Translation: I know nothing, but everything I said was more or less correct despite my knowing nothing. Otherwise, if I had been wrong about something, account would have actually explained how I was wrong.
Polk's chart says it all pretty clearly. Once this kicks in, anyone playing tournament poker can tell themselves all the grandiose narcissistic stories they want. The bottom line is that this legislation has magically transformed large numbers of good poker players from (and God, I hate these braindead labels) "sharps" to "squares."
The question is whether they will acknowledge that they are now "squares" playing a purely donation game with a clearly negative "EV," or if they will find a way to talk themselves into the fantasy that their poker skills still provide some kind of tournament edge, while top professionals will argue that such an edge has clearly evaporated.
Let the addicts' cognitive dissonance begin! Sit back and grab the proverbial popcorn. More than 99% of tournament poker players are now inarguably saps unless they are being sponsored. How will accepting this fact of life affect the "poker community?" Will tournament poker actually suffer, or will all those folks who want to pretend they are winning poker players work harder to delude themselves? How can tournament poker players argue that what they are doing is "+EV?" They cannot. It's going to be comical, because the people who are going to argue most that tournament poker is now simply a donation mill are going to be the very best players.
To put it bluntly, if you are going to argue that tournament poker players have an edge because they are ahead, you may as well argue that winning lottery players have an edge because they are ahead.