The article misses how poker went through a similar transformation with solvers. Up until a few years ago, the best players used theory and principles to devise

The article misses how poker went through a similar transformation with solvers. Up until a few years ago, the best players used theory and principles to devise their own personal strategies. Those whose strategies were theoretically the strongest, and who executed them the best, rose to the top. Aggression always seemed to be crucial to the best strategies. Nowadays, solvers have basically removed decisions from preflop play, but include randomization of certain moves (E.g., raise 1/3 of the time, call 50% of the time, fold 17% of the time). Then, on certain boards, you can tell the solver which sizes you want it to be available to it (e.g., 1/3 pot, 1/2 pot, 2/3 pot, full pot, 2x, etc.) and it will give you an unbeatable play style under those conditions. And so on. The game isn't solved and no human without real-time assistance would be able to play perfectly, but solvers have fundamentally changed how people prepare and play, and those who haven't studied the solutions get destroyed. An old guard has been left behind, and nerdy people who can work sims have risen to the top. The article here explains how a similar thing has happened to chess. Like the article states, some have whined that this "removes creativity" from chess. Poker players have argued the same thing: what it takes to become the best is simply now different. You must study hard, and if you can execute what you study, you can be a great player without having a great "poker mind." In reality, the game is so complex that you still need a great poker mind to navigate the parts of the game tree which you haven't studied, just like in chess. Undoubtedly this will change WHO decides to invest their time into becoming great chess players, and the personalities of the best players will be different. But it always struck me as sour grapes to whine that you can no longer be the best without studying the game more scientifically. Basically every game has been "moneyballed," including Chess, and people are leagues better at every game than they ever have been. We should welcome that.