I remember watching poker in 2010 and 2011 and hearing all of the talk about the old school players versus the new school internet players. Some of the differences talked about were how the old school players made good reads but might lack some knowledge with regards to EV and they would play out of position or flat a little too much. The new school players were more math-based and used EV and position. New school players were more likely to use more pre-flop pressure than read-based post-flop play.

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Around this time, I remember Daniel Negreanu starting to play more online and he elevated his game to the point of having the skills of both the old and new. I also remember hearing about Phil Hellmuth working with Brandon Cantu to sharpen his game and learn more about the new school type of play. Then, we began to see players like Jasontreysfull21 Mercier start to flourish in the live arena; as they learned more about playing live and making reads, they too would improve.

From this, I gathered that a mix of old school and new school is needed to truly achieve greatness in poker. A player needs lots of experience live so they can make a read and go with it, but they also need to know about position, chip equity, expected value, and several more tools the new school players were mastering.

Now that Americans are 22 months removed from the ability to play online poker, I think we are starting to see the effects at the poker table. I believe that there is a definite difference in how players are playing.

I was talking with a very talented internet player at the recent WSOP Circuit stop in Durant, Oklahoma and we were laughing about all of the flatting (especially out of position), the price players would pay to draw at a set, how often blinds were defended, and the lack of consideration players were putting into the stacks left to act when they made a decision.

We talked about how American poker players seem to be regressing because the majority of our play is in live MTTs with lots of below average players. Improvement isn’t thrown in our face all day long like it was online. I think there are fewer players talking poker and trying to improve and more players just grinding. As a result, their game is suffering.

As online poker got popular, the average player got better. Most players who played online poker would hear about tracking software, training videos, poker chat, and poker coaching, which were all based on improving at poker. I think the time away from online poker has hurt Americans as a whole. There are more players trying to make negative EV hero calls and bluffs that leave some of us scratching our head.

I think one way to keep ourselves on track is to improve our defaults. I am all about having a read and going with it, but we must still have solid fundamentals to keep us playing +EV. I see so many players make mistake after mistake and then say, “I had a read.” A read is great, but if we have to flat out of position and float the flop over and over because our read is “the villain is aggressive,” we may be making a mistake.

I think players should be able to follow their reads and use them to make decisions, but first they must make sure their defaults are solid enough to keep them playing +EV the majority of the time.

Keep an eye out for the follow-up to this article where I’ll go into detail about some of these default fundamentals. Good luck to all of the grinders. Long live poker!

This article was written by John cracker9ballReynolds, who hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you are interested in taking poker lessons or would like any information, contact him at variance101@gmail.com or visit Variance101.com.

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