Paradigms

The Online Poker Revolution
Nobody can deny that in the last 5 years poker has evolved more than ever before in its 40 year-old history and has pushed the game to a point that did not seem possible before. The victory of Chris Moneymaker and the development of online cardrooms made it explode and grow exponentially in size. To get an idea of the scale you can compare the number of entrants to the WSOP Main Event. In 2003 there was 839 and in 2006 - 8,773. With increasing popularity, there are better tools made available for becoming a better poker player. You can easily discuss hands with friends via AIM/MSN, post on forums, use programs to calculate odds, watch instructional videos. Cardrunners were the pioneers of the online-poker teaching site and revolutionized the game for a lot of people with clearly outlined basic concepts about position and aggression. As these sources of knowledge expanded, you could definitely see a unified playing style conceptualize. A paradigm for the winning players.

The Model of the Winning Online Poker Player
The outstanding fundamental rules were:
- be very aggressive
- never limp
- isolate limpers
- be loose in position, tight out of position

These things constituted a style that was not only profitable and difficult to play against but also very hard to exploit. The style evolved and more specific rules were created and adhered to. Nowadays, almost every winning online poker player applies them to his game to at least some extent without question. Sometimes a player applies the rules and style before they fully understand the reasoning behind it which allows them to become good faster than they would through trial and error.

This online-revolution created some distinctive differences between the young internet stars and the oldschool live pros. If you watch shows like "High Stakes Poker" you might cringe at how players who are regarded by the public to be the best in the world aren't applying even the most fundamental rules that now seem absolutely standard in the online world. I, for one, felt almost angry that these people were considered the cream of the crop when they were obviously making horrendous mistakes. And while I still hold on to the idea that they're technically flawed and definitely worse than the online pros, they might have a certain advantage over some of the young internet poker players. They haven't been indoctrinated by this paradigm allowing for them to more easily...

Think Outside the Box
In my previous poker article Exploitive vs Optimal Approach I talked about 2 different approaches to the game - an optimal one and an exploitative one. The current paradigm of a winning online player is more optimal, while the technically inferior live players rely more on exploitation. Live players never learned the cardinal rules taught by instructional sites therefore they have to adapt to their opponents mainly through reads and observation. While they are technically inept they might make correct plays that an orthodox aggressive online would not make (e.g. folding KK pre-flop for 100bb against a specific opponent).

Players who subscribe to the paradigm often follow it blindly. This can be easily proved if you look at a topic on a poker forum where the question is about a big laydown. Very few people will encourage the idea of making a monster fold. Most will hate it because that's the way they have been taught to think and that's what their conception of proper poker is. Unfortunately this makes many discussions pretty shallow - not many think outside of the box. There are a lot of people are trapped inside the paradigm.

It is important to realize one of the most crucial aspects of poker is adaptation. They say 'never fold a set' or 'don't fold KK pre-flop' - don't be an idiot. No rule can be universally applied to every situation. You make money by playing your hands differently than the rest of the field so the more you generalize, the less your edge will be.

Once we accept that we can start seeing certain situations under a different light, options begin arising in spots which previously seemed automatic. A good example would be the min-raise - a play that was notoriously characteristic to be almost exclusively that of a fish. Now it's not all that uncommon to see players min-raising continuation bets in high stakes games. Another nice example of a play that in the past was almost always labeled to be that of a fish - open-limping the button heads up. Now it is successfully employed by players such as durrrr and cts.

There are no golden rules in poker. The answer to virtually any poker question is 'it depends' (as dreadful as that phrase might sound sometimes). Don't subscribe to the craze that says you should 'always' do something in poker - think for yourself. You may come to realize that open-limping might be more +EV than raising in specific scenarios and then go on to apply that; that you can limp behind instead of isolating with your suited connector. Maybe you can find a fold with bottom set on a rag flop - and perhaps it is possible to muck KK pre-flop.

