Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

I dont think anyone is saying that there wont be any bad poker players. Just that there wont be millions of them. I could walk around my office right now and find 10 guys who play poker at least once a month right now. 5 years ago, I could have found 2, five years from now? Who knows. Once poker fades as a pop culture phenomenon, there will be a significant number of players who will find other ways to spend there free time.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

mr. eastbay, i agree that it is very possible now for a person to read a couple books and win over 100k per yr. online. now, here is my question for you, based in part on some of your other recent posts: what percent of the people who take advantage of this "possibility" get the prize? maybe .001%? your opinion would be appreciated. h

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]

Can you think of any way at all that is easier to make money than to play poker right now? It's absurdly easy. But you can't have it be so simple as to read a few books and a forum for an hour or two a day and become a six-figure earner within a year like is possible in poker right now.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a little tired of this constant attitude among the 'elite' of this forum, that any moron who can read 10 pages of a poker book can make a great living off poker, that 20% ROI at the 50's is a [censored] joke that a 4th grader could pull off. Maybe you guys are geniuses and it really IS that easy for you, but it doesn't make the rest of us feel very good to constantly hear 'hey man tough times? just drop back down to the 20s and 30s, you could be comatose and still break 30% ROI on those!'

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

EB did say a year. That's a pretty decent amount of work.

I understand you are directing this at more than just one poster.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

Bottom line is this: Would any of YOU still be playing 5 years from now, if you continually lost and had to keep re-depositing? Somehow I doubt it. Yet many people seem to think that they are the only ones smart enough to quit a game they suck at.

I started playing online at the same exact time as 3 of my friends. I'm the only one still playing. I started winning - they got sick of losing. I'm certain they are not the only 3 who followed this pattern: sign-up, lose, redeposit, lose again, quit.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

So. There's a sucker born every minute. [That's an old stat. I think there are 2 or 3/minute now.]

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Can you think of any way at all that is easier to make money than to play poker right now? It's absurdly easy. But you can't have it be so simple as to read a few books and a forum for an hour or two a day and become a six-figure earner within a year like is possible in poker right now.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a little tired of this constant attitude among the 'elite' of this forum, that any moron who can read 10 pages of a poker book can make a great living off poker, that 20% ROI at the 50's is a [censored] joke that a 4th grader could pull off. Maybe you guys are geniuses and it really IS that easy for you, but it doesn't make the rest of us feel very good to constantly hear 'hey man tough times? just drop back down to the 20s and 30s, you could be comatose and still break 30% ROI on those!'

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think I ever said anything like that. If you can show me where I did, I'll retract it.

Life's tough. When I say earning $100k in online poker is easy, it's in a relative sense. Sure, it's not a "joke", but I do think it is easier to get to that level of income within 12 months in online poker vs. any kind of job that I know about. That's the crux of my argument that the status quo isn't sustainable.


If you know of some kind of career that you can go in totally cold and come out 12 months later at that kind of income level, be sure to let me know what it is! Otherwise, I stand by my comments.

eastbay

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
mr. eastbay, i agree that it is very possible now for a person to read a couple books and win over 100k per yr. online. now, here is my question for you, based in part on some of your other recent posts: what percent of the people who take advantage of this "possibility" get the prize? maybe .001%? your opinion would be appreciated. h

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it's really hard to say. My "sample" is pretty biased, because most of my friends were formed either in college or graduate school or my current place of employment, where we have PhDs sweeping the floors.

With just a few exceptions, I think just about anyone I consider my friend that I know well enough to have an opinion could do it, if he/she were interested. Then again, my sample is a little skewed. Certainly many don't have the aptitude for it, but that's true of just about any kind of endeavour.

eastbay

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

The beauty of MTT's are that you never know if you are winning or losing because the variance is so high, and the time horizon has to be so long to establish anything meaningful.

American's love to gamble, its in our pysche.. Read Freakonomics. I doubt that poker and holdem is a passing fashion. I think it's part of our nature, and will continue to be popular in the way that other spectator sports are part of the American way of life. As far as sedentary recreations go, its much more interactive than channel surfing.

The game has a new core of very talented young players. Poker is no longer an old man's game. Many of these players have 60+ WSOP tournaments in them representing huge vigs for casinos and online cardrooms. I would speculate that poker has taken away from other forms of gambling, and if you frame it in this context then the growth potential is much larger than just adding a few million card flipping addicts. The target customer is the sports betting river boat gambler who bets a sizeable portion of his paycheck on weekly games.

