need ****ing instincts to know someone's VPIP, you need to pay attention at the table. If you think good online players don't do that then you play NL2 and you loose money.

fyp

because the old school guys are losing.

What about the median age, as that is probably a better judgement to be honest.

For example, the mean age of final tables could well be 33.61 but out of 57 events there could be forty-six "internet kid" winners in the range 21-25 and eleven old school winners aged 55-75 and the average age of the winner is around 31.1. Clearly in this example the internet kids have dominated but simply taking the mean doesn't show this.

Obviously a contrived example, but you can prove just about anything with stats.

its obv cause phil ivey isnt playing. hed win like 54-56 events.

grunching here, but I'm pretty sure Dan Harrington said back in 05 that no one over the age of 50 will win the main event.

I am old school, played stud mostly and I agree the new school players are better.

Its true they have access to much more information than we did (the best poker book of the sixties recommended putting a submarine sandwich on the table when your opponents were hungry and you held the nuts) but main reason they are better is simply that they are younger.

my grandpa told me that when you hit your fifties your thought processes and reaction time slow down and you no longer can play your best game, at that age he switched to bridge. this was a guy who played dollar ante pot limit (dig) stud druing the depression.

unlike grandpa I did't quit entirely, stick to playing the other old geezers in the weekly 4-8 horse I barley can fade the rake. (played online 5.5 mix mtts pre bf) my old style was hyperlag, but now its just typical old nit .

one thing has remained the same there are a lot of players who are not nearly as good as they think they are who won't beat the rake.

you can't lean just as fast when you play 20 hands an hour as opposed to 1000 hands an hour.[/QUOTE]

this is ...... . no insults but,
you think you learn anything playing 1000 hands of MTT poker an hour?

get a grip, you play 1000 hands an hour like a robot with the skills you achieved already.
just having attention deficit disorder and taking adderral doesnt make you learn anything when playing 1k hands an hour.

i cant believe how stupid 98% of population are,
read and repeat, braindead zombies, never use your brain,
why should you? you have i-phone i guess.

maybe you should start thinking for yourself before you post utterly mad bs that you read somewhere in the internet, even if the author seemed to know what he was talking about.


i agree online you learn faster, but if you play more than 4 tables shorthanded or 6-8 tables fullring, you improve slower or not at all.

how do you think that you can read hands/ranges and get the flow of the game?
in the handreplayer after your 12 hour session?

I'm 41 and I'd be the first to say that the younger generation is great at poker. Obviously the rise of online poker and forums such as 2+2 have paved the way. When I read a great strategy post, I don't worry about the fact that the poster is probably half my age. I worry about learning what I need to know to get better.

Its evolution and it happens everywhere. Look at chess for example. When Bobby Fischer became a grandmaster at 15 it was an amazing feat. Now teenaged grandmasters are common. Better training, more opportunities, and the internet have combined to accelerate the learning process in all walks of life and that is a good thing.

People my age and older can still get better at poker, you just have to be open minded to new ideas and willing to work. There is no age limit on that.

It's not neccessarily because young players 12-tabled online. You can develop skills from playing live or online, there's value to each, blah blah blah. It's also not neccessarily because young guys have more endurance/react quicker, although I'm sure that's part of it. It's about information/tactics/strategies, and who is more likely to learn them and employ them.

The real reason the "old school" struggles is because old people are, for the most part, stubborn and set in their ways - this applies to any field. Old person who developed his poker skills and strategies having played live for 30 years now is much less likely to change the way he's been playing, no matter how much it can be shown his way is way behind the times, it's just human nature that as we get older, we get more set in the ways we've been doing things. A young person, even if he is first taught how to play poker from TJ Cloutier and Howard Lederer, is still much more likely to change the way he plays upon being shown a more successful style of play. Finally, someone who has NEVER played before, and who comes to 2p2 FIRST, is obviously the most willing to learn the most modern tactics and strategies, and ignore the older, less successful ways. You take a 50 year old who has NEVER played poker, put him in a room with Phil Galfond for a year teaching him, and the result would be someone who would be well on par with the vast majority of "young internet kids", and also well above anyone else in his age bracket. It's why DN and some of the "old school" have pretty much said they HAVE to go back and learn from the young guys, because they're some of the few "old school" who aren't being stubborn morons.

