Are Poker Players REALLY Smarter Than Chess Players?
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- Chess streamer Alexandra Botez joins Doug Polk to talk about chess, poker, and which game has smarter players.
This and all other episodes of the Doug Polk Podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. Check upswingpoker.com/podcast/ for direct links.
0:00 Intro
0:51 Alexandra joins
1:43 Living in Austin, Making content
13:54 The Chess Hustlers, Did AI ruin Chess?
21:07 How to start studying Chess or Poker
25:21 Poker players vs Chess players, Tells vs strategy
35:20 The Chess Twitch boom, Would Chess benefit from a luck factor?
42:00 The World Chess Championship, catering to newbs
51:17 Alexandra's thoughts on Poker, being competitive
1:02:00 Mike McDonald, NFT's, Regulation on cryptos/investments
1:26:31 Which cryptos Alexandra and Doug like?
1:37:38 Advice to young people, College
1:46:30 Will Alexandra play more poker in the future? 
Развлечения
Alexandra to Doug: "I feel like you're really driven by passion, and not by money"
*cue "backing up the truck" montage*
A poker player can only be driven by money, thats the only measure of success, nothing else..
@@cragjones1799 thats not true at all
@@TinyTonyGOD what other metric is there? What other reason could there possibly be?
@@cragjones1799 it’s not possible to enjoy playing the game without a monetary incentive?
@@TinyTonyGOD Ive never seen this or heard of this but theoretically perhaps. The point of poker is evaluation of risk/reward. If there is none than there is no disincentive to act irrationally and that just ruins the game? If nothing is at risk why would anyone ever fold? What would be the point?
I see why she is popular. Very intelligent and matter of fact. Comes off as a genuine person. Good luck to her!
Being good looking helps too
@@nickpapagiorgio9872 For sure
Oh, and she’s hot. Everything else being equal, we all know the truth.
she’s too much of a Tom boy for me
@@rooksman64 Nobody cares
CANNOT WAIT for pod with Garrett. The guy’s my idol.
Garrett is a beast in so many ways. Hes a man who knows his limitations and has found the sweet spot where he crushes it. He has proven its way better to be a big fish in a small pond etc..
@@cragjones1799 when u say 'knows his limitations' do u think that there are many games he wouldn't be a winner at? I doubt it from what I have seen.
@@seanupton709 Hes a beast. But there are much larger games out there with alot more money and with tougher competition. Thats how it works. There are quite a few Garretts out there, you just know him because of youtube, you dont see the other guys. He aint no Johnny Hennigan.
Two of my favourite content creators, did not expect to see this podcast but absolutely loved it. Great interview
Loving the podcasts, Doug!
Great interview! Alexandra is well spoken and a great guest to watch on the show. Keep up the great guests on the show
I liked the conversational style of this episode, I feel like Doug and Alex have good chemistry together.
Heck yea. Great interview. Always have compared the 2. Many overlaps.
TIMESTAMPS
0:51 Alexandra joins
1:43 Living in Austin, Making content
13:54 The Chess Hustlers, Did AI ruin Chess?
21:07 How to start studying Chess or Poker
25:21 Poker players vs Chess players, Tells vs strategy
35:20 The Chess Twitch boom, Would Chess benefit from a luck factor?
42:00 The World Chess Championship, catering to newbs
51:17 Alexandra's thoughts on Poker, being competitive
1:02:00 Mike McDonald, NFT's, Regulation on cryptos/investments
1:26:31 Which cryptos Alexandra and Doug like?
1:37:38 Advice to young people, College
1:46:30 Will Alexandra play more poker in the future?
keep the pods going my man its getting better and better. cheers to doug and his team.
P.S. I LOVE Alexandra, great guest.
Hey Doug, you should start the timestamps with 0:00 (in the description) so that they appear in play bar of the video.
Bro. Pin this or put in description
your video too long i think .. separate it to 2-3 part
I know you're married but you guys are perfect for eachother lol
After being OOTL for so long, I absolutely wasn't expecting this crossover. Really enjoyed this episode. Someone I'd love to see you talk to would be Destiny. You probably already know who he is, but if not he used to be a pro SC2 player and now does current events on Twitch.
Doug - one of your best podcasts - I think she interviewed you more than you interviewed her - I was interested in A LOT of information she "doug" out of you. Really cool stuff. Thanks for continuing your journey. You are an inspiration.
