[_GUN_]

Over the last couple years, through the USPC and the WSOP, the game has been heading in a new direction. The faces get younger every week; the play becomes more aggressive, and the play becomes sloppier.

I watched final table of the ME live last year and it was about twenty minutes into the match, before a flop was even necessary. It was raise/reraise, no flop virtually every hand as things got underway.

My question is this---is poker permanently being changed for the worse or is hyper-aggressive pre- and post-flop play going to be just a phase? Are we stuck with maniac poker or is it just a fad? Are we going to have to wait on all the 20-something internet stars to simply grow up and evolve? Will we continue to see people try outduel each other on every single hand or will bad beats tally up and force the internet crossover players to rethink their maniac ways? I really disliked DeMichele, Alex Jacob, and Jordan Morgan at the 2006 USPC. Everytime someone was dealt KQ suited, A9o, or 55, they seemed to reraise pre-flop with it. I honestly couldn't see any variance in their play.

Here's how I see most pros I respect play AQo, they raise and occasionally reraise if they think it will take the pot pre-flop. I can cite a hand where Howard Lederer reraised with AJo when Chan opened the pot at the inaugural WSOP TOC. Howard berated Hellmuth for folding AQ, saying if he had raised, he would've folded. Hellmuth wasn't feeling it and dumped it, but Howard read Chan as weak and came over him. Howard didn't improve and Chan doubled up with his middle pair.

I really disliked DeMichelle from the 2006 USPC the most. He made a comment about how poker was in the dark ages and that he and the internet wizards would pull it out of a primitive state and improve the strategy of the game. I mean Doyle Brunson was playing poker before DeMichelle's father was born. The whole reason everyone learns poker so quickly is because they have years worth of experience, they can pull from poker books. No one has to grind it out like they used to and create their own path. You can go from a beginner to relatively competent in 1-2yrs. I just can't honestly say I respect people who reraise every single flop with no pair and no draw and call themselves top of the species.

1) I understand the concept of playing players and not your cards.
2) I understand the concept of aggression.

What I don't understand is that hold'em is a flop game with community cards and internet crossover players are taking flops out of the game by jamming every pot pre-flop, by reraising with Q2o, 4-10, A9.

DeMichelle, in his infinite wisdom, of being a 22-yr old kid, who spends his entire life playing monopoly and internet poker in hotel rooms, said that poker was in a primitive state. I mean has he watched poker on tv before? Do you see him as a complete moron, or is he a relatively intelligent person who just hasn't grown into his pants, yet?

My theory is this...all great players started out very aggressive and gradually tuned it down with experience, becoming more selective with their hand selection and with their aggression. I think the Doyle Brunson's, Chip Reese's, and Scotty Nguyen's all moved past that and found a better balance of aggression. Even Mike Matusow has begun to play tighter against the current crop of players and look where he was a few years ago.

Are we just going to have to wait on all the internet players to take huge losses and gain experience, in order for poker to de-evolve to a more controlled game? Will they eventually bust out of a tournament with a horrible bluff, look in the mirror and say, "I just cost myself $400,000 by finishing sixth instead of fourth?"

I just don't see any patience from the cross-over players. I, for one, enjoy creative poker. I like players flat-calling with AK and then if you whiff, you dump. If you hit, no one ever thinks their has AJ is dominated on an A59 rainbow flop. Personally I like slow-playing hands pre-flop and playing flops fast. I just want to know if hold'em is going to become a complete joke, where the king of the idiots is glorified and the academic players are left on the rail. I just don't understand how they can play that much poker and not realize the pros they claim to respect, have absolutely no respect their play.

Is it possible, also, that hyper-aggressive trash play is here to say, but the elite pros will just continue to thrive in their own world, far removed from the internet players?

I just don't see 22-yr old internet maniacs retiring their laptops to play $400/800 or higher at the Bellagio.