In 2000 I walked into a poker room for the very first time; the Foxwoods poker room to be exact. Prior to this experience I had played in plenty of back room and kitchen table games since a very young age. Walking into a real poker room was a life changing experience and I was hooked. This was 3 years before the poker boom ignited a furry of poker. Online poker was still in its infancy and the consensus was clear; online players weren't real card players, it was filled with fish and many people thought it was rigged (not completely untrue...I'm looking at you Russ Hamilton). I was a young man immersed in a culture of older, wiser, smarter grinders and I quickly formed the opinion that online poker was a joke, it was mocked even. Saying someone was an online player was a deep insult and we clambered to get one of these people into a live game.
I have dipped my toe into the pool of online play many, many times over the years, but have never found success. I found that none of the regulars in my games were winners online either. The consensus was that there were just far too many lucky players who did not have to face the shame of looking at their opponents for the games to be beatable. We wrote these players off as having zero talent and an abundance of luck.
Fast forward ten years or so...
The online poker players have taken over the world. World Series of Poker (WSOP) Final tables are younger than they have ever been, youngest bracelet winner records are smashed ever year or every other year and online players are regarded as current greats (Durrrr, Phil Galfond, etc.) The live pros who have turned up their noses at online players still seem set in their ways and new terms have been invented to describe online players. The biggest problem with live players is their unwillingness to adapt to a changing game. They have adapted in the past, but for some reason they refuse to adapt now. In the 70's and 80's players realized that they could wait on situations to bust reckless players, in the 80's and 90's players realized they can take advantage of players sitting and waiting by opening up their games, in 2005 the learning curve took a drastic jump into refining the game statistically, analytically and fundamentally. The old guard was not prepared for the onslaught to come.
There is one simple reason why online players are better than live players all the way around and that reason is that online players are willing to work harder to be better than live players. Online players do coaching, review hand histories and discuss things constantly on message boards. Live players simply do not. The reason why online players are now taking over the live world falls in line with this mentality. An online player is willing to jump into the live world and put in the work necessary to gain success in that realm; were as very few live pros are willing to do the same in the online world. Sure, some live pros will play online, but they rely too heavily on their live experience and ego to do it with any consistent success. You simply cannot compete against online pros that spend hours and hours and hours reading theory and strategy, watching training videos, using Heads Up Display (HUD) software to determine the best way to exploit situations. I would liken it to bringing a knife to a gun fight, but that example is not extreme enough to describe the real disadvantage, it would be more like bringing a Clint Eastwood era six shooter into battle against Neo from The Matrix. It is just too much of an edge to give up. Unless a live player decides to infiltrate the resources available to them they will not only have no success online but they will also soon find themselves extinct from the live world as well. It is natural selection, the strong survive and the weak are eradicated. Unless you are willing to adapt then you will be nothing more than a cautionary tale in the years to come.
I have decided to dedicate myself to online poker in 2011 to improve my live game. It sounds contradictory but the writing is on the wall. John Duhamel is our World Champion, Joseph Chung and Matt Affleck showed the true live skills of online players and many, many live game pros from years past are just simply absent in today’s climate. Online players also have far more financial resources at their disposal as well, they support one another. I have seen bracelet winners in poker room entry ways attempting to sell watches and commemorative jackets in order to get a stake in that day’s tournament. Meanwhile an unknown live player can post an add on 2+2 for the same event and sell it out without issue (with mark-up rather than expensive make up). I plan on using HEM (HUDS), Poker Stove, various training sites and one on one coaching to grasp many concepts and statics (VPIP, etc) in order to become a winning online player. Once that is accomplished I have no doubt that I will be a force in the live poker world for years to come.
Some pros are also going this route and I commend them for it, but as for the stubborn, older guard, it was nice knowing you.
See you on the felt; live or virtual.
John "TrupQQ" Sep
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