[AlanBostick]

[ QUOTE ]
You'll still beat the games

This is just kind of dumb. A bigger edge is better, no? Earning 2BB/100 is better in a soft game than 1BB/100 in a tougher one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, earning 2BB/100 is better than earning 1BB/100, no doubt about it.

However, for those of us who have been playing and winning all along, the current boom is a gift. The question isn't "How will I cope when the games get tougher?" anywhere near so much as "Am I all I want to get from the boom before the games get tough again?"

I knew when it started that the boom will come to an end, just like all the other poker booms came to their ends. I also know that poker will be better after the boom's end than it was before, just as it was better after every other poker boom ended than it was before that boom.

I got into cardroom poker pretty much at its recent low point, in 1997. This was ten years after hold'em was introduced in California, and that party was long since over. Even though the party was long over, the games in California at the time were good enough that I could start to play and start to win without that much book learning. I don't think I could have done that fifteen years previously, playing draw or lowball, before the hold'em boom.

I'll be sorry when the present boom ends, yes. I hope that my game will be better than it was when it started. I am confident that I will remain a winner when it ends -- after all, I was a winner before it started. And I'm also hopeful that down the road another boom will come along, and that I'll be able to take some advantage of it.