A thought crossed my mind the other day that all serious poker players read up on poker.. book after book. Every time i read a book it reminds me of the beginning of rounders where Matt Damond is gathering his money up to make a run at it and poker books are laying everywhere in the backround....
But if everyone reads the same books and everyone plays to the type of play suggested.. and with poker becoming so popular, won't there be a surplus of generally good players playing tight and aggressive, looking for the right table, noticing those same tells and whatever else poker books have suggested... Because they all learned how to play poker out of generally the same books arn't they all generally playing the same way..
What seperates the great from the good..
could your general cards smarts play a part?
could it be metally mathematical?
could it be feel or emtional?
i study poker theory about 1 hour each night, i make notes, highlight keypoints, set up hands to count odds, and reread sections cause i feel if everyone else out there is reading the same books, i'll have to read more books and work harded then everyone else to better myself.
And how come there are players who read books but still play badly??
do some ppl just suck at poker no matter how many books they read?
How does this affect the future of poker, when information is so easily gain for only a couple of dollars??

Not everyone that reads books will play perfect poker. Nobody plays perfect poker. Many people still cannot apply the theories correctly.

The games will not be as easy as they once were, but they will still be beatable.

My lead into poker was different to most. Started out from a mathematical/research type project.The way I play (and I think alot of good players) developed over time. I know this because I've watched strong players on the 'net. When I did read my first official 'poker book' I was delighted at how wrong it was..

I lke ppl reading these books..

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Doberman: "but Sarge, isn't poker gambling and just luck?"
Sgt. Bilko:" not the way I play it"

books can teach you, but so can school.

not everyone who goes to school becomes intelligent.

I encourage book reading for ALL players, 1 out of 10 will become a decent player or better. the rest just become easy to read and figure out what they are doing. And then they complain about a bad beat and go on complete tilt

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To add to what Steve said, reading a book can be done by a 10 year old. The patience and discipline necessary to apply the knowledge in the book and pattern mapping is personal. Not to mention, every poker game has winners and losers.

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If you do a quick search of this forum you will see quite a few threads where we disagree about things. How is this possible if we all read the same books?

I'm definetly the tightest player who regularly posts on here, so why doesn't everyone who has read the same and quite possibly more poker books as me play as tight?

well there are a couple reasons

#1 People process information differently, people can read the same thing and get 2 opposite meanings from it. What I percieve to be tight/aggressive play is not neccasarilly the conclusion someone else will come to.

#2 Each persons patience level and self control are different. I have no problem sitting around and waiting for hands where others need to be more involved or they would go on tilt, which is more costly than overplaying a few hands. So for these people playing super tight would actually be a bad strategy since it will send them on tilt.

It isn't that people are just bad poker players, some just don't care to apply what they have read, others don't understand it, and still others don't have the discipline to apply it. Knowledge and properly applying that knowledge are 2 seperate things.

Natural ability is also important, I can remeber lines from movies that I haven't seen in years where other people can't remember their phone number. I've also always been good at sizing people up and I am a stickler for details so I pay close attention to everything.

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I know players who understand the game perfectly and cant be profitable beacause of auto destructive attitude.

On the other side, one of my friend is just a beginner and cant even calculate the odds correctly yet and he wins about 1BB per 100 hand. He's patient and have good instinct.

KJ

It's like in everything : some people can put the time in it and some no.

And the book aren't really everything. I learned a lot of new thing on the internet lurking in forum.

People have to kill off the emotional brain part of their brain while playing poker, and that a hard thing to do for most people.

One big thing is the fact that playing great poker in many ways goes against the grain of what most would consider competative good old american gaming. Name one other game where you gain by quitting (folding)? It is funny but usually the guy folding the most hands is the winner. This goes against our nature- we want to be winners, we want to beat everyone. Why would we fold? It takes a TREMENDOUS amount of self-disciplene to play tight aggressive poker.

This is one thing I struggle with more than anything. I am a fiercly competative person in all endevours- I have almost made people cry when playing Risk. Due to this, the act of folding pisses me off sometimes. I feel like a quitter, like a loser. It takes a great deal of active self-control for me to overcome these emotions. If I'm running bad it gets even worse.

I can only assume that I am not the only player out there with this problem. And as someone else here already alluded to there are people who play self-destructively without even knowing so. There are people who LIKE losing- who feel some sort of cathartic relief in doing so. It sounds messed up but it is true. Some people are destined to lose because subconcoiusly they want to.

Another thing to remember is this: 50% of the population is of below average intelligence

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"The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius." -- Big Julie

There are a few things.

1. The percentage of players that actually read books is small.

2. There are many bad book out there- and many mediocre ones with bad ideas (unsuited connectors are better than suited connectors, fold any omaha8b hand with a 7, 8 or 9 in it, 3-bet with small pairs, calls a 3-bet with JTo in the SB).

3. Gambling theory is not easy to understand and, it doesn't "feel" right. e.g., you raise with your flush draw for value against 5 opponents, you miss it, and think, why did I throw away that extra bet, I should have just called (or folded because I knew I would miss it) and raise when I actually had a hand.

4. Tigh aggresive isn't always right, and is hard to master.

5. Many people mis-apply what the learn.

6. Many people ignore what they read/

7. Most players lack discipline and revert back to bad habits.

8. They will underestimate the math of the game because "poker is about
playing the man not the cards"

9. Many people would rather cut their losses than maximize their wins.