The world’s best poker players can often be found playing against each other at some of the online poker sites. Why do they play against each other? Wouldn’t they find a more profitable game playing against a lesser known?
As an appended question, what is the law regarding playing online poker in the United States? I understand some kind of law came in a few years ago, but there’s still loads of Americans to be found on the online poker sites. What’s the Straight Dope there?
It may have to do with something I observed in many games. Someone who knows the basics of a game and has some experience of it, what basic strategies work etc… will likely beat a complete noob who has no idea what he’s doing. Someone who has extensive experience of the game, to the point that you may as well call him a pro, will more than likely beat a player who only has moderate experience of the game. But pit a complete noob against a pro, and the pro’s game will be shot to hell. See : button mashing is cheating ! 
The better your experience of the game, the more complex your strategy is and the more layers your metagame has, the more you’re thrown by the unpredictability of a beginner whose actions and decisions don’t fit within the reference framework you’re used to.
So, to give you a poker example, a pro could interpret a player throwing 5 bucks in the pot as an elaborate code taking into account the player’s own hand, the convoluted general statistics of poker, the past hands and how the deck is likely to be stacked at this moment, the betting history in the game, each player’s tells and so on and so forth. “I know that he knows that I know … but does he know that I know ? Hmmm…”
When in reality the newbie is probably throwing five bucks because he’s got a good hand. But the pro can’t afford to make that assumption, either.
Or it could be because there’s no fun in fleecing a newbie. Either way 
Except in a tournament you probably won’t see a table full of pros. You will see a bunch of pros and an open seat, sometimes referred to as “the perch”; it is where the pigeon sits. The pros play each other while waiting.
Don’t forget also - pros tend to have bigger bankrolls. If you were a pro, would you rather play other pros for five-figure pots, or a bunch of newbies on a $5 table?
One expert playing against a table full of noobs is not a good game for the expert. He’ll have an advantage against any one player but not as much against the whole table. When you take the rake into account with a table full of idiots, the game will get so wild that you’re practically playing the lottery. The pro will eventually win out but it will take a lot of aggregate time. I can’t recall the name of the poker theorist who figured this out but he was active on rec.gambling.poker in the late 90’s and tragically died in a bicycle accident soon afterward.
The best situation is a table with mostly good players with two or three noobs. Most good poker players fold more than they play. The biggest mistake noobs make is that they play too many worthless hands. In a game like this, the good players won’t end up facing each other all that often and will divide up the money donated by the noobs between each other.
In a tournament, you’ll often end up with many good players at one table, because the not-so-good players have already dropped out. At the last table of a tournament, I’d be surprised if you see any newbs at all.
I find it hard to believe that any competent, rational professional would prefer to play against several other pros and a couple of newbs, as opposed to an entire table full of newbs. Yeah, the variance will be higher, but so will the expected value, and the expected value keeps adding up over many games, while the variance largely cancels out.
Seems to me a lesser known player, presumably not up to the skill level of the top pros, would choose not to play against the best players, precisely because it would be more profitable for them.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (part of the SAFE Port Act) basically made it illegal for US financial institutions to transfer funds to online cardrooms. Officially, none of the cardrooms listed on the London Stock Exchange (ie., nearly all of them) will take US players anymore.
However, there are plenty of ways to get around the rules, which I won’t go into because they are of questionable legality.
The only attempts to enforce the UIGEA as far as I can tell have been made by the FBI, which has arrested/detained a few corporate officers (mostly British nationals) of the online cardrooms while they visited the US.
Here’s an example of too much of a good thing. There was a local Hold 'em game here that had only a couple of somewhat knowledgeable players. I learned to play in Las Vegas and was by far the best player in the group. The game was very lucrative.
Then they discovered Omaha 8 or Better High Low Split, a game in which it very easy for the maniacs to justify (to themselves) playing nearly every hand. The game turned into an orgy of raising; the betting on almost every hand was capped on every round with only me and one or two others ever throwing away a hand before the flop. We’re talking every pot containing 50 or more big bets … seemingly a gold mine for a decent player … however … since the game was so wild I could only play a hand once every couple of hours and because of all the nutty raising there were only 11 hands per hour being dealt. Even though the game was theoretically great, the time I would have had to invest to extract that money made me choose to look for a less volatile game.
So yes, I want some anchors at the table, not all maniacs. To win at poker you only have to be better than one of the other players; the trick is to identify that weak spot and do your best to avoid the stronger players. You do want that player to be truly terrible; you make most of your money from players who are much worse than you, you earn a very small amount from players who are nearly the same skill level.
I meant to add to my post that the analysis was done for Limit Hold’em. I am not sure about a No Limit game. Anyway, the analysis has been done and if I get some time tonight I’ll try to find it in the Usenet archives. You can have a positive EV against any one player but not against all of them together in a raked game under certain circumstances.
I think it’s the same as in tournament bridge (a more challenging card game that pretty much eliminates luck): the venues that attract the highest prizes are naturally going to attract the best players.
