Has live poker gotten tougher? Have the games become harder to beat? Has the skill level of players across the board increased? These are common questions or assertions I hear from poker players in 2026 and I wanted to weigh in with my opinion. 

Most Poker Players Have Improved

Undoubtedly, most poker players have improved over time. Any players willing to put in the effort to get better at poker have been able to do so through playing experience, evaluation of play, and/or study of theory. With the advances in technology over the last decade or so, the tools to improve in poker have elevated dramatically, making it easier than ever to get better. Things like study groups and training courses simply did not exist 20 years ago.

When I started playing poker, the best avenue of getting good feedback on strategy would be to ask a friend or debate on a message board. With the superior tools available today, the path to better poker is there, it is just a matter of effort and execution. 

Have Poker Games Gotten Harder To Beat?

This is the most interesting question to me. Has the general advancement in skill resulted in tougher games? To answer this, we have to understand how that advancement in skill level has manifested over the years and the difference between absolute and relative skill.  While all players have improved, not all players improved the same amount. Also, not all players had the same starting point. Here’s a graphic I made to illustrate this idea:

In this graphic, the sliding skill of 0 to 100 represents absolute skill level. That is, skill level in the sense of moving closer towards playing perfect poker with 0 being as bad as one could possibly play, and 100 being perfection. The red dot represents weaker players, the yellow dot represents average breakeven players, and the green dot represents winning players. 

Notice that while all players have improved over time, they did not have the same starting point or the same advancement of skill. In the past, the strong players did not play as well from an absolute skill perspective, but still had a large skill on their competition due to relative skill.

In the graph representing the present, we can see all players advanced down the absolute skill line, but at different rates. Naturally stronger players have put more work into their improvement over the years, taking better advantage of the new tools available to get better than the other player types. 

Therefore we see stronger players gaining the most ground on the absolute skill line and still maintaining their edge over their opponents, despite their opponents improving as well.  If anything, this kind of graphic really illustrates the advancement of the game and the importance of staying sharp over time. 

Poker Game Selection

So have games gotten tougher? Is live poker harder to beat these days? Ultimately, we are going to arrive on the most common poker answer of all time: “It depends.” 

It really depends on what kind of games you are playing and the players in them. While the tools are out there, not all players are aiming to be famous “professionals” or sinking a ton of time into improvement. There is still a large pool of recreational players who play poker for fun as a hobby. Especially at lower stakes, I would say that live poker has not gotten significantly tougher.  

At higher stakes, while the level of competition has certainly improved at an absolute skill level, hopefully if you are playing high stakes poker regularly, you have improved as well. Whenever I think back to how I played years ago, I am usually quick to find mistakes. We are all just doing the best with the knowledge we have at the moment. 

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