'Online fish', an endangered species

I win some online at the moment, but will I be able to in the future?

I'm not really familiar with how to run a cardroom, but won't you eventually run out of fish? Live poker rooms have tourists passing by, losing money, but online I guess only 'real poker players' play. And a poker player would realise after a while if he's not good enough to win and quit.

Is the online fish an endangered species?

Actually from what I've seen, I think there are probably more online than live.


It's almost like some treat online poker like a video game.


That's good for the players who play to win.


As far as running out of fish. As long as there are hooks with bait (online and live games) around, there will be fish being caught.


The lakes never run out do they?


Same here... :>)


KC50

the players online are way better than live.


unless you play .50/1.00 online and 20-40 live.


agreed that there are plenty of fish.

I play at a local casino with almost no tourist traffic yet the games remain good. The fish lose at a rate they can (almost?) afford and come back regularly until late in the month when money gets tight. The fish can also kid themselves about their loss rate, it's all cash sneaking out of their wallet.


I think online will prove unstable. The losses are on your credit card statement, undeniable. It's also becoming quite difficult to fund these online accounts. That will cut the earn for all winners.

theres no question in my mind that the level of play in an online $5/$10 is higher than my local 20/40.


The paradise 10/20 is usally sometimes tough,and is NEVER loose, most live 40/80s have more fish, and are better games. paradise 20/40 is out of my league for now.


this doesnt mean there arent any fish online. the fish are just harder to catch.


i think most winning players are playing against truly sucky opposition. i think most winning players can only win because they play way tighter pre-flop than their opponents and draw with pot odds. once they play at paradise, nearly everyone plays reasonably tight, so this advantage is taken away.


these tight winning players who beat loose/weak live games are the fish on-line.

Paradise may be the best online site in terms of software and game selection, but you have to ask yourself one question. Are you playing poker to play or to make money? If the answer is the latter, many alternatives are available without the bells and whistles but with better action. I lost on Paradise and win elsewhere, but your mileage may vary.


Jeff

Well that's were I am right now. Actually mostly $1-2 online, some $0.50-1.00, and even less $0.25-0.50. My BB per hour rate is higher at $1-2 than at $0.50-1.00 and even less at $0.25-0.50.


And yes, you're right. I play medium stakes live.


I am only playing online at Planet. I have viewed the $10 and $20 games. IMO I haven't seen any full ring game yet I would want to avoid. The games that I have observed seemed to be pretty soft. However the $10 and $20 5-max tables I've seen were definitely tougher (IMO).


Check out my post above and comment if you please.


KC50

"these tight winning players who beat loose/weak live games are the fish on-line."


Bingo.


It's like the "hometown hero" affect in Vegas, but the heros don't even have to leave home to play with the Vegas pros now.


- Andrew

I play at Paradise but have not tried the other sites. Which ones are better for making money?

In my experience, all species of fishes are endangered.


Take home games, for example. Everyone I ever participated in required great effort on my part to hold them together. They are exceedingly fragile, and no matter what you do, they crumble eventually. Usually, the first thing I did with every home game was offer a liberal credit policy, to expand the money supply and make it easier to hide losses (for awhile) from the wife. For the really bad players, I’d try to educate them enough so, at the least, they wouldn’t get mauled every week. And, there were times I would purposely play badly, to give away money just to boost morale. The bottom line for all my effort was I probably extended the run, a little, of most of the games. It’s very tough because few people have enough excess income to squander and not feel the pinch, and if they don’t feel the pinch, their spouses do.


Take Atlantic City, for example. When they first spread poker in 1993, there was a stampede from up and down the East Coast to play poker. Rooms opened up, and filled up with hordes of unimaginably bad players. Within six months, the worst had disappeared, and within a year, the games had a decided Vegas feel to them. Now, you have to play pretty well at any limit to earn a few dollars.


Online, I don’t know. The opening stampede is over, I think, and a lot of fish have gone belly-up, but I don’t see how the remaining fishes have any hope of surviving the bombardment from better players at two to four times the speed of B&M poker. Online sites have the ability to actually track the dropout rate, and my guess is that it’s alarming. Every player that quits has to be replaced just to stay even. Looking at Planet Poker, as an example, I generally see between three hundred and three-fifty in the evenings (I don’t know what percentage is free play), and I can’t help but think their situation is precarious. Basically, unless online sites can slow the dropout rate, I don’t think they can keep up.


