Who are the fish?

[Marquis]

I feel like I should introduce myself before I ask these questions, because there are many of them.

I am fairly new to internet poker, having started playing less than 6 months ago. In that time I've been bouncing around a few sites playing micro-limit and nano-NL. Probably like most people, I blew my initial deposit because I had no idea how to play hold 'em; I'd only seen it on TV and dabbled in it with some friends. I didn't deposit any more money for a month or two, but I was still very interested in the game and had an itch to get back. I did some research, including reading Hellmuth's book (yeah I know), picking a friend's brain who was having a great deal of success playing online, and sharpening some skills in my home game. I also picked up HPFAP but it went way over my head so I didn't read it, and still haven't. I do have SSHE on order, though.

I learned about bonuses and was able to get some playing experience by playing ultra-tight limit hold-'em, gradually loosening and become more agressive as I went on. I gained further experience, and profit way beyond my expectations, playing nano-NL. I feel that playing that game made me a much better limit player. So through all of this playing and discovering these forums I've made myself into a winning player. Perhaps not a good player, but a winning one nonetheless.

Which brings me to my questions. Who are all the fish that make playing online profitable for all of us? What kind of people are they, typically? Do most people continue to lose and lose, or do they become winning players eventually? Are there fish that make one deposit, lose it all, never to return again? Why are there SO MANY fish feeding the winning tables? It seems to me that fish would become winning players quickly or quit the game entirely. Is all this fishiness due to a steady influx of new blood? How do fish even find out about sites like Pacific? Because there certainly are lots of them there but I've never seen them advertise where the fish are likely to swim.

And perhaps the most puzzling to me is: How can there be fish at 15/30 type tables? How much do THEY lose?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Which brings me to my questions. Who are all the fish that make playing online profitable for all of us? What kind of people are they, typically? Do most people continue to lose and lose,

Not at all. The typical losing player probably wins better than 1/3 of his sessions. That's why poker is such a lucrative game. Bad players can, and do, win a reasonable amount of the time. That way they keep coming back. The typical "fish" loses his money slowly, winning often enough to keep hope alive.

[scotnt73]

[ QUOTE ]
Which brings me to my questions. Who are all the fish that make playing online profitable for all of us? What kind of people are they, typically? Do most people continue to lose and lose,

Not at all. The typical losing player probably wins better than 1/3 of his sessions. That's why poker is such a lucrative game. Bad players can, and do, win a reasonable amount of the time. That way they keep coming back. The typical "fish" loses his money slowly, winning often enough to keep hope alive.

[/ QUOTE ]

exactly. also most losing players convince themselves that they are a break even players. i have several frinds who play locally and think they are better than average. the truth is they suck-bad. i hint at books and two plus two but they just dont do it. it blows my mind but there they are watching the wpt and playing holdem 3 nights a week without ever cracking a book.

it kinda seems like the skill guys(chess, backgammon, hearts, spades) do very well and learn the game while the gambling guys give us thier money and look for the rush. some us are both and have to beat the gambling guy part of our personality to death in order to start winning. to this day(1 1/2 years later) i still talk to myself while playing online to keep myself from just gambling.

[Marquis]

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also most losing players convince themselves that they are a break even players.

[/ QUOTE ]
That blows my mind, considering that they can see their rolls dwindle and their deposit button depressing.

I think I read somewhere that SSHE was doing well in terms of sales. Shoul we expect that to have a noticeable effect on the the overall quality of online play? Has it happened already?

[scotnt73]

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also most losing players convince themselves that they are a break even players.

[/ QUOTE ]
That blows my mind, considering that they can see their rolls dwindle and their deposit button depressing.

I think I read somewhere that SSHE was doing well in terms of sales. Shoul we expect that to have a noticeable effect on the the overall quality of online play? Has it happened already?