Stay open-minded.

tomson

Good Read. Thanks Tomson.

v nice, gives me hope that i can beat regulars if I think

nice one

Great article Tomson. You're dead on. There is way too much rigid thinking in poker.

great article, reminds me of why I like this game so much (other than the money), there is no a "perfect" way to play

I realised this when I started playing live more often. When you 1-table live you have so much more info that you can easily make decisions that would be considered sick bad by online multitabling grinders.

great article

tomson u r really good at this =) wp sir

On April 07 2008 06:11 Joe wrote: I realised this when I started playing live more often. When you 1-table live you have so much more info that you can easily make decisions that would be considered sick bad by online multitabling grinders.

yea you start doing crazy shit that you've never dreamed of in online poker. and it's not only the fact that you're 1 tabling. It's the fact that they are there in person and that makes for soooo much more information. so most good players would obviously take the exploitive approach rather than the optimal one.

Thank you very much!

Finally......some support for my thread, mucking KK preflop at 25/50!!!!!!!!

deep stuff

On April 07 2008 07:56 ukfan81 wrote: Finally......some support for my thread, mucking KK preflop at 25/50!!!!!!!!

combined ur opponents didnt have a card higher than 9 in their hand ahahaha

Spot on Sir.

nice read tomson

i fold kk ALL DAY*!*

good read and definitely true

nice read, thats a good thing to remind.

On April 07 2008 05:46 rnbsalsa88 wrote: Great article Tomson. You're dead on. There is way too much rigid thinking in poker.

yep, agreed. Really nice read =)

awesome article, very nice read

thanks. definitely front page material.

i dont even know how to say that damn word.

great read, nice work

Very true, nice article

good stuff

shit. now i'm back to folding kk pf

Read Thomas Kuhns writing on paradigm shifts, its ridiculous how much poker resembles his examples

nice one tomson

one of the bet article ive ever read, tomson you are one smart fella.

best statement ever, why can one make a big call and not a big fold?
"Players who subscribe to the paradigm often follow it blindly. This can be easily proved if you look at a topic on a poker forum where the question is about a big laydown"

vnh

Very well written.

tomson is the chosen one

you need to post more tomson, i always find myself in agreement to almost everything you write. much love

Nice read, great work

great article!

wow nice tomson i love you

cool stuff i liked it!

Great stuff for sure here...
I am disappointed though, that within 2 pages of replies, there is no real comment, only cheers...I'll try to make my own then.

You have pointed out what is probably the most interesting evolution that this game have ever seen:
poker was only played live, until the online revolution that happened less-than-a-decade ago.

Today, the first generation of "natural born online poker players" - players who basically have just learned/played this game online - is emerging, and getting more mature.
It is interesting to see that even though the rules are the same, the game is different.

Why? because of information. The lack of information online compared to live is progressively being replaced by flawless mathematically driven strategy: EV max.

But think about it, in the majority of live games, there is no such thing than EV.
Mathemathically speaking, EV is what you should expect to earn/loose in the long run, ie. if that exact situation came to happen a number of times that would get variance insignificant. (thousands at least)

Say, you are playing a Final table in a big buy-in/big field live tournament. You get into a mind twisting situation, and struggle to get a decision out of it. Should you think about EV????
Not in my opinion.
If you are an amazing player doing really well, almost as good as the poker superstars you worship everyday, you will still probably face this situation less than 10 times in your life.
If you consider the history against that single oppenent, your knowledge of his game, your perception of his state of mind, then this is a unique situation, as much is any real life situation.

Conversely, online poker is a video game. A lot Different than any video game in many points, but similar (thus different to live poker) in some.
Think about how many hands a day a massive multitabler can play, compared to how many you could play in a live game.

The point of my reply is that the boom of online playing have brought so much liquidity to poker, that the volume of hands one can play can get him close to unsignificant variance, over, say a year, while live play is still a lot more subject to variance.

Two different games, two different optimal strategies.

It is interesting though, to see online players perform so well in live tournaments.
Flawless preflop strategy seems to be taking the lead over long time gamblers' astute post-flop plays.
Interesting to see how online playing is bringing mathematics as a hotter topic than psychology in poker.

Think about it, "coy-boy" would probably be the best adjective to define long time professionals, when nerd/geek seems to be what defines the most profitable online players.

Respect.