Friday Ramble
Friday, February 23, 2007
"That's just not something I'm all that comfortable doing, besides, I am not sure if I'm a winning player online against tough competitors. I have lots of trouble focusing online and reading players."
-Daniel Negreanu in his post 'A Poker Story from the 'Old Days'".
Thank god I'm not the only one.
So, online poker has been tempting me more and more lately. Reading about the many blogger tournaments gets me chomping at the bit, but a healthy diet of television has kept me away. As much as I would like to play in some of the tournaments, I can't help but want to watch Heroes (Modays against the MATH), Lost (Wednesdays against the Mookie) and Survivor (Thursdays against CC and the Riverchaser events) as soon as I can. Truth be told, I'm a junky for Heroes and Lost, but I can skip Survivor, if not for my desire to enjoy some time for wifey Kim. Thank god I can just fall back on the thought that, although I want to play online poker, it just isn't good for me.
Meanwhile, I've played no live poker this week. I am, however, playing in an upcoming montly IHO tournament, which I'm ecstatic about. I need to keep my live game diet strong, because it is the primary way to keep me away from the evil pull of online poker. This weekend doesn't look to be very poker-busy though. Hell, maybe this will get me to finally give in and play this Sunday's WPBT event.
I started to write a post about how I've always had a life table image, but I couldn't get it to gel. It seemed too navel-gazing to me. The gist of it is that I have always downplayed myself by dressing and portraying myself as less intelligent than I actually am. How do you say that without sounding like a tool? I don't know, which is evident by the way I explained it here. So goes the perils of blogging.
I do have this thought for you all. Is it possible that the best poker player in the world is playing micro limits? What I mean is, if there was some test to determine one's poker abilities, would the size of a player's stakes matter in assessing their skills? Of course, the competition is going to be weaker at the lower levels, but let's just hypothetically say that this low-stakes player, when matched up against higher-stakes players (let's say in an SNG, perhaps), has the necessary skills to beat them. Then, does the stakes that one usually play at matter?
Yeah, tricky idea in there somewhere. I'll answer it as best I can, relying heavily on my own opinions and nothing even resembling objective reasoning (or is it subjective? whatever). The stakes a player plays is a component of how good of a poker player they are. If two players are of exactly equal skill, the player who plays higher stakes should be given more credit in general, because cajones and bankroll are elements of a player's overall ability.
Man, this is too much random pontification, even for me.
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 4:23 PM,
5 Comments:
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At 4:59 PM,
Pauly said...
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One word: TiVo.
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At 5:33 PM,
Jordan said...
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True enough, Pauly. Yet, it's about spending time with wifey Kim. In my deepest online poker obsession, it was like I spent no time with her, even though we were physically in the same room a lot. She goes to sleep relatively early, so in the end, the logical answer was to stop pressuring myself to play all the blogger events and just take a back seat in general.
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At 8:42 PM,
said...
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Negreanu has been very lucky.
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At 9:57 PM,
said...
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VERY good question/thought there ("Is it possible that the best poker player in the world is playing micro limits?")
That question (or something along those lines) crossed my mind before. There is no clear cut yes/no answer though...why? Because what determines "the best" in the first place? I tried to think about this question before, but really there isn't "the" answer to that question either...some thoughts/questions:
1. What time frame is considered? (We all know that short-term, well, anyone can win...long term...it might be more near to the "skill" part coming through...although that isn't completely true in tournament poker either...(this alone is worth a few loooong posts))
2. What format is considered? (SnG? MTT? Cash Game? Shorthanded?) A mix of the above?
3. What game(s) are considered? (NL Hold'em, Limit Hold'em, PL Hold'em, PLO, PLO8, Stud, Stud8, Razz, 2-7, A-5, etc etc?)
4. What limits/buyins are considered (if any)? What formula will be used for scaling (if any)?
5. How are you going to keep score?
6. How will you make sure that ALL players in consideration are going to play (There's always the "sponsors" thing, how you're going to get all players in the mix?)
etc etc
And now that I wrote all of this I remembered when it last crossed my mind...when I watched FullTilt's Roundtable (Episode 10 talked about "Who's the #1 in poker"...http://m.fulltiltpoker.com/video/LFTP_Roundtable-10.m4v)...very interesting stuff, especially what Barry had to say...and I think I'll might pick this topic up for a post in the future... -
At 9:06 PM,
said...
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I think different levels of games require different understandings and even different rules you have to go by to win. So just like stud and Texas holdem are different, a 1-2 game would be played differently then 20-40. I would assume that the higher limit player would know more about the game because they are usually forced to play against other people who are also good. But seriously, I find it easier to win against someone who knows how to play, then someone who has no clue.
