Poker Players - do you think that poker is beatable longterm?

obviously, the statement you quoted contradicts your statement in red, and vindicates his pursuit of intelligent debate... even if only 1 in a 100 gets it, maybe it is that 1 he is looking for...

there is no concrete answer to whether or not God exists, but men have had a modest interest in debating it nonetheless... it's called stimulation of thought... getting the wheels turning... attacking it from all angles... one or two great minds have engaged in such fruitless endeavors over the years, to the benefit of later thinkers...

responding to differing opinions with derisive and ridiculing remarks hardly makes me think he has any interest in the "pursuit of intelligent debate".  but what do i know, im a member of covers and my name isnt "vanzack" so i must be just another "sub retard" with a very low IQ.

Sorry, I dont take suggestions from sub-retarded posters.

i am not aware of any feud between the two of you or anyone else, or any past history... i was just referring to comments in this thread relating to this particular debate...

There is no past history that I know of.  Notice how he doesnt address the points either?  And isnt it funny that he says Im the one who uses negative comments, while ignoring every one of superiorinsights insults?

Birds of a feather......

proves my point exactly

Did you just compare poker tournaments to whether or not God exists?

Oh I get where you're going with this---The Bible says God exists so it must be true. Vanzak says poker tournaments aren't profitable so it must be true. Simple.

van:

I have a small account in fulltilt I f---ed around with here and there.
I played in small room for a bit late last night and actually did o.k. ALL IN CASH GAMES.
Went all in 3 times and won all the "ALL INS".
I play boring as hell though and High and Tight
folding at least 50 times right at ante or after flop very rarely
paying for 4th street.
THING IS I WENT IN TOURNEY ROOMS TO LOOK AORUND AND THE PRIZE PAYOFFS FOR THE NUMBER OF CONTESTANTS AND ENTRY FEE ABSOLUTELY SUCK.
VERY VERY HARD TO SEE HOW YOU CAN CONSISTENTLY MAKE $$$$$ DOING TORUNEYS IN "LONG RUN"!!!

or nothing at all

Another Einstein.

no i did not...

is reading comprehension really such a difficult skill?

Mikey... to debrief you... someone suggested that debating things with no clear answer is pointless, and that responding to anyone's comments is therefore pointless...

i disagree, and i believe i showed one example (at the most extreme end of the spectrum) of why his statement was misguided... there are many other such examples, but i find it most useful to find the one that everyone can relate to...

philosophers in ancient Greece spent hundreds of years engaging in debates, specifically because there was no clear right or wrong answer... religions of the Far East base much of their enlightenment on the ability to ask questions that had no answers...

i believe it is a rather short-sighted statement to say that a debate is not worthwhile simply because the depth of thought required is too much for the brain to handle... in fact, many would say that those are the most worthwhile debates...

by the way... this is complete and utter horseshit... you must be a lawyer...

if Vanzack was the one in here making an ass of himself, and SuperiorInsight was the one making sense, then i would be supporting SI instead of Vanzack... and in fact, it is obvious that you would disagree with anything Vanzack said, simply because you need to disagree with him... whereas, if SI suddenly came up with a brilliant argument, i would have no prejudice against him that would keep me from agreeing with him...

but that didn't happen...

I'm open to dissenting opinions and discussion, but how can people come in here and make stuff up?  He never compared poker tournaments to God existing.  He compared the fact that these are DISCUSSIBLE topics.  Nothing more. 

That's why morons get so much shit on this site...because they make stuff up. 

I thought my sarcasm about the God thing was obvious. I guess not.

I'm not picking on Vanzak but I¡¯ll use him for purposes for this explanation---He's stating that winning long term in poker tourneys is not profitable. Is that correct? Well, there is absolutely no way to prove that statement. Unless he checked every single player's tournament record which of course isn't possible.

I like debating topics such as these too which is why I'm here to begin with. Unfortunately the only reason it was brought up was to make Vanzak feel better about his personal tournament losses (again I'm only using him as an example; I have no clue if he loses or not, not my business).

Just because some players (probably most) lose long term doesn't prove that ALL long term tourney play is a waste of time.

It's the same as the God thing in the respect that most people want to believe in a higher being & after life so they must convince others in order to validate it.

If Vanzak reads enough replies confirming that tourney play is a losing effort; he will get his validation on the topic.

And again I'm not biased against Vanzack as I have no reason to be. I'm enjoying this thread so isn't that the whole point of this forum?