Oh snap. 2 of my faves. Love it.
This was a great interview. You should make her your cohost! The back amd fourth was great.
I used to listen to a podcast called 'Poker Life Podcast'... this is almost as good.
So much knowledge gained from one vid
Doug is an amazing interviewer and human
Amazing! Unexpected interview. I actually was pretty good at the Botez gambit before Alex perfected it to an art form.
Hi Vanessa loved the podcast. Can we get Doug Polk on next time?
Great Podcast Doug. I totally agree that College has little value for many people. Also there is a Choice, it's called trade apprenticeships. College has become a giant moneymaking scam for the Universities and the Loan Companies, not to mention how much money the Federal Government is giving away on FAFSA and other tuition assistance. I got a BA which I will never use, and while I was fortunate to not incur any college loan debt because I went to an instate college, I worked full time while a student and had some GI Bill from my time in the military. I know many people who are still paying on their college loans 15 years later and with no end in the near future either.
There was an argument over whether miners should be limited to only proof-of-work miners, so a competing amendment was created. They ended up not agreeing on an amendment so the language remains without any changes. I’m pretty sure they still haven’t changed it as last I heard house rules prohibit any amendments from being added at this point. The treasury department says that they won’t enforce it on miners or developers, but that won’t make it into the law.
Best podcast from you yet!
Honestly I'm never the type of person to say this stuff, but now it's my 3rd comment about it... I hope you guys can do more content together. You guys are a match to say the least. Chemistry and conversation is there
The hard thing about poker relative to chess is knowing you made the right play even though you got a bad result. Whether it be you got rivered. Despite getting it in good or giving your opponent a bad price, or statistically making the right call/fold despite getting bluffed or having your opponent turning over the better hand. Whereas in chess if you made the best play. You'll always get the optimal outcome.
Yeah, and u can always win despite not playing so well etc. On a run you can easily underestimate the amount of luck you had. Poker kind of fucks up your rewarding system and for a long time period it's difficult to evaluate your results. Imagine being in your worst downswing ever, straight out losing for 6 months. How do u know it's just variance? Maybe u have started to play worse or the games you usually beat has improved or other players caught on to your leaks etc. In chess this is also a lot easier. Your rating is always accurate to estimate your performance. The numbers never lies.
David does a great job on chess shows. is it David Howell? He is polite, enunciates well. Is slow but clear to explain deep concepts that me a 1600 can digest. In poker I'm a one time 1/2 percentile ranked and I want the deepest Doug dives as possible. Either way if the play by play is a pro... the deep concepts will roll well with the masses.
Thank you Doug.
23:45 made me really chuckle
Great chemistry by you both. Doug, Katie will never know prolly. #grandmaster
On the other hand, AI and computers have also opened the door to playing some opening lines that were thought to be bad and not played any more. I'd say overall it's been very positive for chess. Almost a resurgence of the early "romantic" lines and confirmation that piece activity is incredible important, more so that we expected it to be
Great interview but thank god you had the Doug and Alexandra labels or I wouldnt have known who was who.
Alexandra’s persona is so likable. She’s obviously smart, well prepared, and is a great conversationalist. Doug is crushing it with these new interviews.
why no more upload in the podcast apps?
God bless this cross-over!!
Loved getting to see Alex nerding out on subjects other than chess.
Its always so bizarre when two interests of mine collide, I've been studying and watching poker for a few years, and chess even longer, and in no time line did I ever see these two worlds coming together. Was weird af seeing Alexandra on Brad Owen's channel when he was in the wpt heads up championship. And now here, on dougs podcast 😂
Ahah literally same
I was just going to leave a similar comment. Apparently I’m not alone. Cheers.
Same bro my 2 main interests
BBZ poker talking to chessbrah was also a big surprise for me who follow channels and streamers of both games.
Both point of or on education is so on point I’m in love, beauty & high level intelligent conversation
Poker includes math and chess includes visualization and patters. Hard to compare them except for the fact computers can solve bounded rule games.
When Doug said "so the games wouldn't be there without them" about the chess hustlers I was so ready for him to take the conversation to poker
Not even a huge NFL fan, but I feel like his dismissive tone toward NFL commentators saying something like "Some dude with a calculator should be figuring this out", is a bit excessive. For one, dudes with calculators have already done the bulk of the work, which is why you typically punt or kick a field goal on the 4th down. However, there's a lot of factors that have to be considered; how much time is left on the clock? Are you winning or losing? By how much? How does your particular offensive lineup match up against the other team's particular defense? How about your defensive lineup against their offense? What's the weather like at the stadium? Is it a super windy day? Etc...
