Unique Breed

Alright let me just state that this could be a rambling onnn...kind of reading but I will try and get my point across.

I wanted to write about this ever since I watched the WSOP footage of Phil Hellmuth going nuts over a players "play" at the table. If you have watched the footage its when he tells the guy "He doesn't even know how to spell POKER" btw that is a classic line as well as "I can Dodge Bullets baby!", you have got to love Phil.

So we have this boom in the poker scene over the past couple of years (and yes I am included in this area) and we have two different types of players, the ones that play by the book and the others who don't. Do these "amateurs" really not know how to play poker, or do we have this new generation that don't seem to care what the pro's think are the best cards? It would seem they just want to see a flop with any two cards, as though they have developed a strategy all their own, which makes everyone else think "what the hell are you doing" while they take your chips away.

Pros have always said that playing by the book type players are easy to read, so haven't they shot themselves in the foot by saying this? Because wouldn't that mean that all these new players want to listen to the pro's, so they will do the opposite of what the pro's think they will do.

Of course this is giving a lot of credit to these river rats and king 3, 9 2, 7 2, type players, who believe that "hey they were suited" is a legitimate excuse for calling a raise with garbage. But maybe these players are playing a new type of game, a game where the luck of the cards will rule the day and maybe they will try to throw some skill into it. Why try and read someone when you really don't care what they have, all you need to do is play your cards and HOPE that you hit it in the end.

The lucky players will cash in on the short term, while the ones with skill will continue to get payouts in the long run.

I hope I am in the later catagory, but this site is called 7-Deuce isn't it :)

On a side note yes we can get angry at these players but what good will that do? If you try and tell them that they have done something incorrectly they will just say "look who has the chips". Unfortunatly they are correct, you sometimes just have to take those bad beats and get over them. I am always trying to "teach" others how they "should have" played that hand, but that really isn't my place now is it...but I do believe advice is helpful and if I sat down with any pro and they told me I played the hand wrong I would listen because it can only make my game better.