are these group 1 and group 2 hands from the sklansky LHE model from way back in the day?  Honestly, those don't have as much baring now as the game has changed a ton since then. Honestly, though, I've been out of the online game a while but I would say that NOTHING online compares to playing live.  It's a completely different game.  As far as skill level goes, I'd say it's WAY WAY WAY easier to play live at the equivalent stakes online.  And that will probably never change.  1/2 NLHE live will always be profitable to an aware player.  10/20+ NLHE will always be way tough live.... any LHE below 30/60 is generally not "that" difficult.  fairly straight forward play with minor adjustments to each player can carry you a long way.

When ppl / articles speak of the game evolving what is meant by this?   Is there a easy answer to this?   

But how have opponents changed?   There have always been ATC players,rocks,super agg,weak-tight etc.etc.   Sounds like some more 2+2 bs to keep folks buying books.   Every table is different, always has been always will be.   Adjusting or figuring out each players tendencies is the same today as it was in 1950.


So a person needs to play AA diff today than they did last year?


Game evolves?   There are still 52 cards in the deck and the #'s for outs,pot odds, implied odds etc.etc.   ,haven't changed as far as I know.

^^^   Very well said.   Thank you.

The difference is that today there's a lot more knowledge in a lot higher % of players. You can't stereotype based on race or age or gender or clothing anymore.



And yes, correct, you can't play AA the same way as you used to in the past, the chance of getting it all in preflop is slim-to-none, unless your opponent is short-stacked. People are really willing to play flops nowadays, some of them cuz they are "hit to win" gamblers, others are the type who check-call check-raise the turn really often in order to steal big pots and get action on their actual monsters.

And also nowadays most NL200 tables will have at least 3 or 4 stacks over $500 when you sit down -- and it sometimes takes a while to figure out if they are LAGtard gamblers who have reloaded once or twice and finally got lucky, or if they are nits who got paid off by TPNK a couple of times.

Your AA might get no action if you've been tight and are unlucky enough to wake up with it UTG and raise to a "get only 1 or 2 callers" size, but if you raise too small you'll get 6 callers "looking to hit the flop" and you'll be completely guessing where you're at until the showdown. But sometimes there's that "will raise if nobody else does" moron in LP so *shudder* limping with AA might be optimal in that scenario.


TL;DR
Sure in the past you also had to adjust to the table, but today it ain't as easy as it used to be, it takes more work to adjust because there's less chance you're up against 9 drunk knuckle-dragging recreational droolers just begging to donate to your kids' college fund.