Re: Goofy Games
(Edited to add: Hmmmm....wonder how many responses this thread is going to get.... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img])
Ugh. You're written a lot of great poker books. People really do think you're very smart. Be secure. Have a Coke. Smile. Belitting those who are accomplished players in the top cash games (however egotistical/insecure they are in their own right) doesn't make you look any better. A 6th grade teacher would admonsih you for putting down others unnecessarily to such a degree (this isn't the first time it's happened).
(1) Being a top player in the $4k/8k game isn't a measure of one's ability to learn a new game quickly.
(2) "Instinct" is a word that intelligent, but insecure people often use when referring to other people that are more accomplished than them at something (whether that intelligent but insecure person has tried to match their accomplishment or not). Maybe some of the top players in the $4k/8k can be egotistical about their accomplishments (and a couple may very well be running hot and not be the long-term big winners that they think they are)
Maybe they inaccurately articulate on poker theory, but the ability to accurately measure all the variables at play (based on prior play, betting patterns, psychology, logic, how one is perceived and what adjustments might be made to that, etc.) at the table is something a lot of theorticians lack (e.g. AJ hand posted from "#1 most intelligent poker player as named by David Sklansky"). That's not instinct, it's intelligence, something the Phil Ivey's and other "less theorotical" players are absolute Einstein's in. Maybe you give Ivey's some fixed variables, ask him to espouse on his theoretical analysis of the situation, and he comes up a little short of being correct. Well...
...Even if you're the best theoritician in the world working with fixed, defined variables - if you can't use your intelligence to accurately decipher what the variables in play actually are at the given moment that you're making your decisions, you're going to have your arse handed to you on a regular basis by the $4k/8k players. If you make wrong assumptions, it costs you dearly, no matter how brilliant your analysis is once working with those assumptions.
While the other games may place a "higher premium on thought and anlysis," the flux of variables in the play of opponents and the whole table dynamics, etc. would still be there and that's what most of these top players are Einstein's at (whether or not they can articulate in clearly and precisely, or whether they even care to put any effort into that at all).
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