Jeff Schulman rant

[Chazbot2000]

Time Magazine did an article on poker in a recent issue. A quote from Jeff Schulman, editor of Card Player magazine:

"Now there are a lot more maniacs and they're winning much more often. These kids don't have any fear. They're willing to move the chips around and they celebrate like crazy after they win a hand."

O.K., this is the second time that Schulman has offered some soundbite about new players joining poker and winning on luck (similar soundbite after Raymer won the WSOP). It's complete crap. There is no more luck in this game today than there was 10 years ago. Same 52 cards in the deck. If newer players are making terrible plays with lots of chips, then Schulman should be jumping for joy at all the new fishes. He's not because his comments are just sour grapes from someone who is not as good as he thinks he is. 10 years ago, someone like Schulman could look like hot stuff at a card table because there were fewer players and almost all of them were self taught.

Now you have:

- More people playing. Poker gets a lot of visibility, lots of people try the game. More people who have an innate poker talent learn to play the game. Those people take down guys like Schulman who chalks it up to luck.

- Easier to get experience. 10 years ago, you had to spend years in a cardroom to see enough hands to have the experience to succeed. The internet has let newcomers see tons of hands relatively quickly, so on a number of hands played basis, you can catch up with pros' experience.

- Better theory. Lots of good books now so you can play poker based on sound theory versus good instincts.

Schulman needs to face up to the fact that many of these new players aren't lucky, THEY'RE JUST BETTER THAN HIM.

[Cleveland Guy]

I'm with you .

I have never seen Shulman at a final table of any TV event.

[Beavis68]

Is jeff the elder one? if so, he has made a few.

I don't see anything about luck in his post - he says that they are fearless. That is an important thing in a NL player.

That is how Ivey and Layne Flack are often described.

And the more often the chips go in before the flop, the more luck will be involved.

[SpeakEasy]

I don't see his comment as a whine at all. His comment reflects what he sees as an influx of "fearless" players. Reckless players are being fed to the TV viewing audience on a regular basis -- lots of fearless (i.e. bad, -EV) all-in calls, suck outs, and wild post-victory dances. These bad calls and classless celebrations are probably becoming more common even when the cameras aren't rolling, because the young players think this is how poker should be played.

The pros, including the ones that you think aren't very good, are commenting (venting) about the new wave of players and their reckless style, that's all. He publishes a magazine and its his job to report on the world of poker.

[Chazbot2000]

"The pros, including the ones that you think aren't very good, are commenting (venting) about the new wave of players and their reckless style, that's all."

If you're good, you profit from others' reckless play. Therefore you should be happy there are new players. What are you going on 2 + 2 if you don't believe that?

[Kevmath]

Jeff is the son, Barry is the father.

Kevin...

[Meatmaw]

I think the pros who are venting are just frustrated by the increased variance introduced by wilder playing. It's not that having a table of wild players freezes them in their tracks unable to know how to deal with it. It's just that you end up with more suckouts and crazy wins in this atmosphere. Is that an accurate thing to say? Sorry, I need to confirm these things because I'm just a noob.

[Chazbot2000]

No question it should increase their variance but also their profitability (if everyone's as bad as people like Schulman implies they are). Dan Harrington made a comment to the effect that with such a huge field, repeatedly winning the WSOP the way Johnny Chan or Stu Ungar did has become very unlikely. But when fourth place still pays out seven figures, even pros need to develop a different standard of success.

I'm still arguing that this broad field is not such an influx of dead money. Most of the internet players who are playing in the big one had to win very large multi-table online tournaments that many pros couldn't survive. These folks have already proven themselves in my book before they ever sat down at the WSOP.

[Tuds75]

I saw Schulman at the WSOP and he is a "douche". He just struts around acting like a big time poker player. He spent most his time trying to get into Donna, from That '70s, pants. But then again, who wouldn't?

[JoeU]

I also believe Jeff made the final table of the 2000 WSOP.

Joe