Bottom line is this: American's like recreational gambling. Poker.. And especially online poker, has shown to be one of the must fun and easy to do forms of recreational gambling.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
If you know of some kind of career that you can go in totally cold and come out 12 months later at that kind of income level, be sure to let me know what it is! Otherwise, I stand by my comments.

[/ QUOTE ]

I could barely spell HTML when I got my first job as a web developer for $50k and in less than 6 mo's was offered over $100k twice, but settled for $85k, a place I liked and no commute. But, those were the glory days.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

Like playing poker on their cell phone.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you know of some kind of career that you can go in totally cold and come out 12 months later at that kind of income level, be sure to let me know what it is! Otherwise, I stand by my comments.

[/ QUOTE ]

I could barely spell HTML when I got my first job as a web developer for $50k and in less than 6 mo's was offered over $100k twice, but settled for $85k, a place I liked and no commute. But, those were the glory days.

[/ QUOTE ]

Case in point. People came to fill those voids and it's not so easy anymore. I think the same is true for online poker.

eastbay

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

Two hour lunches playing ultimate frisbee or basketball too. All while you were locked up in a frozen gulag working on your edumacation. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

HTML programmer with a master degree in CS costs $500/month in Bangalore.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

I was a PHP programmer actually. They must cost $750/month.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
Two hour lunches playing ultimate frisbee or basketball too. All while you were locked up in a frozen gulag working on your edumacation. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Believe me, all us grad school dumbasses were ready to go postal, in our computer labs hacking state of the art codes 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for $20k a year while people were retiring at 28 with their stock options for writing 500 line javascripts that looked a few things up in a db and listed them in html.

eastbay

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

I think that we can agree that blackjack and video poker can beaten under the right conditions.

That Thorp guy wrote Beat the Dealer like 40 years ago. I wonder if Dr. Alan thinks losing blackjack and video poker players will be dwindling any time soon.

Slots and roulette are almost always -EV but people dont seem inclined to quit playing them.

Construction trends on the Vegas strip point to growth rather than shrinkage in these areas.

Why should poker be any different?

Just my 2 cents,

Kenny Banya

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think that we can agree that blackjack and video poker can beaten under the right conditions.

That Thorp guy wrote Beat the Dealer like 40 years ago. I wonder if Dr. Alan thinks losing blackjack and video poker players will be dwindling any time soon.

Slots and roulette are almost always -EV but people dont seem inclined to quit playing them.

Construction trends on the Vegas strip point to growth rather than shrinkage in these areas.

Why should poker be any different?

Just my 2 cents,

Kenny Banya

[/ QUOTE ]

Because it's a fundamentally different kind of game, one that does not have a fixed edge, but an edge which is controlled by the player pool.

People also don't like to be humiliated or beat in any kind of competitive game. That's why slots are so popular - you don't have to face anyone while you lose, and it doesn't matter what you do. There's no wondering if you shoulda done this or that - it's just automatic, you can't do anything wrong. That's comforting to people. Sitting at a poker table and losing, and moreover knowing that you COULD win if you didn't suck, makes it all the more humiliating and intimidating for the casual gambler.

BJ and roulette also mainly come with the casino atmosphere, the low cut dress drink wenches, and friends. Online poker is generally done in your room, alone. There are draws and side perks for casino games that don't exist for online poker.

That's just a few of the reasons why they are very different.

(and by the way, have you noticed that BJ looks nothing like it did when Thorp wrote Beat The Dealer? There's a reason for that.)

eastbay

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Two hour lunches playing ultimate frisbee or basketball too. All while you were locked up in a frozen gulag working on your edumacation. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Believe me, all us grad school dumbasses were ready to go postal, in our computer labs hacking state of the art codes 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for $20k a year while people were retiring at 28 with their stock options for writing 500 line javascripts that looked a few things up in a db and listed them in html.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

Javascript is a client side language. You can't do database queries with it. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Can you think of any way at all that is easier to make money than to play poker right now? It's absurdly easy. But you can't have it be so simple as to read a few books and a forum for an hour or two a day and become a six-figure earner within a year like is possible in poker right now.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a little tired of this constant attitude among the 'elite' of this forum, that any moron who can read 10 pages of a poker book can make a great living off poker, that 20% ROI at the 50's is a [censored] joke that a 4th grader could pull off. Maybe you guys are geniuses and it really IS that easy for you, but it doesn't make the rest of us feel very good to constantly hear 'hey man tough times? just drop back down to the 20s and 30s, you could be comatose and still break 30% ROI on those!'

