Current Events > What does it take to play poker at the highest level?

(+) Yeah! (+)

You have to have the ability to to stick $450k in a pot on a bluff, and the ability to call it down with nothing but a bluff catcher. This is insane!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0DiD9flSY

Lots of experience and money.

Cool shades

I was able to grind out about $30K from pokerroom in a year back in the mid 2000s.

It took a lot of time and a lot of hands I didnt play to be able to consistently win a few hundred a day.

I stopped when all the poker sites closed to US players.

I havent played that much in years and Ive lost the discipline I had back then to be able to sit through a 10 hour poker session just to break even.

To play at a higher level than that would take much more time, discipline, and effort to track other players consistently than I ever could imagine achieving.

mental illness

Best hand won

ironman2009 posted...

Lots of experience and money.

And dedication studying away from the table, critiquing hands in tough spots and running all the math.

A deck of cards

Jiek_Fafn posted...

Cool shades

And a hat, and a hood pulled over the hat, and a giant beard.

i think just sunglasses and a nickname involving a state

To be the best at poker you need 3 things.

Knowledge of the odds - this by far the easiest to obtain, a few hours on the internet and you can learn the odds of every possible hand.

Knowledge of people - this is the only part of poker thats sort of a skill knowing who is bluffing and how to bluff others. But be warned it is not an exact science any two people could bluff in complete opposite ways.

Luck - cant learn it, cant gain it, cant buy it. You either get a lucky hand or you dont. One thing I hate in media is how the best players in poker always win by having these outrageous hands as if their skill as player got them a great hand it doesnt the best player in the world could have the worst hand at a key moment.

Poker requires a little more skill and thought than other gambling but its not chess, its still gambling.

hmnut7 posted...

Luck - cant learn it, cant gain it, cant buy it. You either get a lucky hand or you dont. One thing I hate in media is how the best players in poker always win by having these outrageous hands as if their skill as player got them a great hand it doesnt the best player in the world could have the worst hand at a key moment.

You are right that anyone can get lucky on a hot streak and bink a tournament, that's part of the allure, but there are people who can cash and make final tables fairly consistently which is where the skill comes in.

Then you have high stakes cash like this which involves so much more skill as demonstrated. There's no binking anything, it's full on psychological warfare. There are cooler situations like quads over top boat where you just lose (or win) sure, but those scenarios don't happen all that often.

Lots of luck.

Ability to bluff mainly. And listening to Kenny Rogers

Nah. Luck (or rather chance) plays a part, but it becomes a lot less important as you learn the game, and play better opponents.

The game isn't about having the best hand; it's about knowing when to fold.

For a novice, it's mostly a game of chance. They win if they have a good hand.

For a decent player, it's a game of statistics. They win in the long run by comparing the probability that their hand wins against the amount they'll need to bet to play it.

For a great player, it's a game of psychology. All players at the table have optimized what they should do statistically and they win in the long run by figuring out whether the other players are going to do what they should.

Though that's a bit of a simplification: there are elements of all three at all levels, of course.