I remember reading about Moneymaker rising up from the internet circuit to play in the professional competition and how people looked down on him as not ready for professional play. Is this a common attitude amongst the pros to look down on home internet players? Did Moneymaker change all of this by beating the best guys around in the World Series?

Before the WPT and the growth of on-line poker, experienced players could sit down at a tournament table and be fairly safe in assuming that any unknown player would be easy to beat. That's no longer true because of the expansion of poker and the huge amount of experience on-line players can get in such a short amount of time. There are on-line players who only started playing poker just in the last year who have more tournament experience than myself and most pros. The pros who continue to lump all new faces together are making a big mistake. While I still prefer to be at a table full of unknown internet players than at a table with Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, John Juanda and others with lots of live experience, I won't jump to conclusions about how they play.

Moneymaker was not a beginner by any stretch of the imagination except in live poker tournaments. Many of the other players didn't adjust quick enough to his style of play -- and Moneymaker benefitted greatly because of that. Moneymaker made some bad plays but he also made some great plays, especially near the end. He, as well as many of the WPT winners and finalists, made some pros take notice and the smart ones are changing their games accordingly.

Hey Andy, Oz here.

I'd be interested in what sort of adjustments you think the smart pros need to be making to the new breed.

I've been playing a lot of internet tourneys in the last year and I see a huge number of mistakes made by even the successful internet tourney players. I would assume that these players make the same kind of mistakes when they play in RL.

Some of the major exploitable mistakes I see large numbers of internet players make are:

1) Always limping under the gun or playing "second hand low" (and sometimes third and fourth!) with AA (or even KK!)

2) Way overvaluing medium pairs and not laying them down when the situation clearly warrants it.

3) Giving free cards with hands like top pair, top kicker.

4) Making "limit" type raises in no-limit, just begging to be drawn out on.

So, it seems to me that any "adjustments" you need to make are similar to the ones you need to make against someone you believe has little experience. What adjustments were you refering to?

Thanks,

-Oz-