Re: The Official Thread of Poker
I agree without question, but even high stakes players have to have picked up on the fact that the kids now regularly dominating the game honed their craft online and if you can't beat 'em...
I'm sure that some of the older players, such as Hellmuth or Negreneu play some online poker. It's convenient, you don't even have to change out of your bathrobe, and you can make some money at it.
But the players in their 20's and 30's at the WSOP final tables, who certainly learned and perfected their games online, are for the most part online grinders. That is, they'll sit down and play 16 online tournaments at a time, but the tourneys don't have a buy-in more than a $100. They sit there and play ABC poker, using the computer programs that monitor precisely betting patterns of other players, etc..., and they might make twenty or thirty grand a month, when they are running well.
Or, they'll grind the $5-10NL cash games.
I'm not even sure that the online sites have ever spread games bigger than say $1000-2000.
But those aren't the games that Ivey and Hellmuth and Todd Brunson and the rest of the high stakes players chase. They'll sit down at the $3000-6000 mixed game at the Bellagio until something bigger comes along. If they want to make real money online, they'll just plan a heads up match with someone else and have stakes so high no one will join, or they will go into Bobby's room and play a big game.
Or, if they are really lucky, Andy Beal will show up and they'll play $50,000-100,000.
You don't see most of these WSOP guys in those games. Most of the time when I've been in those rooms, main event champs like Joe Hachem or Greg Raymer, or some of the young online guys like Andrew Robl are playing in the $300-600 mixed game.