This principle isn't unique to poker - it's true in any highly competitve endeavor where there's been a recent change as a more optimal strategy/tactic has been developed - the people most likely to adopt said more optimal way of doing things are the younger people.

One generation's best relies on a strategy that is based on certain views. New view shows that there is a more optimal strategy. Younger people start employing that strategy, have success. Old people stubborn disdain said strategy despite evidence that it works. Their ranks thin out because the new strategy defeats the old strategy in the competitive field. Then, young generation becomes the old generation. That happens in EVERY field.

I'm sure there will come a day when Tom Dwan and Phil Galfond sit around and complain about the young guys and how they do X, and how back when the two of them were considerd two of the world's best, they would never do X. Now, what "X" is, I don't know, and anyone who does, please tell me and ONLY me so I can be one of the first. Thanks.

I think I can break this question down & answer it correctly as someone thats been playing for years & knows both sides.


The online game for one is completlely different than live play. It's like comparing apples to oranges. There are tells in live play. None online. Online is completely math. That's why you will see much more 3 & 4 betting preflop, It's all about equity in the pot at that point. Pushing marginal situations because there aren't that many big EV spots. In live play there will always be more flatting because some players have a talent for reading other players.

As someone that knows all of the internet strategies & someone that plays live, I wouldn't be surprised if the average online player is better than the average live player. But there's 100% no doubt about it that the top 10 or 15 players in the world will always be live players that have moved there game to the next top tier level of reading tells. You can forget about an online player ever being the best, It will NEVER , let me say this again NEVER happen unless they concentrate completely on playing live & learn this skill.

There are very few players I've met over the years who can do this, but the ones that can are by far the best in the world.


The original poster also is correct in the fact that the majority of players coming in are playing online these days, so just through sheer numbers you will continue to see many of these players that are flipping huge stacks with marginal equity continue to make it deep. It doesn't mean that if they sit with one of these players I speak of head up for a year that they would ever have a shot in hell in winning.


So to sum it up, the average online player may be better than the avgerage live player just because the average live player sucks at reading tells & the online player probably has better math strategy skills, however the live players that have mastered the live strategy will always be a level above the best online players. The skill level required to play at the top level & be the best goes far beyond math. That's why the best player in the world will always be a live player & that's a fact

When I sit down at a table, I don't want to see young males. I want men >30 and women. They are simply easier to play against. Women play assertively but never with deception. Old men wait for the nuts. Neither group puts pressure on you.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but a large part of what makes poker profitable is either a disregard for reality or the inability to recognize it. You are not recognizing the reality, which is that young males have taken over the game.

skeptix, It's not as black & white as what most want to believe, You are speaking of the average live player that has little experience, maybe came along in the poker boom or has played over the past 15 or 20 years recreationally & played when there was more flatting. There's always been more flatting in live play because of tells. Only since the online game came along has the game gotten super aggressive. Not because there's been an epiphany, Sklansky & some others pretty much knew the math side of the game as it was being played, however online since there are no tells, marginal equity folds made the game much more aggressive. So the math behind the game itself has changed. Some players have adapted to that change, others have not. The ones that know what's going on & have developed live skills actually love the way the game is played now. Much more opportunitys to read internet players since they are splashing around more. The games have never been better for a top world class player.


Let me say again that the average online player is probably better than the average live player, but that changes dramatically when we start speaking of the highest levels in the game,

So your saying that in bobbys room, a 25/50 online player will more than likely be a dog if only NLHE was played?

this

I would say it is stamina, old farts don't have the energy to sit around for a week and play poker for 14hr days.

true unless the 9 black guys play like nelly, then the white guy has a huge edge