I've played 7 Wonders for years, and recently played with friends. I kept losing despite thinking I had a grasp on the game. Recently I read an exhaustive advanced guide on BGG and from that point forward I've finished close to 1st/2nd with my friends.
> There should be no reason to ever study a game where a beginner stands a reasonable chance of winning. I want a game that rewards experience, that permits further study, that has meaning to its replayability.
I agree with you and disagree with the article on this point. I think a truly good game must have an explicit, adjustable factor of randomness or odds so you can match different levels of players and play for fun. It's hard to balance, but that's the point of game design: rules simple enough to be accessible, but that at the same time can combine in infinite ways giving each game depth, and have the opportunity to match players of different levels without that being overwhelming.
The randomness makes poker nearly impossible to study though. You can only look back and determine if your decision was right if you had had complete information, but you didn’t and won’t in the future so that’s not as meaningful as it may be on other games.