To this he might respond with, "Those are all calculations, which would still render a guy with a calculator assessing the probabilities the best qualified to assess the situation". But then you also have to consider specific circumstances. Take injuries, what if a team's left tackle is out that week? Do you have a statistically significant sample size of how your offense does against their team with the backup left tackle? Even then, football is a relatively fast moving game. That level of statistical analysis of a game I think, when even possible, is better served for post-game breakdowns/analyst shows after the fact. Not during the game. You'd still be analyzing 1 play while 3 others have already happened. 🤷♂️
Doug polk is becoming a good podcaster. It feels like he has some social anxiety but if he can overcome that then I think he could make some really great podcasts
If he got social anxiety what do I have? Lol
I think she gave Doug a pretty good answer, which is that you can get a good, competitive chess match with even a very basic matchmaker. At face value chess may look like a game of pure skill, but I think it's also true that a 1400 player can beat a 1600 player a decent % of the time, and a 1200 player will beat a 1400 player a non-trivial amount of the time. This wouldn't happen at the elite levels, but it's certainly true at the low or mid-levels of chess.
In terms of pure-skill / pure-ability games, something like sumo wrestling would be a better example than chess. The better sumo wrestler will probably win 99.9% of the time against any inferior opponent.
So, it's true that poker involves a lot of variance, but I think that mental games like chess also involve a fair amount of variance & unpredictability, depending on which openings each player has studied, and also their mental state at the time of the match.
The lowest-variance games, imo, are physical games where the weaker player will never, ever win; gymnastics, sprinting, hurdles, weightlifting, decathlon, etc.
You obviously have no idea what your talking about
@@12gaugerage28 Why do you feel that way? Please elaborate.
@@12gaugerage28 Ironic.
Fan of Alex from the Chess world. I didn’t see her name in the title though so threw me off a bit. Pleasant surprise no the less
Doug, on these podcasts could you please make the title on youtube 'Interview: Alex Botez', or Interview: Ph Helmuth'. When you look through your youtube feed it's incredibly hard to find the interviews as the titles are very strange and often the thumbnail doesn't help.
Just an idea
Also - 1:12:37 what video please?
Great idea! It might even get more views?
Why did you change the thumbnail?
38:53 That would be cool. RNG chess. Every time try to capture a piece, there is a 90% chess it works as normal, but a 10% chance that your attacking piece dies instead.
No more sweeping up pawns with queens :(
@@danieldunn4769 mathematically might still be worth or close lol, a queen is valued at 9 pawns
Boom, best crossover special! Alex is the goat.
Also Doug, my email address changed so didn't get a chance to receive my wedding invitation. But would love to come if you can fly me out to Hawaii. In exchange, I've got tons of bad beat stories I can share with you and your guests. Stuff you wouldn't believe bro! Anyway, congrats dude and look forward to hearing back from you. Here's a little teaser before I go: KK cracked by 96s, FT table bubble, 2nd vs 1st in chips. Insanity!
Considering the financial rewards poker probably draws more talent so I would say probably yes.
I love chess, I love poker, this is great
Finally, a win for us nerds.
stock guy vs botez had more roasting so I liked it more
Guest request: Ben Sulsky or Colin Jones (the card counter)
Now make more about poker and trading
34:51 The dollar signs in Dougs eyes.
I love them kicking youtube knowledge
Invite Magnus On The Pod, he might actually join in, he is present in alot of Norwegian wierd collabs so he got time
1:12:24
"It's my god damn money you shouldn't get to decide what I get to do with it, and if I wanna put mine into some cats... meow!"
Vanessa sure turned into a bona fide catlady in her later years.
Dougie, pro football commentators aren't ALL dumb!! You need to tune into Tony Romo! He is more in line with you in regards to analyzing plays, strategies and game calling ~ why, when, how etc..,
Yea... 100%
I think it's fair to say she's smart. Not a lot of kids getting thru Stanford, + her 2400 ELO, etc, etc, etc.
BTW - I miss the funny DP YT content. IDK those were really funny when no one is really that funny anymore. Even the comedians aren't funny anymore because they're too freaking worried about what they say!
