As I progressed in my career, I continued to read every quality book I could get my hands on. Without those resources that helped me learn and advance, there\u2019s a good chance I would have found another vocation, which leads to the point I want to make.<\/p>\n
A great example is the game of blackjack. Before 1962, the most popular casino game by far was craps. When Edward O. Thorp published Beat the Dealer<\/em>, in 1962, casino owners were convinced that hordes of highly skilled players would\u00a0descend on their blackjack games and destroy them. What really happened was that the popularity of the game exploded, soon becoming the most popular casino game, driven by players who thought they could win, but most of whom weren\u2019t actually skilled and disciplined enough to beat it in the long run.<\/p>\n The same dynamic applies to poker. If there were no materials for players to learn from, poker would still be a small universe game of back rooms and kitchen tables. Doyle Brunson said many times that he wished he hadn\u2019t written his\u00a0book, but I think he failed to understand how important it was to the growth of the game, and that a lot of the players he was beating might not have been involved in the game to challenge him if it wasn\u2019t for his book and others. Other old timers complained about the educational materials because they were happy with the way things used to be, and didn\u2019t want to have to put in the effort to improve. (As an aside, Dewey Tomko, one of Doyle\u2019s best friends, once told me that Doyle didn\u2019t play anything like he described, and many players went broke thinking he did!)<\/p>\n With the poker explosion of 2003, millions of players were drawn into the online game, and also drifted into live games and tournaments. Along with the popularity surge came a wave of poker books, chat rooms and training sites. Some writers and entrepreneurs found that there was a huge market for their goods, and that they could smooth out their bankroll swings with an income stream. For others, it was an ego exercise. Even Doyle wrote another book! Soon there was so much information out there that anyone with the talent and drive to study the game could become a winner. The overall skill level of players rose dramatically. A lot of bad players became competent, and the competent players who dedicated themselves became great.<\/p>\n The poker mania was killed by the government, first with the UIGEA in 2006, then the knockout blow of Black Friday, 2011, when internet poker was shut down once and for all. The poker world has contracted since, and many of the bad players have given it up or cut way back. Only the strongest are surviving the tougher competition and ever increasing rakes, and the cries of \u201cit\u2019s all those damn books\u201d is being heard again.<\/p>\n I\u2019m willing to bet that he vast majority of regular poker players today benefited to some degree form poker educational materials, TV broadcasts with commentary, or strategy discussions with friends. To complain now about the mass of educational materials is disingenuous at best, similar to seeing a great place, moving there and then wanting to put up a wall to keep everybody else out.<\/p>\n I started playing poker very young. I remember seeking out books that would help me improve, but back then I was pretty much limited to people like Oswald Jacoby and Herbert O. Yardley. I got to Vegas in 1980 and started playing seriously. \u00a0In discussions with some of the old timers, one of their criterion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[685],"tags":[383,54,1356,1353,365,1358,1360,1362,1355,1361,145,1357,1359,1354,223],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
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