Negreanu on Poker of the past
“Poker just isn’t what it used to be,” reads Dan Negreanu’s blog post titled Poker has Gotten Really Hard. Negreanu is responding to the recent influx of good players compared to just ten years ago where the skill level was skewed in favor of the pros.
In big tournaments, says Negreanu, it used to be that in a field where only 20 players are left, about 7 or 8 of them would just be happy to be there still playing. Today, he says, that’s just not the case. In the poker online world of today, the last 20 players are going to be good, really good, and playing poker on a very sophisticated level.
In the past, there was some level of luck involved when you pitted the novices against the pros. The luck came in the form of who would get the big donation of chips from the amateur. Then luck struck when an amateur sucked out with a miracle card against a pro, though that didn’t matter as much as it just strengthened the donation that the amateur would later make to the pro.
So what has been the professional response to this new influx of players who “get” the game? Well for Negreanu it means he’s had to adjust his game. He says he can no longer accumulate a big chip stack early and dominate the later tables. Instead he’s had to add what he calls “layers” to his game. He’s put in new moves, limping in different situations, reraising differently, and generally mixing it up. In short, the cookie cutter strategy of the past that helped so many wipe the floor with the amateurs, has been changed. The cookies are no longer the same shape.
But don’t let this intimidate you, this has been going on in online poker much longer than it has been in live poker. Actually, many pros will even attest to the fact that poker online is much tougher than live poker in terms of overall skill. So if you’re surviving online, or are a break-even or close to break-even player, perhaps you could roll in to a live event and pad your bankroll a little. A little extra money can’t hurt, right ?
