Maths and statistic are a great way to evaluate decisionmaking in poker more than any other game. Starting from simple formulas adressing basic concepts like pot-odds, equities range .vs range etc. the poker community, and by community I mean the quantity of professionals, semiprofessionals and those who aspire to become pros, has evolved ideas and concepts of poker to a increasingly abstract, general and pretentiously scientific level.

In field applications seem to fade while the new narative on pokersites involves mainly topics of GTO vs Exploitative, minimum defence frequencies etc. The intellectual level of these discussions is indeed high and might have value in scientific or philosophical regards, but less in practical issues. I even find it destructive towards the established player´s minds as well as the appeal of poker for new and recreational players.

When GTO is the topic, people talk about being non-exploitable. This statement implies that you as a player are (potentially) being exploited. What a scary image that is. Who wants to be exploited in any circumstance. Now can we as humans really differentiate between the term "exploited" or ""bluffed" , "fooled" or even "betrayed"? I guess not.

What seperates the recreational player who hero calls the river because " I dont wanna get bluffed by this guy" between the reg who makes the same call, maybe even mistrusting his inital (exploitative) reads, by stating something like " this is x% of my range, this hands fits into my mdf, if I fold i get exploited by folding too much , therefore I have to call". In my opinion, the quality of the play remains the same as the action taken is the exact same. Player 2 might have thought deeper about the situation, or he pretented to do so. Yet by the end of the day, decisions in poker boil down to binary decisions, so why overcomplicate the fact that you sometimes win and often both of the decisions are so close in EV that a completly arbitrary approach will show the same results. Why do we try to contstruct purely theoretical solutions, when other options have a similar impact? Many hands play themself regardless of expertise or strategic approach. AA vs KK GII close to 100% preflop regardless of anyones skill.

Maybe I am not smart enough or maybe just ingnorant in that regard, but I have yet to see an apealing answer to the GTO question. When someone does, it usually starts with "imagine a toy game where player 1 has x bluffs and y value and..." . This is hugely flawed as this toy game only applies to river play. Preriver, a definite distintction between pure value and pure bluff cannot be made. The river is the street where least decisions are made in relations to all other streets. and many of them are cristal clear even without knowing anything about frequencies. In the end, I dont have to be perfectly balanced when betting, I only need to be perceived to be by my opponent.

Lastly, the poker economy is based upon simple principles. The more losing players there are, the more others can win. The more new and losing players stream into the lower stakes, the more likely it is for players to move up. These players can be beaten with quiet trivial and unsurprising approaches, they can be beaten easily and for higher winrates.

I can only imagine being a total novice joining the scene reading some articles on the various forums. I would be confused and overwhelmed. As a new player, I wouldnt wanna play a game that appears to require skills of a rocket scientist in order to succeed. I would want to be involved in a fun focused environment rather than a science club. Dont get me wrong, I do not intent to diminish people working hard on the topic. I only do believe that working in a different direction by building up the poker economy by making the game popular again amongst many different people will be more beneficial to everyone involved.