1.  The fact that there is no way to "prove" if this hypothesis is true or not (not sure if that is a fact, but I will go with it) shouldnt stop a discussion about it.  This is the God metaphor.

2.  The reason it was brought up was not to make me feel better about my losses.  Im pretty sure I am up quite a bit on multi table tournaments, but someone else could verify that.  I play under the name vanzack.

3.  I wasnt stating that ALL players lose longterm - or as you put it - a "waste of time".

4.  Im not looking for any validation.  In fact, if someone would come on here and educate me to a 180 degree difference from my opinion - nothing would make me happier - Im begging someone to show me that I am wrong.

In case you missed it, and Im pretty sure you did - this thread was designed to open discussion on the following:

Multi-table tournament poker is a threshold skill.  Once you get to that threshold of skill, there is no correlation to MORE skill and BETTER results.  Poker "pros" make money because they have enough "A" players to feed of of, and therefore it is in their best interest to portray the "poker pro easy money" lifestyle charade.

Read the above paragraph again.

1.  The fact that there is no way to "prove" if this hypothesis is true or not (not sure if that is a fact, but I will go with it) shouldnt stop a discussion about it.  This is the God metaphor.

You can discuss it all you want obviously but that's all it can be is a simple discussion. Of course it's a fact that it can't be proven. The burden of proof is on you not me. Same as God; if you believe there's a God---prove it!

2.  The reason it was brought up was not to make me feel better about my losses.  Im pretty sure I am up quite a bit on multi table tournaments, but someone else could verify that.  I play under the name vanzack.

Congrats. And that's sincere.

3.  I wasnt stating that ALL players lose longterm - or as you put it - a "waste of time".

"All "professional" poker players make their money through sponsorship or ownership of poker sites, and the tournament play is a negative on their cash flow statements.  Not one of them would "beat the rake" if they played long enough because you can only get so good at poker, and from there it is a lottery."-Vanzack

4.  Im not looking for any validation.  In fact, if someone would come on here and educate me to a 180 degree difference from my opinion - nothing would make me happier - Im begging someone to show me that I am wrong.

Again, burden of proof is on you. If I had a theory that all restaurants had roaches how silly would it be if I asked somone to prove otherwise?

______________________________________________________

In case you missed it, and Im pretty sure you did - this thread was designed to open discussion on the following:

Multi-table tournament poker is a threshold skill.  Once you get to that threshold of skill, there is no correlation to MORE skill and BETTER results.  Poker "pros" make money because they have enough "A" players to feed of of, and therefore it is in their best interest to portray the "poker pro easy money" lifestyle charade.

I agree.

Professional
GamblerStatus.com

Info for professional gambler wanna bees be careful what you wish for.

Sorry, MF, I missed the sarcasm. 

And there are a ton of math problems you can do that give a certain answer as you move toward infinity.  The answer could for sure be different with a smaller sample size. 

That's why folks who publish studies have to make sure they detail their basic assumptions.....that makes a huge difference. 

One thing I do find interesting:  Listen to those "championship" tables that contain all the good players.....tournament of champions or whatever.  They ALL play great.  What do most of them say?  "Well, I hope to play my best and I hope to get some luck." 

As more people become better and better and better at poker, the luck factor will continue to increase.  Doesn't mean I could beat Hellmuth heads up any time soon, but it's a fact. 

see, this is exactly why i think this was an interesting topic... that's a great question!

first off, i would have to ask... how do you determine the "top 100 poker players in the world"?  is it based on tournament winnings?  all earnings?  consistent top finishes?  public opinion?

beyond that, i think there are two ways to look at it...

1) obviously guys like Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson would be among the favorites... first, because they are popular public personalities, and second because they are at the highest skill level...

2) a smart oddsmaker would not skew the field very much from top to bottom... allow the public to load up on the favorites, because, when it comes down to it, everyone would have a fairly equal chance of winning the whole thing... not truly equal, but also not as skewed as most people would like to believe...

just my opinion... remember, you are going to have guys like Daniel Negreanu, Tom Dwan, Mike Matusow, Eric Seidel, Chris Hansen, Jesus Ferguson, Eric Lindgren, Johnny Chan, Patrick Antonius, Men the Master, etc.... it is a pretty deep field... there is very little separating the top 20-50 players... so it would come down to who gets the cards at the right time...

the only reason to skew the top few players is because of name recognition and public foolishness...