Jeff Schulman rant

[Chazbot2000]

Time Magazine did an article on poker in a recent issue. A quote from Jeff Schulman, editor of Card Player magazine:

"Now there are a lot more maniacs and they're winning much more often. These kids don't have any fear. They're willing to move the chips around and they celebrate like crazy after they win a hand."

O.K., this is the second time that Schulman has offered some soundbite about new players joining poker and winning on luck (similar soundbite after Raymer won the WSOP). It's complete crap. There is no more luck in this game today than there was 10 years ago. Same 52 cards in the deck. If newer players are making terrible plays with lots of chips, then Schulman should be jumping for joy at all the new fishes. He's not because his comments are just sour grapes from someone who is not as good as he thinks he is. 10 years ago, someone like Schulman could look like hot stuff at a card table because there were fewer players and almost all of them were self taught.

Now you have:

- More people playing. Poker gets a lot of visibility, lots of people try the game. More people who have an innate poker talent learn to play the game. Those people take down guys like Schulman who chalks it up to luck.

- Easier to get experience. 10 years ago, you had to spend years in a cardroom to see enough hands to have the experience to succeed. The internet has let newcomers see tons of hands relatively quickly, so on a number of hands played basis, you can catch up with pros' experience.

- Better theory. Lots of good books now so you can play poker based on sound theory versus good instincts.

Schulman needs to face up to the fact that many of these new players aren't lucky, THEY'RE JUST BETTER THAN HIM.

[Cleveland Guy]

I'm with you .

I have never seen Shulman at a final table of any TV event.

[Beavis68]

Is jeff the elder one? if so, he has made a few.

I don't see anything about luck in his post - he says that they are fearless. That is an important thing in a NL player.

That is how Ivey and Layne Flack are often described.

And the more often the chips go in before the flop, the more luck will be involved.

[SpeakEasy]

I don't see his comment as a whine at all. His comment reflects what he sees as an influx of "fearless" players. Reckless players are being fed to the TV viewing audience on a regular basis -- lots of fearless (i.e. bad, -EV) all-in calls, suck outs, and wild post-victory dances. These bad calls and classless celebrations are probably becoming more common even when the cameras aren't rolling, because the young players think this is how poker should be played.

The pros, including the ones that you think aren't very good, are commenting (venting) about the new wave of players and their reckless style, that's all. He publishes a magazine and its his job to report on the world of poker.

[Chazbot2000]

"The pros, including the ones that you think aren't very good, are commenting (venting) about the new wave of players and their reckless style, that's all."

If you're good, you profit from others' reckless play. Therefore you should be happy there are new players. What are you going on 2 + 2 if you don't believe that?

[Kevmath]

Jeff is the son, Barry is the father.

Kevin...

[Meatmaw]

I think the pros who are venting are just frustrated by the increased variance introduced by wilder playing. It's not that having a table of wild players freezes them in their tracks unable to know how to deal with it. It's just that you end up with more suckouts and crazy wins in this atmosphere. Is that an accurate thing to say? Sorry, I need to confirm these things because I'm just a noob.

[Chazbot2000]

No question it should increase their variance but also their profitability (if everyone's as bad as people like Schulman implies they are). Dan Harrington made a comment to the effect that with such a huge field, repeatedly winning the WSOP the way Johnny Chan or Stu Ungar did has become very unlikely. But when fourth place still pays out seven figures, even pros need to develop a different standard of success.

I'm still arguing that this broad field is not such an influx of dead money. Most of the internet players who are playing in the big one had to win very large multi-table online tournaments that many pros couldn't survive. These folks have already proven themselves in my book before they ever sat down at the WSOP.

[Tuds75]

I saw Schulman at the WSOP and he is a "douche". He just struts around acting like a big time poker player. He spent most his time trying to get into Donna, from That '70s, pants. But then again, who wouldn't?

[JoeU]

I also believe Jeff made the final table of the 2000 WSOP.

Joe

[dogmeat]

I hear this "fearless" comment a lot. In the 1970's it was used to describe players like Bobby Baldwin. In the 1980's, players like Stu, Mickey Appleman and Dewey were sometimes refered to in this way. Today, although I agree that players are better educated on poker than they were 20 years ago, I think a lot of it has to do with what money is worth today. You have players entering $1000 tournaments that make that much in a couple days. In the 1970's the $10,000 Buy-In for the WSOP was a ton of money, as much as a lot of young people made in a year. Now they make that in a month. That's the deal! When they make the WSOP $50,000 to enter, or even $100,000 to match what that $10,000 was worth in the early 1970's, then we will see the players respect their chips.

