Surreal Poker

[DalaiLama]

I played in a small buy in live tournament on Monday, and as I surveyed the room, the following hit me like a ton of bricks. I think the poker craze has gone too far. Old men, kids, trash, grandmas, and everything in-between pondering bad calls and acting like they're the next Phil Ivey. It's become absurd. I saw two young guys dressed in ostrich skin boots, hair greased back, sun glasses, rings, gaudy gambling themed necklaces, with tooth picks hanging out of their mouths, telling everybody their business. Underground rooms are popping up everyday. I have a feeling that the poker bubble will pop within the next 12 months. It's become too much. My Tivo went from recording one show (WPT), to recording a half dozen poker shows a week. The game is getting too big, too fast for it's own good. Thoughts?

Dalai /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[shant]

Here's a thought, let's stop posting predictions about when poker is going to start sucking and just enjoy the boom.

[DalaiLama]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a thought, let's stop posting predictions about when poker is going to start sucking and just enjoy the boom.


[/ QUOTE ]

Here's another thought...stfu

This is New, Views, and Gossip right? I never said poker would start sucking.

[PokerPaul]

my guess is, even the dalaiLama gets grumpy with age

[pokerstudAA]

[ QUOTE ]


Here's another thought...stfu


[/ QUOTE ]


Wow the dali lama woke up on the wrong side of his wooden floor mat this morning.


Poker is fun - poker is gambling - people like to gamble. 15 years ago 7-stud was the game of choice. Now it is hold em' - the real pros adapt their game to play what the fish are playing. The poker boom may slow down but it wont end. When will a 24 hr. poker channel show up on TV? That is the next big thing.

[MicroBob]

poker is so popular that it will cease to be popular?

What is this, the Macarena?

[mike l.]

"I have a feeling that the poker bubble will pop within the next 12 months."

yeah youre right. and vegas is going to go bust one of these years too. people are getting sick of gambling and losing all their money and sitting around trying to get rich on the turn of a card. all those big hotels are gonna be boarding up the windows any day now.. obviously the whole thing has played itself out.

[DalaiLama]

Guys, maybe I should have defined "pop" as not growing at the speed of light. All I'm saying is that it can't continue to grow at this pace. I was/still am in a bad mood for various reasons. The wanna-bes make me nauseous sometimes. For gods sake, poker is the new water cooler topic. Poker will never suck, and Mike, I know Vegas isn't going anywhere. I just never thought everyone around me would get caught up in it. girlfriend/coworkers/dad/etc...

[DalaiLama]

don't be so naive...and don't belittle me... please

[ QUOTE ]
yeah youre right. and vegas is going to go bust one of these years too. people are getting sick of gambling and losing all their money and sitting around trying to get rich on the turn of a card. all those big hotels are gonna be boarding up the windows any day now.. obviously the whole thing has played itself out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mike circa 1999

yeah youre right. and the internet is going to go bust one of these years too. people are getting sick of efficiency and saving all that time and money....sitting around trying to get rich on ipos. all those start ups are gonna go bankrupt any day now.. obviously the whole thing has played itself out.

[drewjustdrew]

[ QUOTE ]
Old men, kids, trash, grandmas, and everything in-between pondering bad calls and acting like they're the next Phil Ivey. It's become absurd. I saw two young guys dressed in ostrich skin boots, hair greased back, sun glasses, rings, gaudy gambling themed necklaces, with tooth picks hanging out of their mouths, telling everybody their business.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you are saying that nothing has changed in the last 10 years? Seems to me this has been the case since poker rooms were legalized. Outsiders tell me, and I believe them that "poker players are a different breed"

[mike l.]

"The wanna-bes make me nauseous sometimes."

me too. but the regulars, the people who played poker long before it boomed, gag me even more so. talk about your bunch of socially inept degenerates.

[mike l.]

"don't be so naive...and don't belittle me"

youre taking this all way way too seriously. ligthen up a little.

[shant]

Hate to say I told you so but I told you so.

[whiskeytown]

poker is so popular it will cease to be poker - much in the same way that alternative music became so popular it ceased to be alternative -

Poker will be like bowling - they'll offer college classes on it - they will be our new rockstars and we shall be their new groupies (just in case Evelyn Ng is reading this...I'll be the first to volunteer) - /images/graemlins/grin.gif

RB

[daryn]

i predict poker will continue to be VERY profitable at least for another 10 years

[Il_Mostro]

[ QUOTE ]
and vegas is going to go bust one of these years too

[/ QUOTE ]
In fact you are probably right, but not for the reasons you think.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker will be like bowling - they'll offer college classes on it -

[/ QUOTE ]


They have college classes on bowling??

Then again, I took a raquetball class in college for 2 credits so I guess it wouldn't surprise me.



To the original topic...all you need to do is see the other article (and the hundreds like it all across the country) on all the teens playing poker.

It's gambling, it's cool, it's on TV....and all these teens playing it will be growing-up and eventually landing jobs with (gasp) actual income.



I know it's not the commonly held opinion...but I am predicting that poker will actually continue to GROW over the next few years and that it hasn't 'peaked' yet.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]


yeah youre right. and vegas is going to go bust one of these years too. people are getting sick of gambling and losing all their money and sitting around trying to get rich on the turn of a card. all those big hotels are gonna be boarding up the windows any day now.. obviously the whole thing has played itself out.


[/ QUOTE ]

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about the excess capacity of hotel rooms in Vegas, based on current occupancy rates, projected population and incomes, etc. The article concluded that the city was grossly overbuilt, and a major shake-out would be needed so that the remaining properties could be profitable. I forget the exact date of the article, but it was sometime in the late 1950s.

[Boltsfan1992]

Hiya -

I've said this before:

When I see that Party Poker (and its skins) go from 60,000 to their intial population (whatever that number was) and I see that the number of players on the WSOP stops growing and cannot pick up players at the same rate they are now, then I will get concerned.

I don't think we have seen the top amount yet - I think the games will get tougher before we lose players.

FWIW

PB

[Daliman]

Freaked me out for a second there. This is the name of my upcoming poker site, lol.

[fsuplayer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


yeah youre right. and vegas is going to go bust one of these years too. people are getting sick of gambling and losing all their money and sitting around trying to get rich on the turn of a card. all those big hotels are gonna be boarding up the windows any day now.. obviously the whole thing has played itself out.


[/ QUOTE ]

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about the excess capacity of hotel rooms in Vegas, based on current occupancy rates, projected population and incomes, etc. The article concluded that the city was grossly overbuilt, and a major shake-out would be needed so that the remaining properties could be profitable. I forget the exact date of the article, but it was sometime in the late 1950s.

[/ QUOTE ]

well done sir.

[coffeecrazy1]

I think that we can debate this ad nauseum, but the truth is that no one can really tell. I am not throwing in one of those Captain Obvious statements that no one knows the future. What I am saying is that poker is a different game now than it has ever been, and we have no way to predict what will happen to it.

Maybe these new players are here to stay. Maybe poker is on its way to becoming the American pastime. Maybe poker will have faded into the background again in few years. We don't know, so let's live in the now, when poker is better than it ever has been before, and the fish are breeding at unprecedented rates.

As for the WPT-style deliberations, I say get over it, by and large...because only a handful of those deliberations are actually meaningful and required to make a key decision. If someone wants to showboat for a minute en route to a world-class beating, I say go right ahead and Hollywood while I count your money in my stack.