HaHa, the duke.

Hack, you remember when Pat Callahan used to play? That was a confluence of old and new not soon forgotten.

sounds familiar-but not sure-what did he look like/ and or what was his hook?

Sousa used to be in the room all the time-broke as a 2 legged barstool-always loved to tell stories about the old guys-never wore anything but Hawaiian shirts loved to say that Puggy Pearson said he (Sousa) was the best NLH player-

Never knew how much he got from his deep run in 04 but got the feeling he left the Horseshoe with very little-everyone was sweating his finish to collect

was he buddies with Benny Binion or something?

old time grinder, suspenders with "pat" embroidered on them. Used to play on Doyle's WSOP collusion teams, lost his value, finished out his days at the nugget 1/2.

yes-I do-pretty bitter on a lot of days....but lots of stories to burn away the boredom

Really interesting. Kind of like you brought the whole GN LV thing to life.

Sorry if already posted, but moving up from 1/2 is basically impossible. Sorry to shatter the dreams of low stakes players like myself but theyre raking around $100-$150 an hour off the table depending on pot sizes and bad beat jackpots. Considering most rec donks buy in short, that means that one player an hour is getting taken off the table by the house. Not t9 mention if you win 3 decent sized pots an hour (over $40 where the rake cap is here) thats at least $15/hr away from your win rate which at 1/2 wont be high to begin with considering the amount of short stacks and just the size of the game.

Sucks but i think 5/5 is prob the level youd have to start at and maybe 2/5 but youd be struggling and would have to try to learn tournaments and bink something to move up comfortably

You can definitely move up from 1/2 to 2/5 in a decent amount of time. If you think you can't then you need to work on your game.

People always act like 1/2 is this crazy unbeatable game bc of the stupid high rake but it really is beatable at a decent rate. Your WR is definitely taking a hit from high rake but all you're here for is to build a 2/5 roll and the rake shouldn't stop you from doing that.

Thats good to know but are you talking about live play ?

doubt ivey could beat $1/2

And we'll sure as hell never find out.

Could the pros from Ivey's generation beat the live games found today? Sure, why couldn't they? It would probably take a bit longer. These games are tougher now than in the past. But this group would do what they always did, they would study the new game, adapt and learn. There is a reason we know these people. Why they are still playing successfully after all these years. These guys and gals are good at doing what they love-playing poker!

the pros from ivey's generation? who exactly are we talking about this thread title tho

i am not sure what the parameters of this is. but i can guarantee you that the live pros which all were live could and would beat the high stakes games of today. by high stakes i include all blind games of 50/100 and up. i know i can and im from the generation before ivey's.
especially if they hadnt aged. as we age we lose the desire to win that is there when younger. especially those with lots of money.

the very highest games that are insane and short handed tend to be beat by who ran the best during a certain time frame. look at the results.

What's up with this obsession about who would and wouldn't beat the games..?

It's simple: good players would. Bad players wouldn't. This endless faux analysis is meaningless.

Anybody currently beating a big game could work their way back to that game starting from 1/2, since the smaller games are softer. It would just take a lot of time to get the bankroll together to move back up.

I'm sure I could start over again with online poker with $10 and grind it up, or eventually grind up a bankroll playing 1/2 live, but why would you want to unless you've gone broke and it's the only option? Most people would prefer to just get staked to play the bigger games they have proven they can beat, take a profit chop and then go out on their own again when they have enough of a bankroll

There are plenty of live pros who could grind back to the big games they play in now and there are also plenty of live pros who don't really beat the games anymore and couldn't, but live off sponsorship money etc

I suspect that if you took the "usual suspects" from HSP/PAD in 2007, and added Jungleman, Sauce, Galfond and Haxton to the mix, the latter four would completely destroy Ivey, Hansen, Negreanu and the rest of the old skoolers.

Live poker all the way up to 5/10 is not that tough. It would just take forever to grind up any significant roll at 1/2 that you're better off just saving up $10k or so and taking shots at soft 2/5 games.

Also most 5/10 games I have played in are uncapped or are capped at $3k. Which is pretty deep as it is and to the point where people don't even care how much you put on the table.

The real skill jump from 5/10 to 10/20 is not that huge although the good players are better at applying pressure in general on the weaker players and the money scared players.

Yes almost anyone who has the capacity to learn new tricks could work there way up to 10/20 and beyond but it would take a very long time from 1/2 NL. Just because live poker is slow and downswings can last months.

I have logged over 2500+ hours at 2/5-10/20 fwiw.

I didn't really word word it very well. I mean top players like Phil Ivey and of his age or older who started playing live. Gained their BR live etc.

Yes I agree with you but could they start today with no BR live and beat it and work up to high stakes like they did years ago?

I think they might be irritated by it because the question's a bit silly. Would Ivey and his peers succeed if they were young and starting out today? Of course. Yes, things have changed, and they're the kinds of players who would adapt to current conditions better than anyone else.

Being young isn't nearly the edge a lot of young players think it is in poker, with one exception; if they're healthy, they have the stamina to play long hours for days on end, now virtually a requirement to win big tournaments. And with young players the majority of the field in large tournaments, it's no surprise to see young players winning them.

Cash games? I think winning players love to see young 'pros' in the cash games

yes it would be relatively easy for a top player to work his way up as long as he still has the desire to. you have to realize very good high stakes players have a huge edge over not so good players. and will win almost every long session they play. so they will build and be playing higher in a very short period of time.

this applies to those that do it carefully and are diligent not to go broke again, but take the risks needed to move up.

I agree with you about they are kind of players who could better adapt than everyone else and I realize they are incredibly talented but the field is much much tougher and its harder to move up from live 1-2 HL and build a BR. That's what many of the answers say. Do you not agree with this?

You mean young online pros ? I agree unless the young online pro has a much much bigger BR than the live pro which on average I think they do unless they live one cashed big in a tourney.

OK you have almost convinced me but in your mind how many buy ins they would need at 1-2 to step up? Also I'm interested how long a session are you talking about?