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[Rushmore]

I'm not a big Jeff Schulman fan, but he's right about one thing--the game has changed a LOT. He manages to make it sound like a whine, but it's really gotta be just an observation. I remember when a bottle of pop cost only a nickel...

[ QUOTE ]
In the 1970's the $10,000 Buy-In for the WSOP was a ton of money, as much as a lot of young people made in a year. Now they make that in a month. That's the deal! When they make the WSOP $50,000 to enter, or even $100,000 to match what that $10,000 was worth in the early 1970's, then we will see the players respect their chips.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is the heart and soul of the issue. $100K is way too much, but $25K sounds great.

Think about it: all satellites, particularly online, would be that much higher in price, and it would become at least a bit more elite field.

I would MUCH rather the WSOP be 1000 guys each paying $25K (or even 500 paying $50K) than the way it was this year.

But this has all been discussed here before, so I'm going to go get some pancakes at Perkins now.

But I hate all those flavored syrups, you know? I remember when you had to go to the tree and extract the syrup yourself. Those were the days.

[beanie]

When I was in France I made a play that was likely the best play I made in the tournament. I will detail it later on, I just back yesterday and spent most of the day watching "Dora the Explorer" with my daughters. Anyway, half of the table sounded like the UNited Nations and I could understand one guy calling me an internet calling station. Ben Roberts tapped me on the shoulder later and said that many long time regulars just aren't nearly as good as they think they are.

It does make it easier to lose if you know your good but just haven't shown results.

[RowdyZ]

Actually 2000 the "final table" was only 6 players so Shulman missed it by coming in 7th. Shulman had a massive chip lead that year and then ran into Chris Ferguson who had all the luck and mojo on his side that year. (read Postively 5th Street for details). Shulman 77 got beat by Ferguson 66. Then Shulman picked up pocket kings just in time for Ferguson to find pocket aces. Not sre how Shulmans over all game is but he played well that year and I am not saying Ferguson isn't a great player and better then Shulman but he did catch alot of cards to win that year, as I said see the book.

[Tyler Durden]

Can someone, anyone spell the name correctly? It's Shulman.

[$DEADSEXE$]

If they structured most tourneys like the one at the Plaza etc you'de see a lot less amateur's winning and even making it to the final table.
The online players are better equipped for the pre-flop type of poker tourney's compared to the ones where all the action comes after the flop.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
If they structured most tourneys like the one at the Plaza etc you'de see a lot less amateur's winning and even making it to the final table.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah its crazy to watch the final table where the average stack is about as deep as your typical online NL-ring game. Certainly changes things a lot.

[Rifter]

He got seventh, was busted out by Jesus Ferguson after he made a huge read on big raise by Ferguson- Jesus had 66 down and Shulman had 77 down, makes the huge call, and of course Jesus flopped a six and went on to win it all. So I wouldn't put down Shulman's poker skill, he got seventh in the WSOP and only was knocked out by a bad beat.

[RowdyZ]

[ QUOTE ]
If they structured most tourneys like the one at the Plaza etc you'de see a lot less amateur's winning and even making it to the final table.
The online players are better equipped for the pre-flop type of poker tourney's compared to the ones where all the action comes after the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

It also helps that very few amatuers enter the tournament in the first place. The Plaza deal was thrown together kinda last minute and alot of the amauters who did know about were probably still tapped out from the WSOP and I don't think they had any or at least they didn't have time for many Sats so if you wanted to play you had to pay full freight and that probably weeded a few more out. This was like a throw back to the Main event back in the 70's and early 80's, the top pros with just a little "dead" money.

[TomCollins]

There is more luck involved. Getting all in earlier means more luck. So even if you get your hand in with the best of it, maybe even as a 3-1 favorite, you are an 8-1 dog surviving four of those without losing. So even when these stupid players call in with 22 when you have AA, you can make the perfect decision and will likely lose.

[d_wrek]

[ QUOTE ]
This is the heart and soul of the issue. $100K is way too much, but $25K sounds great.

Think about it: all satellites, particularly online, would be that much higher in price, and it would become at least a bit more elite field.


[/ QUOTE ]

I like what they did for the WPT Championship. There were a lot of online satellites, but the winners qualified for a 1-table live satellite at Bellagio, instead of qualifying for the main tourney.

With this satellite system, the qualifiers are happy...they get a trip to Vegas and a seat in a $2500 satellite, but the 25k main tourney only has around 400 entrants, which is a little more manageable.

[coolhandtom]

which issue of time was it? what is the cover date...

thnx /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[coolhandtom]

* anyone? what issue was the article in.. thnx /images/graemlins/heart.gif