The battle between Tom “durrr” Dwan and Brian Townsend in televised cash games demonstrates that increasingly Online players are now making more and more of an impact in the live poker community. Furthering this, Bertrand Grospellier, better known by his online handle of ‘ElkY,’ has taken down the WPT Festa al Lago; demolishing a six-handed final table and taking a $1,400,000 prize.
Whilst poker has been played in one form or another for over 10 centuries until recently the only way you could play poker was at a table with cards and chips.
If you asked people what to describe a poker room they would have come up with the classic image of a poker room was a dingy, smoke filled lair inhabited by shady characters where you were just as likely to have your legs broken as go home a winner. Even into the 1970’s, poker rooms such as the famous Binion’s in Las Vegas (original home of the World Series of Poker) were ugly, smoky rooms with bad lighting, a far cry from the beautiful luxury rooms you see now at Wynn, Bellagio, and the Venetian.
The reason for those low budget rooms was simple: low budgets. There weren’t enough players to warrant the big casinos spending money on a fancy poker salon, however in 1998 with the growth of the personal use internet and at home PC's the very first real money online poker play poker room opened and that led to the biggest explosion in the history of gambling.
Players couldn’t sign up fast enough. Online poker grew at exponential rates. The two poker communities collide in 2003 when chris Money Maker, won the World Series of Poker after qualifying online . Players suddenly signed up for online accounts and became a part of the online poker community.
The poker community was beginning to get riled with the unpredictable characters rising up the ranks through online poker. Players began to be classed as ‘live’ or ‘online’ poker players, each type of player was lumped into a style based on their preferred method of gaming. Live players were steadier, less aggressive players who made plays based on ‘reads’ of other players betting patterns and physical tells whereas Online players were hyper-aggressive youngsters who fired away at every pot without regard to what their opponents might have.
Whilst these steretypes may once have been trues now, in order to be a good poker player, you have to be well rounded, and most skilled players play BOTH types of poker well.
Online players watch enough poker on TV and put in enough time playing live to understand the skill of live poker. And, because of the MASSIVE number of hands online players can see (online players average twice as many hands per hour as live tables, and often play many tables at once: therefore, a young internet pro like Tom ‘durr’ Dwan has likely played more hands in four years than Doyle Brunson has in 70 years), online pros have an excellent grasp of the math and odds of the game.
Meanwhile, live players have moved onto the internet. Why? Because they can play a lot more in a shorter period of time. Players like David Benyamine, who used to spend years grinding out the biggest cash games in the casinos, can now make MILLIONS in a single month online. And because of the popularity of online poker the big names in the live poker community have made businesses out of the growing online poker community - "Devilfish" and Doyle Brunso have their own poker rooms.
So, what’s better? Well, it’s really up to you as a player. But remember this: if you want to be the next Chris Moneymaker, eventually you’re going to have to sit down at a table with nine other players and beat them. Besides, it’s FAR more fun to turn over those pocket aces when you can see your opponent’s face...
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