[/ QUOTE ]

ah but keeping track of your money and using a bankroll is what successful players use not fish. when i use the word bankroll in front of my friends they think im trying to sound like a big shot and tease me.

they just show up on payday play and if they win they spend it. next payday they do the same. its money they can afford to lose not the bill money and some weeks they pocket a few hundred.

its like golf. i can suck all day long but when we go get a beer afterwards all i remember is that beutiful tee shot on the 4th that landed right next to the hole. for that one shot i was as good as tiger woods.

[gmunny]

Good post and some good points. I would guess many players, as Scott says, are "recreational" players and play for the fun of it.

[moondogg]

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That blows my mind, considering that they can see their rolls dwindle and their deposit button depressing.

I think I read somewhere that SSHE was doing well in terms of sales. Shoul we expect that to have a noticeable effect on the the overall quality of online play? Has it happened already?

[/ QUOTE ]

ah but keeping track of your money and using a bankroll is what successful players use not fish. when i use the word bankroll in front of my friends they think im trying to sound like a big shot and tease me.



[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but if you deposit $100 on a poker site and lose it, and then deposit another $100 and lose that too, eventually you are going to notice that you're never withdrawing. It's a sterile environment, it's not mixed in with your cigarette money or loose change. Or, do people actually cashout their $20 profit from a lucky streak and say "I'm winning"?

[MicroBob]

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I think I read somewhere that SSHE was doing well in terms of sales. Shoul we expect that to have a noticeable effect on the the overall quality of online play? Has it happened already?

[/ QUOTE ]


i have joked a few times that i am hoping that the sales of this book are terrible.
but seriously, i am not that concerned about it.
there will be several who kinda-sorta read it and then mis-apply the concepts and actually make themselves more LAG-ish.


info on how to play decently has always been around...but precious few actually care about the 'experts' have to say and just like to rely on their own hunches of what is correct without being too intellectual about it.


just like all the blackjack players i used to deal to (8 months as a dealer).
most players KNOW that you should hit on your 14 or 16 vs. 7-10 but will say things like 'i don't BELIEVE in doing that' or 'that doesn't work for me'....as if the cards effect them differently.


another example - a fairly intelligent friend of mine and i play chess every once in awhile and he beats me maybe 1 out of every 4 or 5 games.
i told him that he really had potential to be a pretty decent player if he looked at a couple of books (just some fundamental stuff...or ABC of Chess by pandolfini...or whatever)... but he's in grad-school and is pretty busy.

he likes playing the occasional game in his free-time but he doesn't actually want to spend time studying the game.

this is how a lot of poker-players are....they enjoy playing but don't actually want to put effort into it...especially since it just looks like a game of luck anyway and whatever advantage they could milk out by reading 400 pages really doesn't make that much difference as far as they can tell.

[scotnt73]

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ah but keeping track of your money and using a bankroll is what successful players use not fish. when i use the word bankroll in front of my friends they think im trying to sound like a big shot and tease me.



[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but if you deposit $100 on a poker site and lose it, and then deposit another $100 and lose that too, eventually you are going to notice that you're never withdrawing. It's a sterile environment, it's not mixed in with your cigarette money or loose change. Or, do people actually cashout their $20 profit from a lucky streak and say "I'm winning"?

[/ QUOTE ]

online is different. the low limit fish online 90% of them eventually quit while 10% get better(obviously rough estimates). so i feel that the online fish come on, get cleaned, and then leave. 3 more are waiting to take thier
place at the table. some of the fish rebuy a few times before giving up. a very very small percentage get tired of losing and actually study to get better. this is why the pond needs to be constantly restocked in some way or another.

[scotnt73]

yep. also alot of fish READ every new poker book that comes out but dont STUDY them weekly like we do. i see people on here all the time state ive read A,B,C,D,E and im still losing after 5 months! you know they arent studying. there is no way you can read eds book and then put it on the shelf and think youve absorbed all his knowledge somehow.

[Simon Diamond]

And perhaps the most puzzling to me is: How can there be fish at 15/30 type tables?

