[David Sklansky]

In another thread I claimed that I felt I would be a favorite over Daniel, and in fact evey other famous champion player, if we played a bunch of different, made up on the spot, weird games. I used as an example, 7 stud where deuces become wild if you have three hearts in your hand. Some people dismissed that as irrelevant even if true.

However it was not necessary that I postulated games anywhere near this way out for my point to hold. I need only to have stuck to games that are played evey day in people's homes. Criss cross, Baseball, Hi Lo Declare, Five Stud with a replace etc. etc. Those were the games that originally taught me poker. And the only reasons they are not played in casinos is because they are hard to deal and susceptible to collusion. If you could eliminate those problems they would become very popular in public cardrooms. And that would be the best players worst nightmare.

You see the games in question put a higher premium on thought and analysis as opposed to instinct. If they were spread routinely it would be wonderful for many mid level players but not for most of the "first tier" players. Most would lose their lofty status and soon be forced to play in the "second tier" and below.

The best players would mainly be comprised of champion bridge, backgammon and possibly chess players. Plus ultra intelligent people who at the moment might not be playing at all. Most of the 4000-8000 players (in my opinion of course) would lose to the likes of Mark Weitzman, Jason Lester, Howard Lederer, Jay Heimowitz, Mickey Appleman, myself, Allen Cunningham, Andy Bloch, Chris Ferguson etc.

In other words it is somewhat of a fluke that many (not all) of the poker stars have achieved that status. Because they are not playing all the forms of poker that are played by the general population. If they were there would be different stars.

To me of course, there is the secondary issue of which of the two categories I would rather be in if I could only choose one. If fame and fortune were equal it wouldn't be close, as expertise in category two means a greater ability to analyse almost any subject. In fact that is so important to me that even without the fame and fortune I would choose category two, especially if I could remain in the top 100 in Category 1.