Get by With a Little Help from my Friends

YTD: +$52271.43

Apologies for faithful readers for a slightly longer than usual pause between posts - unfortunately my pc is somewhat on the blink again.

I wanted to get back to another topic raised by David Young in a comment a week or so back. The problem, if you can call it that, is an influx of new, WPT and ESPN driven players, cluelessly diving into a pot limit holdem game. In the classic way of lemmings searching for a suitable cliff, PLHE is the worst game they could have stumbled onto, bar plo8b. Their chances of even short term success, never mind long term, are very, very low. Especially playing Gus-stylee tourney moves.

But why is this bad and why should players care?

Players who make any substantial amount of money in live action should look at themselves as being in the entertainment business. Live players, especially in the UK, are a valuable commodity. They do not exist in US or Internet type numbers. Many players may be 'happy' to pay to be 'entertained' over a long period, but will struggle to maintain an interest facing unrelenting losses. A player after throwing off a couple of thousand $ in short order may never return, yet if he had felt that he had a remote chance and was getting some kind of value for money he may have gladly paid for many years to come.

So what is the solution?

Firstly, the newbie players should be treated well. As Tommy Angelo says, this is how you should treat everyone over the felt, not just the fish. Unfortunately for DY, the Vic, the place in question, is fairly well known for having an unfriendly ambiance. And that's putting it mildly.

Okay, anything else? Dealers choice games. Although they can confuse beginners the inherent luck in them shoots up variance and gives weaker players a shot at the loot. Here though the new players are their own worst enemies, as they tend to see these more varied games as some kind of conspiracy to befuddle the money out of their pockets.

The only answer is one that US casinos have adopted but the half-wits that populate card room management in the UK are unlikely to adopt unless coerced by the players. Who unfortunately themselves don't see the wood for the trees. NL games instead of PL. And crucially, critically, maximum buyins of about 100x the big blind. These factors will give conditions more akin to the tourneys these types know and love, shoot up the luck to give them a chance to get some winning sessions, but still leave skill as the dominant factor.

Everyone's a winner.