Her elo is 2020. Not bad, but hardly noteworthy.
@@tomohawk52 It's actually 2250 (not 2020)
There are 768 players in the world with Elo higher than 2500, or 0.2% of the total.
Of that number, there's about .001% who can play Magnus Carlson and of those, they rarely win (in a 3 game, 5 game, 11 game match) He went years without losing playing the absolute best.
@@markrussellfilaroski5035 The only worldwide rating system is FIDE. Her peak FIDE is 2092, her present rating is 2020. My FIDE rating is 300 points higher and that's not particularly impressive.
@@tomohawk52 She chokes OTB! ;)
and nice work! I'm impressed. Have a great day!
@@tomohawk52 she looks better than you and she is a woman, she will always get the credit you long for but don't get
Chess: abstract calculations, algorithms
Poker: probabilities, inductive reasoning, psychology
Probably chess, but different for different people.
Chess is all skill 100% skill. Poker is pure luck. Poker is gambling
There is a lot of deductive reasoning and psychology involved in chess. Once your calculations are over, you have to make judgements about on which grounds whether you like the position or not. also chess players have different styles and preferences. some prefer certain openings like sicilian while some prefer ruylopez for instance. some are more tactical , some more strategic. some excel more at middlegames some at endgames. some take more risks and sacrifice material to attack while some players play as solid as possible and take very little risks. so at the end psychology in human chess is also very important.
@@ineverfold1506 Poker is a skill game. I suggest you delete your moronic comment.
@@mehdimehdikhani5899 Inductive reasoning and psychology are present, but they are inconsequential. Either you make the best move or you don't. Either you make a better move than your opponent or you don't. Whoever makes the best moves will win, it makes no difference if you out-psyched your opponent.
@@SSJBartSimp And how do you come up with the best move? what is the process of finding the best move? how do you define the best move? it is impossible for a human to find the best moves without judgment and reasoning. calculation in chess without reasoning is meaningless. you have to evaluate the result of your calculations. is white better? is black better? on which grounds? there is a lot of analysis going on. if you play chess seriously, you understand these things. you can even listen to the interviews of great players. you seem to think chess is pure calculation. there is a lot of generalizations and logic going on in human chess because there are many positions that a human simply can not calculate much and has to rely on his general understanding. also psychology is important in competitive chess because you can create unpleasant positions for your opponent. positions that are not suitable to their style and suitable for you. outpsyching your opponent is always advantageous for you in any game, sports or fight because it increases the probability of your opponent making mistakes.
I absolutely fall in love with her
"Fuck it, Meow" loool
I guess I gotta start playing chess for the ladies.... Never thought I'd say that 🤣
wen a super good poker player and a super good chess players meet and the best conversation is about NFTs lol
Who is smarter, Garry Kasparov or Phil Hellmuth? I think the answer is clear.
their emotional control is similar
Unfortunately people think that the popular poker players are the best ones. Which is so far from the truth. I think the top chess players are incredible smart people, and the best poker players are extremely smart as well. You can't compare Magnus with Helmuth or Negreanu. Of course Magnus is a genius if you compare him with one of them.
And I'm not saying Helmuth or Negreanu are dumb, far from it, but they're far from geniuses and far from the best poker players in the world. Which is easy to understand for any winning player even at a small stake as 5-10 cents cash game online.
imagine comparing the GOAT of chess to a conartist of the poker world
@@lukebruce5234 Con-artist perhaps, but 16 bracelets do not lie.
@@NoExitLoveNow Tournaments are luck. He has played like 5000 WSOP tournaments winning 16 times means jack shit.
this is like finding out santa is friends with the easter bunny
I think it's a matter of opinion. If your goal was to become a millionaire, you would choose poker.
However, money is not an issue for many people. I heard the "smartest" people in terms of IQ at any university tend to be the students that chose mathematics and physics as their major, but it's clear that they're not the richest and neither is money a motivation for them
What a slam piece. Nice pick this week.
Average GM chess player is definitely smarter than your average poker pro, this was even more true before online poker became a lot more refined. Now the gap has narrowed with the highest level of poker now made up of some very talented and intelligent players.
Woah Doug! You two are like same person….the intelligence, the mannerisms, the passion, the tank top, the smile….kind of scary…chemistry….
Did she say you are 1800? Or did I hear that wrong?