[/ QUOTE ]

i love waking up and seeing that some post i put up half asleep in the middle of the night turns into art

what the phuck is this post all about though?

a lot of people here are making some insane amounts of money right now man...study up, listen to them, and you may be able to do it to...insulting them for stating the truth is probably not the best approach

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

I doubt that there are that many poker players making $100,000/yr. other than the top 1,000 pros or so.

Most poker players are like good salesmen and they double count there winnings, never include the vigs they pay or loses near the end of the month, and optimistically assume all month equal the best ones.

Let's start out by looking at the tax returns over a few years. If you are not declaring this income, then you aren't even in the game, or you have a massive tax evasion case coming.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
I doubt that there are that many poker players making $100,000/yr. other than the top 1,000 pros or so.


[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Wow, I didn't realise I was one of the top 1000 pros. I still don't.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I doubt that there are that many poker players making $100,000/yr. other than the top 1,000 pros or so.


[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Wow, I didn't realise I was one of the top 1000 pros. I still don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think 1k is a credible number, either.

Might be fun to try to get a real estimate, though.

eastbay

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

Maybe you are.

Post lines 7-42 of your last 3 1040s.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
I doubt that there are that many poker players making $100,000/yr. other than the top 1,000 pros or so.

Most poker players are like good salesmen and they double count there winnings, never include the vigs they pay or loses near the end of the month, and optimistically assume all month equal the best ones.

Let's start out by looking at the tax returns over a few years. If you are not declaring this income, then you aren't even in the game, or you have a massive tax evasion case coming.

[/ QUOTE ]

problem is being self employed, if you make 50k in two months, you aren't too motivated to play out the rest of the year


there are many many many more than 1000 earning an average hourly wage greater than that of the 100k slaves working at any of the largest american companies

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

I didnt insult him, I was talking about in general on this forum, there is this attitude that getting rich on poker is a given if you have half a brain. Like eastbay ended up stating, he lives in a very skewed world where 'phd's sweep the floors', among that sort of people, yes I'm sure it's easy but not for the rest of us.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe you are.

Post lines 7-42 of your last 3 1040s.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't pay tax [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
I didnt insult him, I was talking about in general on this forum, there is this attitude that getting rich on poker is a given if you have half a brain. Like eastbay ended up stating, he lives in a very skewed world where 'phd's sweep the floors', among that sort of people, yes I'm sure it's easy but not for the rest of us.

[/ QUOTE ]

ever seen one of the threads on this forum of Where Ya'll Born, Where'dya Go To College, How Old R Ya? etc???


The regular contributors here are a pretty damned out of the ordinary bunch too bro...

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I like this argument. However, there are definitely market pressures against this. Many people don't realize that poker can be profitable; many consider it to be an immoral profession.


[/ QUOTE ]

The online porn market had a similar arc of obscene easy profits followed by saturation and finally intense competition. I think more people would steer away from being a pornographer than from playing poker.

[ QUOTE ]

Those two factors will likely decay with time; what won't decay with time is the fear of variance.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think this is particularly significant either. Business in general is high variance with high risk of ruin. Yet people start restaurants all the time, everywhere, despite the 90% ruin rate (or whatever.)

[ QUOTE ]

There are other professions that are very easy and pay way. You can make pretty good money being a garbage man, working for a cigarette company or a defense contractor, dealing drugs, etc. All of these professions pay great and are easy to get into, but they have social and practical downsides that prevent them from becoming more competetive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Being a garbage man sucks ass, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't pay $120k range. I'm sure the competition for high paying cig company jobs is significant, and having worked at a defense contractor, I can tell you that this is a very competitive career path, where you can make $100k but will have to fight tooth and nail and work long, hard hours at it, likely in a small cubicle doing mind numbingly boring things for most of the day.

I understand your points, but I still think given those factors, it's still far out of equilibrium right now.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it must depend on which defense contractor. Raytheon happens to hire just about anyone under 20 who's taken AP physics, and it pays them very well.

Anyway, I think that 1) the variance in poker is significantly higher than that in other fields and 2) it shows itself more. Also keep in mind that doing your job poorly costs you real money, not just opportunity costs in poker. While this is true in investment as well, investment is different in that the average investor makes money (because the average company makes money), whereas the average poker player loses money (because the average poker medium makes money).

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
Raytheon

[/ QUOTE ]

R U in El Segundo?