Rich people who aren't so bothered if they lose as long as they enjoy the game, or people who move up and find themselves out of their depth - it's not always easy to swallow your pride and step back down a level.

Simon

[moondogg]

[ QUOTE ]
I think I read somewhere that SSHE was doing well in terms of sales. Shoul we expect that to have a noticeable effect on the the overall quality of online play? Has it happened already?


[/ QUOTE ]
I don't see how it could possibly have any noticible effect whatsoever.

WLLH has been out for years. While it may teach you to be a weak-tight pansey, it SHOULD keep you from losing your ass in the microlimits. At least it would keep you from cold-calling raises with any two soooted. If the spoon-feeding of WLLH hasn't tightened the fish up over the years, they aren't going to touch SSHE with a 10-foot pole.
And if they do, they won't study it. They won't get it. They'll misapply it, and start handing out money even faster.
The people who will read it have already read WLLM or TOP or any of the other books. They stand out at the micro tables like a hooker in church, just like you. You can't miss'em, and you of course stay out of their way, and they stay out of yours. Now they will be a little better, as will you. The sheep are still sheep.

"It's just the nature channel. You don't see the lions eating each other, do you?"

[MicroBob]

right....my favorites are:

i've read all the books cover to cover. so i know what i'm doing.
i've done blah blah blah....and blah blah blah....
i play squeaky-tight pre-flop....for example, i only play around 35% of my hands.



then...after we establish that the guy's 35% really is on a full-ring game (not 5-max or something) we are left saying 'ummmm...better go back and read again'.


btw...the number of players who ask questions about their VPIP or SF numbers without even posting whether it's limit or NL or mentioning whether they play 6-max or full is pretty aggrevating.
quite a few threads here where it took several posts before the initial poster says 'oh....guess i should have said i play NL 6-max...does that make much of a difference for the stats?'

again...these are often people who claim to have read every book cover to cover. so clearly the information is not being properly absorbed by everyone.



my greatest concern regarding SSHE is that the information is spelled out so freaking well that it would be tough to misinterpret many of the basic concepts.
but some of the more complicated stuff is already being misinterpreted by many on these forums.....so i suspect it could lead to some laggish play.

and threads like the one pokerhorse has gotten involved in have convinced me that some people simply have no chance...no matter how easy you make it for them.


i truly think that a lot of 'smart' people aren't really that smart. they just have the ability to recognize when their initial ideas or conclusions might be incorrect.
others simply do not have the ability to acknowedge that they are wrong....thus they stay blissfully ignorant.


it's stubborn stupidity vs. open-mindedness a lot of the time that makes the difference between a winning player and a losing player.

[MicroBob]

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They stand out at the micro tables like a hooker in church

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what church do you go to?

[pokerjo22]

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That blows my mind, considering that they can see their rolls dwindle and their deposit button depressing

[/ QUOTE ]

You've not been in many casinos then.

[pfkaok]

