[Cerril]

Here's an interesting take that's hard to refute, unfortunately (because I'd very much like to puncture Barry's little vision).

First, it's usually conceded that winning the maximum at any given limit or tournament or tournament structure takes a different skillset (anywhere from subtly to drastically). The best player in the toughest cash game in the world will likely not manage the same earnings as the best player in their respective best game at a lower limit or different type (tournament, even divided into different tournament types).

Thing is, it's pretty easy to just shrug that off as unimportant because poker taken in the broadest sense has one scorecard that holds across the games, earnings in raw dollar value. While he may concede that he's not as good a 2/4 player as the best 2/4 player out there, it doesn't matter because the best 2/4 player out there doesn't make what he does in his game. That's where poker differs from other games and from sports. You could measure an athlete's skill by his earnings, but there are independent statistics, win records, and so on to show who is actually more skilled.

In poker, all you have is $, or some other derived number (BB/100 in limit games, ROI in tourneys, etc.). It pretty much comes down to $/hour though.

Interestingly, what I got from Greenstein's claims isn't that his game is the best strictly because it has the best players (that's implied but not explicit), but that his game is the best gauge because there's simply no way even the best tournament poker player can come close to the earnings you can make in that cash game - because tournaments don't have stakes at that level (and with the variance of huge MTTs, it's easy to see why), certainly not year to year.

But the logic is easy to follow:

Q: How do you 'win' in poker.
A: Make money.

Q: How can you tell if player A is more skilled than player B?
A: Player A makes more money per hour from poker than player B over a sufficiently long period.

Q: Of all the game varieties, which currently has the highest potential earnings over a sufficiently long period?
A: Cash games.

Q: Who are the best player in the world?
A: The ones who are the most successful in the highest limit cash game(s).

Of course you can pick apart any point, but that seems to be what he's stating.