One of the reasons that poker is so profitable for winning players is that the ‘losers’ are widely off the mark when judging their own ability in a game. The internet’s biggest cash games – $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha and $500/$1,000 six-max no-limit Hold’em – see some of the world’s best players sit down in them, but these same players refuse to play each other in heads-up cash games (apart from the fearless Patrik Antonius) because they’re smart enough to realise they’ve got no edge against each other.

Yet many people are not smart players, as is evident when a ‘live one’ (fish) sits down in a high stakes game – the table suddenly fills up and the waiting list is a mile long as the sharks try to feast before all the food is gone.