Hey IV... have you ever heard this one?
"Don't bring a knife to a gunfight"
Quote from IV_Trader:
scenario that other poster brought(all players at the same level) , rather that general debate if poker is about luck or knowledge.
Actually... let's go to the record, shall we?
Here is what you
really said.
Quote from IV_Trader:
I agreed with gk that at the tables with experienced/VERY VERY good players ( read : all players are at the same level) , edge goes to zero.
So you were saying that when VERY VERY good players play together, it creates a situation where all players are playing 'at the same level'. This is the argument that gk was making, that somehow there exist situations when everyone plays correctly, or 'at the same level'.
Here is my response to you after you tried to make this argument 3 times
quote from me
Once more, just for you -
ALL PLAYERS AT A POKER TABLE ARE NOT AT THE SAME LEVEL - EVER
...the situation you are outlining NEVER HAPPENS.
Just for you IV, I will tell you again - with regard to the situation you claim you were addressing, the one you are now trying to lay off onto another poster, namely, the
"scenario that other poster brought(all players at the same level)..."
That "scenario" does not exist
Quote from IV_Trader:
But both of you failed to see the original poster point : pro needs not-so-good / newbies players to maintain his edge.
I see. This was the
original poster's point. But is it your point too, IV?
(It's kind of sleazy how you are now saying that all these points were "the other poster's" and "the original poster's")
Anyway, if it is - sorry, wrong again. As Sammy Farha said in the 2003 WSOP
"If I am facing good players, I can outplay them. I can make them lay down the best hand. But if I am playing bad players... I need cards to win"
I will agree that a NON-PRO can make
more money playing bad players because we can stick to a simple strategy and win. A Pro playing a table of fish is like a Ferrari on a Go-Kart Track - sure, it is going to win, but who cares - it can only win peanuts at the Go-Kart track; it's not doing what it was designed and built to do. We can't see the car performing in that situation.
It is not at all clear that a Pro has a bigger edge playing non-Pros, because
a huge part of the edge in Poker is SKILL!!!! Skill in betting and reading opponents. Bad Players don't know what the hell they are doing. They can't respond to skilled play. If you watch a $0.01/$0.02 table, you will see that usually, the winner is the person who can show down the best hand at the end. Sometimes, that's what it takes to win when bad players are playing - the best cards. But even at these tables, there are always a few guys who are playing better than the others - they take the money from the fish by waiting until they have the cards and then betting the shit out of them.
So we can see that the only grain of truth in what you were saying is that at a table with a lot of
bad players, the chances are higher that to win, you will need the best hand at the showdown. This has nothing to do with your claims about the "impossible hypothetical" where all players are at the same skill level.
A Pro's winnings will be more limited by probability when he is playing bad players than when he is able to take control of a table full of players that can be outplayed.
I'd welcome any comment from real poker players here. I've played maybe 100,000 hands online, so I am a newb.