Yeah, when I started playing quite a bit I really had to think long and hard about this, b/c by nature I'm inquisitive, and skeptikal when things seem to good to be true...like being able to sit at my computer and play what seems to me like a RPG video game that never ends, and get paid well to do it. When you really think about it though, its actually quite simple... deep down people love to gamble. winning a huge pot to somebody is like winning a jackpot, so they are contiously making -EV bets (obviously not even thinking about expected outcome, or longrun) hoping that they can get lucky and come out big. Anyone able to do arithmetic knows that craps, roullette, slots, ect. are all losing games, but look how much money they bring to casinos constantly. People playing these games aren't there thinking, "wow, this is fun to lose $5 for every 100 that I bet". People are thrilled by the action. I'm sure most people remember the rush the first time they made a winning bet on sports, dice, or whatever, even though the bet itself may well have been a -EV move. The people like us out there who work hard to learn the game well by reading books and message boards are the vast, vast minority in the world of poker. You have the people who are entirely there for the gamble, the never-fold type guys. They contribute the most money to the game. Although these people only play occasionally, there are so many of them at the lower limits, and they contribute so much that just their precence makes the game profitable. Also, by not playing frequently they don't really know how much they lose when they do, and an occasional winning day keeps them coming back. Then you can add in the semi-regular guys who always overestimate their ability. Maybe they've read a book or an article on hold 'em, so they consider themselves experts. In a low limit game they can probably be around break even players b/c of some of the awful players, but most players like this have very selective memories. If you're break even, its easy to have 2-3 winning sessions in a row and conclude that its a result of your superior play. Losing streaks are of course attributed to bad beats, and lousy luck that will surely turn around. If you know anything about statistics and standard deviation, its very likely for somebody who plays 1-2 times per week to be mislead by their win/loss results. Some winners will enivitably be down, while some losers are up. The great thing about poker, is that nobody ever considers themselves to be lucky, and thats why they win. I'd love to meet somebody who has won a moderate, but not significant amount over a few months or a year and say, "These guys are probably better than me, I've just been getting my share of cards.". On the flip side though, almost all slithgt losers "have been running bad" and are "due" to start hitting their cards. After all, for example anytime you lose less than $50 in a given 3-6 session, you can almost always look back and say "if I'd just hit that one draw or if i didn't get drawn out on that gutshot, I would have had a winning day.". For the slightly losing player, probably at least 2/3 of their days will either be a win, which is what should always happen, or a small to meium loss, in which just one more pot would have done it. So most of the time they either come out winners, or "should have" come out winners if they weren't unlucky. Another great thing about hold 'em is that everyone, esp. the medium-loose player has certain hands that are borderline for any given situation, and decisions to call a bet or raise PF with those hands is often done on a whim. (Mike Caro gives a great example of this in his law of loose wiring). The great thing about this though is that most of these players come into the game with an idea of what hands are good, or playable, and these are usually too loose to begin with. Then the last second decisions almost always make them want to gamble more, or play a few more hands than they'd say they should if you asked them away from the table when there isn't a pot to be won. Maybe they have Q6o and a lot of queens have been flopping. Or maybe they'll cold call 2 bets with 45 of spades b/c those 2 suited cards just look so nice next to each other. Then they get luck, flop the flush, but they love being sneaky and "outplaying" or fooling people, so they only smooth call a flop bet, let it check around on the turn, and when the 4th one hits they bet out of frustration, and then are raised by the guy who hit the big flush. Of course this is just awful luck, and this hand could have turned the day around. They'll never look back at that and think that calling a raise with a hand like that PF is a mistake, or that giving infinite odds to the flush draw was wrong. After all they played it ideally, b/c if they have bet or raised more they would have just lost more money. it was the damn dealer who had to go and ruin the hand! Also, some people have amazingly acurate memories when it comes to hands that they would have won big pots on if they had only called a bet or 2 before the flop. This might only be at the subconscious level, but some people will make calls that they know are bad, but for some reason the memory of that time a few months ago where they would have flopped the full house and taken down a monster pot with this same poor PF hand causes them to call. After all, $3 is a small price when you could stand to win a hundred dollar pot. Of course these players have no understanding or appreciation for randomness, so one "bad beat" and then its time to tilt.

