New players changing the game forever?

[TenPercenter]

You see the pros getting so mad at players on TV. Pros are getting beat by amateurs that play with cards that the pros wouldn't play. Bad beats will always happen. But the more people playing this game, the less chance a pro will have to win a tournament because of unpredictable players.

Do you think that the game will forever change due to the influx of amateurs? Or does this affect the public spectacle of WSOP and WPT only, and the side/cash games are where the pros will still clean up the fish?

Or will the player-pool catch up someday, and the players will start to play "by the book" again so that pros and non pros alike can read what each other might be in with?

Ten

[Webster]

I think the pros are totally 100% happy with the amount of poor players and the game for anybody that knows how to play is getting better.

[Alobar]

I think it will be harder for the "pros" to win a tournament, but placing well in a tourny pays ALOT better than even winning some of them did a few years ago. Add all the fish in the side games and the pros should be very happy about the current situation.

[playerfl]

this sounds right to me, i think when it comes to tourny's you want to win, but consistently cashing is the real measure of skill. If a total amateur can win, you just have to face up to the luck factor and get on with making $$$$.

[chipper57AA]

My take on this is to compare new players beating the poker pros to the american revolutionaries beating the redcoat british in war. The british were appauled at the colonist's tactics of war that didn't follow the old traditional war rules. Colonists hid behind trees while the redcoats marched in straight lines.

Same analogy here, the pros are complaining that the new players don't follow the "rules" of good play. Well, if the new players are knocking off the pros in the tournaments, perhaps the revolutionary way of fighting back is to play "badly". [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you think that the game will forever change due to the influx of amateurs? Or does this affect the public spectacle of WSOP and WPT only, and the side/cash games are where the pros will still clean up the fish?

[/ QUOTE ]

Winning WSOP probably got harder. But a few nl side games with the fish will clear em out of their 'hard earned' winnings.

Money move from the sucker to the pro so fast in NL cash games that it emits hard radiation from falling into a singularity.

[Rah]

I can't understand why some people seem to think that bad players somehow make the game harder to beat. Study some poker theory.

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't understand why some people seem to think that bad players somehow make the game harder to beat. Study some poker theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

A larger field makes it harder to win a tournament, even if the filler material is mostly amateurs. But all in all I think the expected value of the $10k buy-in hasn't gone down all that much for the pros, but their expected chance at the bracelet has gone way down.

[CountDuckula]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't understand why some people seem to think that bad players somehow make the game harder to beat. Study some poker theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bad players don't make the game harder to beat, but they do have an effect on variance. In order to lay a bad beat on someone, one has to be playing sub-optimal cards by definition. Sometimes, the fish just get lucky.

Another thing to look at, with respect to tournaments, is that the field has become much larger. There are more players to play against, so the pros have to play more hands than they did before. That translates to more opportunities for bad luck to rear its ugly head. Skill will win out over the long haul, but bad luck can hit even the best players in the short run. Pros will still be winning and placing in most of the tournaments, but a few fish will get lucky enough to join them.

-Mike

[Rah]

I don't think many pros, worthy of the title, would prefer lower profit instead of higher variance .