I got back today from a short Commerce trip where I played pretty much BT mix games with varying casts of characters over a couple days. I'm sitting home now and all I can recall about the trip was the hundreds of different times I heard a comment or participated in a discussion of "poker pro X is horrible" or insert some other adjective (is that even an adjective?). The gist of it is this, the high stakes poker world is a pretty small place, and the beauty of reaching high stakes poker is that you did a lot of things right, so you naturally think you are really really good at poker. The next logical step is that you see someone else who some people believe is pretty good at poker do something "wrong" and then you make a mental note to tell all your friends what you saw and prove that you are indeed better than that guy. At this point I should mention I'm as guilty of this as anyone, and the point of this post is not to change my attitude, I will always believe almost everyone is way worse at poker than they and most other people think, and that I am actually better. I have a big ego and that's not going to change (and I'd argue its a positive quality for being a poker pro). I am just hoping to stop saying it out loud.
This attitude is so much more prevalent these days because 1) people got pretty good at poker, so now its easy to find small flaws in others and ignore the ones in yourself, 2) people at high stakes seem less willing to share actual strategy but still want to be a part of the "pro community" so they post gossip and random bragging instead (see the 2+2 high limit forum for obvious proof of this). I really don't have much more of a point here, other than its incredible to me that everyone can think everyone else is awful and yet we all are constantly continuing the cycle. Well I vow here and now to no longer be a part of it. I won't criticize another winning player out loud from this point forward (I hope).
All that said everyone is terrible at badugi and triple draw. Except me and maybe two others. LOL.