I think that the bottom line is that to be successful at poker requires a tight aggressive style, which is extremely un-natural. The only people who play this way have either been taught to, read about it, or are just extremely good with probability and game theory. Also, even amongst those who do read and study the game, I'm willing to bet that a good % have some sort of personality type, or mental block, or for whatever reason, cause them to think illogically when they're in the heat of the battle. Its so hard to grasp an entire hold 'em book when you don't have much experience, so a lot of book smart newbies freeze up and become way too weak-tight and predictable. Then there are others who just get caught up in the gamble, and chance to win big that their emotions force them to play too loosely. I know that when I first started playing after reading over HPFAP (not the best choice for a newbie with no bankroll and minimal experience to try to grasp in order to play the local $3-6 game) I was super weak. But since I had read a book "for advanced players" I must be way better than these "calling stations" (newly aquired lingo at the time) and I should clean them out like Mike McD and the NY rounders do to all the tourists in AC. I'm by no means an expert, or even close to it now, but when I think back to how I played, and the way I reasoned when I was starting, now I'd be able to pick apart somebody who played like I did back then. And if there was a big PF pot, and I made a semi-bluff check-raise with middle pair and and overcard to get heads up with a moron, and then the old-me folded top pair, only to watch middle pair hold up unimproved and take a good-sized pot, I know what the old-me type player would think. "this guy is a loose cannon. How could he possibly think his hand was good on the flop. I'll just be patient, and when I get a hand I'll be able to bait these suckers in for a HUGE pot."
Anyways, I think that there's an abundance of players like this out there, and since this style still can get it done in wild games, there's no reason for them to think their style is flawed at all. After reading a book or two, most people who are reasonably intelligent have trouble admitting flaws in their general strategy. They won't be overly abnoxious and claim to be worldclass at picking up tells and reading people, but at the same time its likely that they think their style and basic gameplay is near flawless. So if somebody makes a play that isn't "textbook", they'll conclude that it must be a bad play, or a crazy player. More time and energy is spent on wondering how these awful players keep winning by playing badly, and they don't take the time to notice plays that they'd never think of that the better players make routinely. This is why the bitching and "why do i even bother playing with you fish?" that goes on all the time at party is amusing to me in some ways. It bothers me that they're teaching the awful players and making them feel bad, when they're just there to gamble, but I take solice in the fact that there are so many players out there always looking for excuses and why others are wrong. And I know that if these players keep focusing on this I'll never have to worry about them improving and ever becoming more than break even, or at best slight winners. Way too long on this post probably, but I just find it so interesting to delve into the minds of people who can make good money for even somebody like me who has no inborne poker greatness, simply by having slightly above avererage intelligence, and a little willingness for improvement. I only wish that I could be a pro basketball player just by trying hard and thinking about the game a lot.

[roundhouse]

Is there an executive summary for this post?

[alfman]

This has to be some kind of 2+2 record. Good God, it would take me a week to read that novel /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[pfkaok]

this is also in interesting article I read a while ago

http://www.leggmason.com/billmiller/conference/illustrations/nelson.asp

The 2 questions on there are interesting, but since I read this I've asked several of my friends and people I know. I even skew the numbers that they used to make the correct answers more obvious to somebody thinking EV. I'll ask, you could either a. win $250 or b. have a 30% chance to win $1000

then would you rather a. lose $750, or b. have 80% chance to lose $1000

Some of you should try this. I was surprised.
It's amazing how NEARLY everybody gets both ones wrong. After at least 25-30 people I think 2 got both right, and only a few got 1 right. Also most of my friends who I ask are intelligent people, either graduating soon from good colleges, or already with degree in law or med school. TO me this is very telling, and explains why money-management, win $100 and leave systems are so popular. People want a sure when if they can have it. This causes, "the pots big enough as is", and failure to push edges and punish draws. And the reverse one results in paying WAY more than you should to hit the miracle card. Also why its so common for people to never want to quit while they're stuck.

I think that this simple fact alone...that people are willing to make -EV moves for psychological reasons might be enough to ensure a healthy influx of fish for the online poker community. Also, the % of the total good players leaving the game is probalby just as high as the % of fish leaving. The worst portion of the fish leave b/c they get cleaned out. Converesley the best of the good players leave b/c they move up to a bigger game inevitably.

[pfkaok]

sorry all, started writing, got sidetracked, then when I got back to it had trouble wrapping things up quick. Made a much more concise opinion my 2nd time. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Gotmilk]

I've always thought this question is a better representation of the marginal utility of money rather than the idiocy of people when given the chance to gamble. Ask Joe Blow off the street whether he'd rather lose $750 or an average of $800, it doesn't matter to him--both events are catastrophic. At least for an extra $50 you have the chance of averting the catastrophe. The extra $50 has less value than the first $50!