Strategy Games

Strategy games have existed in various forms for a very long time. From simple card games to more sophisticated computer games played with thousands of people, the cream of the crop tend to exhibit many tendencies such as the ability to manage resources, plan ahead, and an uncanny knack to adjust their own game-plan on the fly. As you can imagine, some popular strategy games like World of WarCraft, StarCraft, Magic the Gathering, and chess have created some of the top poker professionals.

Current PokerStars pro David Williams used to be one of the best Magic the Gathering players. Magic the Gathering is a sci-fi based card game. Another PokerStars.com sponsored pro from France, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, was a former top ranked StarCraft and WarCraft player. Elky did so well he was a professional gamer and lived in South Korea for a time before going on to retire and turning to poker. Former World Series of Poker November Nine player Ylon Schwartz is a chess master and used to hustle chess players for money.

These strategy games, just like poker, all require a high level of thinking and play if you want to climb the ladder up to the top. The best strategy gamers can readily adapt their own skillset to the game of poker. Being able to understand what your opponent is doing and developing strategies to defeat them is paramount. In the future it would not surprise me at all to see more and more online strategy game players move into the realm of online poker. With an ever changing board and thousands of opponents to play, each poker hand is different and the money is pretty good too.

Curtis Steuber.