This is totally wrong. You want that player to be somewhat close to you in skill level. A player who is truly terrible is a nightmare for a really good player, because they’re not playing by the same rules.
You want a weak player, not a bad player.
While I’ll grant that the type of moderately skilled player known as “weak tight” is probably the easiest type to beat the fact he is indeed tight means he is in so few hands that the opportunity to take advantage of his weakness is limited. I would much rather play against someone who plays far too many hands and goes too far with them, giving me many more opportunities to exploit his tendencies.
While a moderately skilled player might be thrown off his game by a wild man, a really good player is capable of altering his strategies according to who else is in the pot, straightforwardly playing decent hands heads up against the maniac and being able to get quite creative when someone else enters the pot with us who knows I know he knows I know there is a maniac in there with us. Me, I want the truly bad player who is likely to blow off all his money. If there isn’t one in the game (or a seat open for one) I’ll most likely look for a better spot.
This game selection strategy has served me well for quite a number of years as a professional poker player. Horrible players are not my nightmare, they pay my bills. Moderately skilled players are a necessary evil; I need them there to insure there is a game for the live one to sit in but my earn from them is relatively small.
I’ll mention that becoming weak tight is considered by many to be the first step toward becoming a winning player … and weak tight players are (correctly) terrified of loose aggressive types, but as they gain skills and experience they will begin to smile when the wild one sits down.
There is also the practice factor. There is huge money to be made in tournaments, so by playing your likely opposition online you might get clues to their play in a big tournament.
This described me pretty well when I played. I was a pretty good player and kept a detailed spread sheet so I know for a fact that I made money in the long run. I also know for a fact that I was making about $2.20/hour playing anywhere from $3/$6 to $6/$12 so no way was I going to quit my day job. This doesn’t sound very good but only something like 10% of poker players end up in the black over the long run. Most of the money goes to the really good players and the rake that the house takes.
I’m fairly confident that I could have become a pro player with a lot more practice but being an engineer was much easier. I haven’t played hardly at all in the last several years but have considered getting back into it from time to time.
I have been a winning poker player for many years and have played seriously at higher limits, though nowhere near the highest, for several years at almost all of the major poker sites. I am not sure anyone has quite hit on the answer. Quite simply you often don’t have a choice. Above 3/6 nl games you will always face a strong contingent of good regular players. The trick is either through memory or software to select the tables to play on the offer the most attractive balance of known decent players and unknowns, who are almost always bad to mediocre.
I also can categorically state that anyone I know will happily play against a table of truly terrible players, the worse the better. The mistake some posters are making is to equate variance, which is very high when playing unskilled often wild players with expected return. The worse the opposition the higher your expected return will be. The problem is that the variance over one session can leave you broke, even if you are far better than the other players. Given enough time however a good player should always prefer to play against as terrible an opposition as possible.
The UIGEA changed the landscape of poker significantly. It did not outlaw online poker, but it targetted the credit card and bank processors that made it possible for casual players to make deposits on to the site. Those casual depositors were where the great majority of profit was derived. It is still fairly easy to deposit as sites have developed work arounds. Still, to give an example, in the pre-UIGEA I was profitable in single table tournaments with anything below a $500 buy in. Now I am profitable up to about the $33 buy in level. The terrible players were flushed out for the most part.
Anyway, feel free to toss online poker questions my way.
At the highest limit tables, at least half the “pros” would have to be long term losers, which means they aren’t really “pros” at all. Unless there are bad players who occasionally drop in at the higher stakes, lose their money, then drop back down again. But quite often (on sites such as Full Tilt Poker), you’ll see things like Gus Hansen facing off against feared internet player Di Dang in a heads-up match. Why? Unless they each believe that they are truly better than the other, this makes no sense to me.
Probably because they’re already richer than sin and now it’s about bragging rights and having fun.
Sometimes it may simply be an ego match.
There are players who have a knack for goading people into heads-up games. Many of those players are very dangerous to your bankroll; they are heads-up specialists and can have quite an edge over even very good ring game players who aren’t familiar with short-handed play … and their edge is increased even more since their opponent is likely to be coming into the match at least semi-tilted or he wouldn’t be there in the first place.
Another reason for such matches is that to improve your play you must get experience at the new level; you think about it, read about, talk about it, study and ponder, but there comes a time when you simply must sit down with superior players to gain the experience needed to put your new knowledge to use profitably … you gotta pay your dues to join the club.
Some “sponsored” players may not be playing their own money. I am not speaking specifically of the match you mention, I have no direct knowledge of it, but some promotional events are played with company money. Being sponsored is very common among high level players.
A little story once told to me by Stu Unger: “I had the worst nightmare last night. I woke up drenched in sweat, my heart was pounding. I dreamed I was playing No Limit Hold 'em with my own money.”
Only a rec poker player here, so nothing really to add to this thread other than that I enjoyed this book. Written by a guy who played on-line and in various casinos, poker clubs, and on-line. Had some interesting stuff about how readily the pro players can identify each other and don’t step on each other while fleecing the “fish” at the table. No idea how accurate/realistic it is.