Lmao just heard you walk that down a bit but I guess that's what she thinks you would be rated
When worlds collide
I am a poker player, always played chess but taking it more seriously now. No way poker players are smarter than chess players. Even idiots can win tournaments, no such thing in chess. Seriously some of the tournament pros are some of the dumbest people I have ever met
Hilarious question. The answer is a resounding ‘No’.
Chess requires intelligence and memory in a much more dramatic fashion than poker does. There's no debate. Poker is a much different skillset, intuition and psychology play a much greater role than raw brainpower does.
Having studied both pretty seriously in-depth, I disagree. Intuition/Psychology play a much lesser role in poker than most people think. Modern poker is focused almost entirely on the math, understanding ranges and frequencies. Polk talks a bit about it in the video here. As I said in my own comment, it's really two completely different types of intelligence required: spatial VS probabilistic reasoning. Neither innately requires more intelligence. If you're innately good at math you'll probably gravitate to poker, and if you're innately good at geometry you'll probably gravitate towards chess. Both require a ton of memorization to be played at the highest levels.
@@jonathanhenderson9422 i don't look at the top poker players and think they're all genuises. Whereas in chess I do. in chess it seems to be a requirement, poker it does not.
@@sam8922 One problem is that I don't know if most know who the "top poker players" are. Many people think of the most POPULAR poker players like Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu, but both are among the "old guard" players who came from an era when many did approach poker as a more psychological/intuitive game (granted Negreanu has tried to keep up with modern advances, and seems to be holding his own). Poker has had a tremendous evolution just within the past 20 years of young mathematical wizards coming into the game and deconstructing it far more than it ever has been before, and such players have dominated online and live cash games often outside the attention of the public eye. There is some crossover with talents like Tom Dwan, who was among the first to start applying these theoretical concepts in live games against the popular, old-style pros; but the game's even come a long way since Dwan first started dominating about a decade ago. However, if you haven't looked at modern poker theory in terms of GTO, ranges, frequencies, solvers... you really have no idea of the amount of work that goes into playing/beating the games at the highest levels. Even Doyle Brunson said that he thinks NLH is "dead" because he recognizes the power of solvers and how outdated the "old ways" are.
Chess is very different in that it's had a steady evolution for centuries. For a long time chess theory advanced by players simply plaything through positions to see what worked and what didn't. That evolution did take a leap forward with the advent of chess computers and now with chess AI, but these have mostly been more minor advances from what was already known (and it's not like any human will be able to calculate with the efficiency of AlphaZero), as opposed to poker where it's almost like a completely different game than how people were playing even 30 years ago.
There's also the fact that poker does have that element of luck, so as long as you have enough money you can play at whatever stakes you want to, and it may take a while before you know if you're profitable at those stakes. This is very different from Chess where you pretty much are your ELO if you're winning/losing at a 50% rate (which you should be if you've been playing for a while), and if you play someone higher/lower rated you should win/lose at a certain frequency depending on how large the disparity is. This basically means that the skill at the highest levels of poker is much more "hidden" than in chess. There's no rating system for poker, and there's no way to ostensibly distinguish the kind of thought that goes into a decision for a bad VS great poker players, while at least in chess sometimes bad/good moves are very obvious to almost anyone with a basic knowledge of the game. It's also the fact that there's far fewer options in poker, so even a bad player might frequently do the right thing because they often only have three decisions: call, raise, or fold.
Anyway, if you want to see the kind of brilliance required for poker at the highest level I'd recommend the books Modern Poker Theory and Play Optimal Poker 1 & 2. These books are far beyond how most amateurs think of the game, but are the meat and potatoes for top-level pros.
@@sam8922 In reality neither are. Just a bunch of nerds memorizing shit.
16:15 It doesn't make it more entertaining. It makes it so nobody wants to play with you. Alex can get away with it because she's a young, pretty girl. If I started to do that I'd lose my friends (and for good reason)
short answer is No
The one thing I disagree with is "letting people do whatever they want to do with their money." A lot of people need to be protected from themselves. It's not that people with higher wealth no more about investing it's that they're in a position to take more risks. Maybe instead of having a net worth level they could make it that you can only risk a certain amount of your net worth. The thought process here is the same reason the government limits what you can do with your 401k. They want to limit the likelihood that you will rely on government assistance at some point.
There's a reason why poker players statistically on average are more in favour of government welfare programs.
