The Worst Poker Article Of All Time

[BarronVangorToth]

Yeah, yeah, I know a few of my ne'er-do-well critics would claim that my On The Edge #8 fits the bill, but I say to them, Not so fast .

Check out Daniel Negreanu's STACKED site where my co-news-editor Brandon found the winner (http://www.planetstacked.com/news/index.asp?month=10&day=11&year=2005) under the news caption of "Wow."

Wow, indeed.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[bobbyi]

Come on, we've already had two threads on this article. There's no way we needed someone to start a third.

[BarronVangorToth]

Didn't know that as I haven't been able to keep up with 2+2 in the last few days outside of my threads in the magazine section. And here I thought I was doing my public service of the day.

Regardless, some moderator should delete this thread.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[Peter666]

That was indeed an enlightening article. I had no clue.

[Shandrax]

I find that article funny. Especially thought provoking is the hand example. If two guys play heads-up at equal skill, shuffling their chips back and forth, the rake will indeed end up with all the money. If the players all play on the same level, they could play Roulette as well. Due to the rake, casino-poker is not a zero-sum game.

This shows us that game selection is one of the most important aspects of playing professionally. You need at least one sucker at the table.

[MicroBob]

Yeah. This was discussed extensively in the General forum about a week or two ago (I had a couple comments in there).
I also x-posted the article to my blog and received more comments on it than I usually do.



Among my comments over in the general-forum thread on this was an e-mail from my Dad (who had seen it on my blog) who said that there have actually been 'experts' who used the same kind of reasoning to 'prove' that the stock-market was similarly unable to be beaten in the long-run.


I also added that this Stephen Katz guy has appeared in a handful of articles on the evils of online-poker.

He plays the so-called 'expert' who speaks of the addictive qualities and the fact that anybody who thinks they can beat the game is kidding themselves because you aren't playing real people anyway and the evil site takes out all this rake.


Barron - meowmeow e-mailed this guy and he actually wrote back with more idiocy. It was in that thread in the general forum as well that you may be interested in checking out.

[Peter McDermott]

I'm not convinced. Given that this article was published by an anti-gambling publication, I think it counts as an anti-poker article and as such, should be exempt.

Personally, I think this is a better contender (http://www.allinmagazine.com/articles.asp?idArticle=277&idMagazine=29)

[RoyalLance]

This article poorly explains the rake system in online poker. He fails to mention that rake cap keeps the rake from passing a certain amount, and the higher the stakes, the weaker the rake would be.

He also fails to notice the highest stakes where you can play with $20 in front of you comfortably is five cent/ten cent -- and the highest possible rake for that game at Ultimate Bet is TEN CENTS!

If the writer wanted to bash poker he should have refered to the rake in the lowest stakes B & M games. I hear PROS saying that they can't beat that rake.

[Peter666]

I had a bad feeling about that guy. After reading that horrendous article, I know to trust my instincts now. The only good line in it came from Vorhaus. The worst part of the article was his attempt to salvage his image at the end. I hope somebody breaks those magic fingers. /images/graemlins/mad.gif

i wrote 2 emails to him that were just pure jackass and he responded with 2 emails...that were well..pure jackass.

[willpower101]

he if enough of us send this THE FALLACY OF ONLINE POKER GAMBLING (http://www.harnesslink.com/www/Article.cgi?ID=30095), to maddox maddox.xmission.com (http://maddox.xmission.com) maybe he will post it.



send and email to maddox (maddox@xmission.com)

[Shandrax]

[ QUOTE ]
This article poorly explains the rake system in online poker. He fails to mention that rake cap keeps the rake from passing a certain amount, and the higher the stakes, the weaker the rake would be.

He also fails to notice the highest stakes where you can play with $20 in front of you comfortably is five cent/ten cent -- and the highest possible rake for that game at Ultimate Bet is TEN CENTS!

If the writer wanted to bash poker he should have refered to the rake in the lowest stakes B & M games. I hear PROS saying that they can't beat that rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not the point. Even with a rake of 0.00001% the overall amount of cash on the table would be reduced if people do nothing but shuffling chips back and forth. If you do that forever the bank will indeed end up with all the money. It will only take much longer.

The point is that you don't shuffle chips back and forth forever, because as soon as the bad players run out of money the game will end. At this moment the good players with an endge will walk away with profit. Sure, they all come back eventually, but only if they find new bad players to beat.

The long-term problem with poker is that the losing player gets nothing but frustration in return for his effort. If you go to a mall and buy something they lift you for your money also because they sell you some crap that's worth less than you are paying for it. Still you have something that you can take home and you will even be happy. In poker if you are losing you take nothing home but anger. It shouldn't take these people long to realise that poker isn't "worth" it for them - who wants to pay for frustration?

Sooner or later the good players should run out of victims. The good news is that the number of idiots on earth is virtually unlimited, so there should always be some sucker around. All you need to do is to tell them that "everyone" can win and show some more of these Moneymaker-adds. The bigger the idiot who wins, the better it is for the industry.

[MicroBob]

what about all the gamblers out there who have been playing craps or slots or roulette for the past 10 or 20 years?


some people just have lots of money.
lots of these people will actually believe that they've been about break-even through their years of gambling even if they haven't been.

in poker, the bad players can ALWAYS convince themselves that they just got unlucky....but they really DO know that they are better than most of their opponents.

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]

Even with a rake of 0.00001% the overall amount of cash on the table would be reduced if people do nothing but shuffling chips back and forth.

[/ QUOTE ]


I was reminded of a scenario that came up, I don't know, like a year ago, where all of us who started a table bought in for the same amount ... and a few hours later, one of us noticed that all of us were down like $20 -- seemingly "impossible" until you think about it...

It is truly a rarity, though. But I guess it can happen, especially in the short-term like the above example.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[benkahuna]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Even with a rake of 0.00001% the overall amount of cash on the table would be reduced if people do nothing but shuffling chips back and forth.

[/ QUOTE ]


I was reminded of a scenario that came up, I don't know, like a year ago, where all of us who started a table bought in for the same amount ... and a few hours later, one of us noticed that all of us were down like $20 -- seemingly "impossible" until you think about it...

It is truly a rarity, though. But I guess it can happen, especially in the short-term like the above example.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[/ QUOTE ]

I've noticed this type of thing too, but mostly in low limit short-handed games (not even short-handed, heads up). I kept staying even and the other guy was losing money. And the house was winning. I think online poker rooms need to retool their rake for lower limit heads up and very shorthanded games.

[BarronVangorToth]

This was a low limit game in my scenario -- the $5-$10 Kill game at Foxwoods -- but it was a full table.

And I wouldn't hold your breath for poker rooms dropping their rate, although Foxwoods is pretty cool when it gets down to 5-6 people they'll drop their rake down and oftentimes, when we ask if we're 4-handed, they'll make it free (or $1 max) if we ask.

Beyond that ... hard to get much better out of the live casino.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com