[ipgyst]

Tight aggressive poker will always be best. Stu Ungar was a firecracker like these guys, and I read a story (I forget where, might have been Mike Sexton) about one time he was at the WSOP at a table full of pros. He ended up with all the low-denomination 25 chips at the table, but he was a shorter stack because he didn't know when to slow down, and the pros know how to counteract his aggressive play.

I think it takes a strong player to do well against loose aggressive players, but it can be done. Most of these guys are loose aggressive because it is what works online and they win most of the time with it.

I like no-limit holdem, but I prefer a (limit) mixed game because it requires more skill. If you took somebody decent at stud eight-or-better and put him up against the internet young gun hold em master in a game of stud eight-or-better, my money is on the decent player because the other guy may know what stud eight-or-better is, but I doubt he is very good at it.

We call a lot of these guys poker players, but really they are holdem players. If they were the kings of poker and responsible for some sort of enlightening, they'd be crawling all over each other to get into the 3000-6000 game at Bellagio or the 50000K H.O.R.S.E. event. But they ain't there, and I've never heard of any of them saying that they wanted to be there. Their braggadocio makes for good copy in a news article, but it's empty and hollow. That's why I like Negreanu so much, because he is a good poker player and loves to play all the games. Same goes for Chan, Harman, Brunson, Greenstein, Benyamine, and anybody else who shows up at the 3000-6000 game regularly.