Tom D

Tom wrote, "Looking at Planet Poker, as an example, I generally see between three hundred and three-fifty in the evenings (I don’t know what percentage is free play), and I can’t help but think their situation is precarious. "


Why Tom? How do you know that Planet Poker has not already paid off its capital costs and now only needs enough to cover overhead? Anything more than the cost to maintain the servers and connections would be pure profit. Precarious? Yeah, pull the other one.


Why do I get the feeling you have not even considered the economics of online gambling? These sites are mushrooming with more than 1800 of them out there pulling in $3 billion a year, according to one study I read. You keep saying the fish are gone but new poker rooms keep opening up and the ones I go to, particularly Paradise and Planet are as busy or busier than I've ever seen them.


If you seriously think online poker is in danger after all the evidence presently to the contrary you are either dense or you have other motivations for making these posts.

Party poker has crappy software, but incredibly soft games. What level do you play? The 10-20 game there is fantastic and the low limit games are a joke, loose passive with everyone seeing the flop (like live). True Poker is another great site with great graphics but slower gameplay. Again, complete idiots through 2-4. 5-10 can be a bonanza late at night. Poker Room is another good one with good games. Pokerstars has good games, espescially if you can play pot limit and no limit well....can we say...soft?


Good Luck,


Jeff

You wrote, “How do you know that Planet Poker has not already paid off its capital costs and now only needs enough to cover overhead? Anything more than the cost to maintain the servers and connections would be pure profit. Precarious? Yeah, pull the other one.”


You’re right; I don’t know any of those things, but I don’t care. What I do know is that a poker room needs enough players to spread games, or people will go somewhere else. Think of it as similar to the concept of critical mass in physics.


You also wrote, “You keep saying the fish are gone but new poker rooms keep opening up and the ones I go to, particularly Paradise and Planet are as busy or busier than I've ever seen them.”


I haven’t said the fish are gone. I said some of the fish are gone. In my opinion, poker rooms that survive reach an equilibrium where new customers replace the patrons they lose. If the number of replacements falls short of the number of customers who leave, the room is in trouble.


You wrote, “If you seriously think online poker is in danger after all the evidence presently to the contrary you are either dense or you have other motivations for making these posts.”


I must be dense, because I don’t know what evidence you’re referring to.


Tom D

" Basically, unless online sites can slow the dropout rate, I don’t think they can keep up. "


Hmmm, seems like this might give sites an incentive to skew their software algorythyms to favor suckout draw players, and penalize big pair, tight aggressive types. I wonder if,, NAH!

Anyone who thinks bad players will continue to dump their paychecks down the toilet indefinitely is living in a fantasy world. It doesn't happen.


In the meantime, Paradise, for example, keeps chugging along with 2,500 or more players a day, never missing a beat. It's a real head-scratcher, isn't it?


Tom D

Anyone who thinks bad players will continue to dump their paychecks down the toilet indefinitely is living in a fantasy world. It doesn't happen.


Just so I don't get accused of setting up a strawman, are you really saying that these "bad players" are all going to dry up? Some will quit, no doubt. Some will improve into good players, hell, some will _die_. But to think that the online poker player pool is already reaching some kind of critical mass? IMO, _that_ is the fantasy.


In the meantime, Paradise, for example, keeps chugging along with 2,500 or more players a day, never missing a beat. It's a real head-scratcher, isn't it?


How many surf the web compared to 10 years ago? Compared to 5 years ago?


How many play MMORPGs compared to 10 years ago? Compared to 5 years ago?


How many shop online compared to 10 years ago? Compared to 5 years ago?


There are many legitimate potential pitfalls in online poker, such as legal hurdles regarding funding, site non-payment, and team play, but I seriously doubt that the player pool should be among those concerns.


The LA cardrooms are enormous and there are several to choose from because there are something like 4 million people in a relatively small geographical area.


Vegas can support several poker rooms with a few hundred thousand hotel rooms, and a population of around a million and a half.


The internet is accessible my millions who do not have to:

- drive/fly to get there

- toke for drinks

- toke the dealer

- rent a room

- (potentially) breathe second-hand smoke

- pay an insane rake


We should be scratching our heads wondering why it didn't happen sooner, or "Why didn't I think of that?"