I've spent a bunch of time thinking about this over the years but haven't been able to come to a strong enough conclusion in any direction.

It's a common saying nowadays to hear things like "any 5/10nl winner today, if traveled back in time to 2009 would crush durrr... or insert any other time when any other player was considered then to be 'best alive; or whatever.

I have no problem with this type of statement on its surface due to how much stronger in fundamentals the general population is today. I certainly believe that the average 5/10 player now is far more fundamentally sound than any of these past 'best players alive'.

My question is though, how much do general poker smarts and I guess what I'd deem 'talent' or 'gifted natural ability' to determine counter strategies and exploit fundamentally sound players come into question as far as the 5/10 players of today to actually sit down against durrr in 2009 (or whoever, aba in 2007, w/e) and actually beat them. I remember Phil saying on a podcast that he felt there was a ceiling for the vast majority of people who just don't have enough talent won't ever be able to reach those heights. I guess the secondary question that arises from this is that ... if the 5/10 players of today actually are just better than these past crushers, would that not mean that talent is superseded by superior information which was once esoteric knowledge that has been propagated by places like RIO?

A parallel to this kind of questioning that I've also spent quite a bit of time considering is the whole issue of why is it that certain crushers are able to maintain their status among the elite levels .... (ike, phil, sauce, jungleman, ben86, ivey) while there are many others who were once considered to be crushers who have fluctuated through the stakes so much. I've seen players who used to beat 25/50nl regularly who have been reduced to grinding .5/1nl. Sometimes these players are able to regain their previous success but sometimes they aren't.

It's easy for me to look at myself and see how I had figured out certain exploitative strategies at certain times that have put me a class above the vast majority of my competition, but that doesn't mean I had any of this natural ability to just be a great poker player, I'd say I have some, certainly much more than the average player, but not nearly as much as guys at the very top. But, I was only able to figure out a few things within the current 'state of poker in it's evolution' that allowed me to win a ton of money. As these leaks have been plugged by the majority of the community who play in my games regularly, I've seen my winrate basically cut in half.

I think it's interesting that when looking at myself in comparison to someone like Ben, he seems to think that the only difference between him and I would be his work ethic. Certainly he could be right, my work ethic is okay, but it's not even in the same league as his, and I'm okay with that. There could be any number of reasons he's potentially biased in making such a claim but I suppose I just find it very interesting because it's in such stark contrast to Phil's belief that everybody has a ceiling and ceilings are just higher for some than others.

Interested on hearing others takes on this. Particularly top players who have strong opinions on it.