[M.B.E.]

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Even in my own little microcosm of the Vegas dayshift, I have seen 4 or 5 very good players bust out over the last 18 months. These LONG time EXPERIENCED players used to beat the game and no longer found that they could. Did they suddenly "forget" how to play? Surely not. What happened is that they could not beat the "newer contingent" of player who is difficult to read. Because the "newer contingent" I am describing makes so many errors (both before and after the flop, it often requires the pros to pay off more at the river and to put more bets in on other streets. Obviously, this can impact short term results and increase variance until the pros can master the "learning curve" required to play in the "new world".
Additionally, bankroll drawdowns have created problems for previously winning players who can't overcome the variance they are experiencing. Remember, some people actually live off their poker income, so they don't have other sources to fall back on.

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Babe, I have read through most of this thread and if I understand you correctly, you are saying that the influx of new, wild players has meant that the longtime winning players (in your microcosm) have experienced lower EV (for a short period while they learn what adjustments to make) and higher variance (likely permanent, as long as the games stay wild). However, even though the longtime-winning players' EV may be lower than it used to be, it is still positive; and the higher variance is the reason 4 or 5 of them busted out. Does that fairly paraphrase your argument?

As I understand Clarkmeister's responses, he argues that the longtime-winning players were probably never very good at poker in general, but just had a strategy which was able to beat a tight passive game. If I understand him right, he believes that the players who busted out were likely not playing with positive EV at all after the games were no longer tight-passive.

My question is, how large a fraction of the sample size was the 4 or 5 players who busted out over the last 18 months?

If there are 10 or 15 other longtime-winning players who now are thriving under the new conditions (i.e. doing better now than they were doing 18 months ago, and sometimes over stretches of a month or two doing much better), it would tend to support the view that it was primarily increased variance that resulted in the 4 or 5 players busting out. But if most of the longtime-winning players are doing worse over the last six months than they were doing 18 months ago, it would tend to support Clarkmeister's view that they really are not that good overall holdem players. Because a good player's EV is necessarily going to be higher in a loose game where people are calling three cold with AJ than in a tight passive game where hand-reading is a more important skill.