Wow kieth you are so wrong here I don't know where to begin. First of all how about Freedom? Keep your hands off my property same goes for the government. Also covid has shown clearly they DO want you dependant on them because it offers more control which seems to be what your advocating. As for who knows more about investing the poor or wealthy well excluding generational wealth I'd say the results speak for themselves. That said the government also hands out favors like hot cakes thanks to lobbyists. People should educate themselves and be free to do as they please as long as your not initiating violence......which the government has a monopoly on.....
This girl should be in the video thumbnail.
Bring GmHikaru on the pod! You two would hit it off most prob
Yep I’m officially a simp
He's got Kings what's going on??? LULZ
Doug has an 1800 elo?
Doug Polk is terrible at playing poker, but that's what makes him great. I nominated him as the best bc he plays like me. We stack it on the sharks. That's the only way we know how to play. I've never seen anyone play as hard as me like Polk.
Key to success? people doing stupid things, cute animals, or hot girls.... or some combination of the three.
@DougPolk Mike's lawyer here. My client "allegedly" stole a quarter million dollars. Big difference
No way
Doug said Magnus 😭😭😭😭
imho:
Poker crushers smarter than chess crushers > chess players > poker gamblers
Difficult to say. But the luck factor in chess, bridge, poker and backgammon is probably in that order. Least in chess and then as listed here before.
Chess isn't luck unless you count your opponents blundering
@@daytradersanonymous9955 I guess you make your own luck usually 😃
ruclips.net/video/DG1FS8SAyKg/видео.html
@@elvarg991 lol see blunder. Now low. No beginner, intermediate and usually advanced player is beating Magnus with luck even if he blunders😂
Its never been easy for young adults to figure out their future. what makes it difficult in the 21st Century is the massive debt and also the very high asset prices. Stocks and especially housing. Trim down govt size and spending, reduce debt, and the younger gen will benefit. But that will not likely happen. Especially if we vote the established parties.
She is such a nice and cute girl. Watched a hustler video right away. I even paused this video for it. I hope she gets a big audience.
She has a bigger audience than doug
Fuuuuuuckkkk yeah Garrett!!!!
Talked for 2 hours and you chose a title of a question which didnt even get answered. She basically said hmm I respect good players that go into chess to make more money, oh and btw is IQ or EQ more important in poker. Like cmon.
Decent argument. However, chess has zero luck.
Sure there is, if my opponent blunders a winning position isn't that lucky ?
@@thatguywhocooks Chess mathematically has zero luck.
Chess players require a higher IQ whilst a Poker player requires a higher EQ.
Chess is just memory and pattern recognition. High Iq helps as it does with everything but it’s not a strict requirement.
I mean the worse poker player in the world can get aces vs the best in the world kings and win an all in .. pretty sure the worse chess player in the world isn’t winning at all vs the best I love poker but come on chess is way harder
You’re confusing a single game with long term EV.
@@BeautifulFreakful ok even long term I can explain how to play poker to someone in 5 mins can’t do that with chess.. poker is 70 percent luck there is no luck in chess.. come on it’s not even close and I don’t even like chess
@@jasolnf0079 the rules of chess are also extremely simple to explain that’s not an argument. Over a single hand or game, poker is 80% luck, however over > 1,000,000 hands, poker is 100% skill. There is no way someone can be +EV above a certain amount if hands. The proof of poker being 100% skill based is that computers are now invariably beating humans by reaching Nash equilibrium strategies. If it were a luck based game, computers wouldn’t have an edge over humans.
Magnus would NEVER lose to 99% of chess players in the world. If your not a Super GM you'd have 0% chance of winning EVEN with a handicap like time or material
I think they should go get a room.
shes smart. rare.
poker is so boring compared to chess, lbh... now if you add drinking to the equation, it's closer .....
As a lifelong 2-5 grinder, I am getting a bit sick and tired of hearing about solvers and GTO. Upper limits players who solely support GTO are trying to make themselves sound more intelligent than they really are. They are trying to creatie an industry similar to that of wall street finance professionals or lawyers, where only they know the "science" and the "language"behind the secrets to the success. It's simply not true. At the end of the day, poker is a game of people, and adaptation in the game is critical; hence why exploitative poker in the hands of a very skilled player is still the best poker strategy to being a consistent winner. Don't get me wrong - GTO and theory are fundamental to understand, but it is being overmarketed.