Its funny that poker is prolly the only game/sport on the planet where people complain when the standard of opposition gets worse and worse. It really shouldn't be rocket science to figure out what it takes to beat them. They are bad players for a reason right?
Also what I wanna know is what makes someone a "good" player, because it seems to me that most peoples definition of a good player is someone who is predictable. Raises from UTG with big hands, limps with marginal hands, and doesn't 3-bet allin without a strong hand. That isn't a good player, its probably not even a winning player, and its no wonder people like to play against these nits.
Couldn't agree more.
I LOVE getting people at my table that suck. Yes they might beat me but you can always get outdrawn by people. The standard of live poker is mainly dropping because there are soo many sats to big tourneys out there but that's not a bad thing. So you get knocked out every now and again by someone who MAYBE should not have been calling. Sometimes people hit their runner runner or their one outer. It happens even on the higher levels and even "good" players do it to you.
You only hear people complain when they get knocked out by "bad" players, I have yet to hear someone say "Well, I won this tourney but then again there were soo many lousy players in there beefing up the prize money I just about had to win it as I was the best."
I prefer playing against good players myself as it's easier to put them on a hand or get them to lay one down..especially the laying one down part. I got knocked out of a tourney the other day where someone called my all-in with Aces with 57 off soot and cracked them. It happens. I want those people to call when I'm holding a big hand every single time.
everyone goes through a bad run every now and again so that happens.
On a more controversial note (no offense intended) maybe if you don't know how to play lousy players maybe you're not as good as you think you are. I really don't mean to question someone who has undoutebly made more money then me in poker in a disrespectfull way but if you can't figure out how to beat someone who sucks you're probably not as good as you think you are and I would review my game to deal with those players.
Poker is very dynamic at the moment with loads of new players adding to the prize pool, this can only be considered a good thing but it does mean you have to keep reviewing your game.
I am sure all the older players first thought long and hard about how to deal with those internet scandies who were much more agressive then they were. Some of them might have complained but the really good ones probably thought "My God, these guys are nuts...but the prizepools are much bigger now..so let's figure this thing out."..that's the sign of a true class act.
Finally, there is always an element of luck to the game...people tend to forget this in poker. Poker is not JUST a game of skill, EVERY ONE needs to get lucky a few times to win a big tournament..and I rarely hear someone admit that they were lucky 4x during a tournament which they won.
Author