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

Saying that the poker craze will fade is totally insane. It's like saying the lottery craze will fade or the blackjack craze will fade. There are millions of people playing the lottery and blackjack RIGHT NOW and there always will be. People LOVE to gamble and they LOVE casinos. The fact that you can actually gain an edge in poker by studying some books and reading some forums is just a bonus. Plus, the internet is just an unstoppable force that will keep expanding until every person on the planet is logged on from their laptop\cell\palm\toaster. This guy is reading into it too much. It's not some Darwinian competition where only the best survive. It's an unending river of cash flowing from millions of people into casinos and a small group of winning players (but mostly casinos).

dog

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

This article is pretty silly; if you are an already fairly proficient player, you will continue to be for quite some time. If you are making > 100k a year at poker, you are going to be set for life, unless the institution of online poker becomes outlawed.

Another thing to think about is, if the popularity of poker declines, or, if many players seem to go broke over the next few years, the market may trend more towards rakeback or reduced rake programs, thereby ensuring that players will be able to play longer without going broke.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

and maybe they can't.....that post about the tax forms was good.......my feeling is simple: you won the club championship at your country club? i'd like to see the trophy.............you crush online poker games for over 100k per yr.?.....show me some numbers. remember, on forums of any sort, people can claim to have done anything they can dream up (or, pathetically) truly believe. h

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
Saying that the poker craze will fade is totally insane.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dow 36,000!

eastbay

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
and maybe they can't.....that post about the tax forms was good.......my feeling is simple: you won the club championship at your country club? i'd like to see the trophy.............you crush online poker games for over 100k per yr.?.....show me some numbers. remember, on forums of any sort, people can claim to have done anything they can dream up (or, pathetically) truly believe. h

[/ QUOTE ]

lol spoken like a true n00b who has no experience playing or beating any form of high stakes SNG poker...and also with no knowledge of the sophisticated data mining and tracking tools available

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Saying that the poker craze will fade is totally insane.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dow 36,000!

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

Awesome line. People's ability to conviently ignore history when blinded by self interest / greed / denial is on of the most interesting aspect we share as a society.

Listen, I think online poker is here to stay. There will most likely always be beatable games for good players. But to deny that things will get much tougher (or that they will get easier) in the future, flies in the face of any rational interpretation of economic theory.

I hope I am wrong, but to ignore the possibility, and not plan for it is a very bad idea. If your making 100K now, do something with it to give yourself some options if the bottom does fall out.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

Let's put some numbers to this so the noobs, if you will, can understand. I like using the PokerStars quote I saw a little while back. I don't remember who it was, but some PS pro was said that from the PS records, only 8% of their players were winners.

If we apply that to all current poker players. That's what?

80,000 players?
160,000 players?

Then you have to decide how many of these are $100k winners.... I know it's a stretch for some noobs. But as I was just discovering 2+2 last November, and began taking this stuff seriously (read, studying like crazy) the month following, and I'm up $30k this year playing small stakes, and I expect to have over $70k for the year. I don't think it's any stretch of the imagination to believe that MANY are making $100k. In fact, barring any significant change to the onlne poker landscape, I expect to make $100k+ next year.

(Damn, that would be cool)

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
Must be a Berkeley/East Bay thing (or old and cynical thing). Break down the logical elements of a lot of jobs, and they aren't very noble/helpful to society, in fact some are even downright (net) detrimental. IMO/IME.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol

I feel right at home here in the bay.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

Degen- What the hell does datamining have to do with anything?

To make $100K a year you'd need to play:
33000 $11s at 30% ROI
16000 $22s at 30% ROI
9000 $55s at 20% ROI
9000 $109s at 10% ROI
4500 $215s at 10% ROI

I doubt the first one is possible(33000 SNGs in a year? That's either 80 hour weeks or 16+ tabling, either way I highly doubt you'll be able to maintain 30% ROI). The others are all conceivable at allegedly sustainable rates, but here's the ticket: Sustainable doesn't mean easy. It takes more than skimming Tournament Poker for Advanced Players and search-buttoning up Aleomagus's guide for beating the $11s to pump out a 20% ROI 8 tabling the $55s. This forum selects for winners, and posting on this forum further selects for winners. There aren't a lot of fields where the top 1000 people in the world at it make less than 6 figures.

eastbay, you seem bright. Everything seems easy to people who are good at it. How would you feel if Barry Bonds asked you why you aren't making $15 million a year playing baseball? Spend some time in the gym and at the batting cage and you should be making a couple of million in a few years, right? Discipline is a skill.

As to the number of $100K winners, I suspect 1K is optimistic. I imagine a lot of people make $50/hr(which is about the hourly rate of a $100K a year real job), but how many of them put in 2000 hours? Remember, this ain't like a real job. 4+ tabling online poker takes a level of concentration you rarely use at a 9-5, and you need it for all 8 hours instead of the 15 minutes when the boss is yelling at you. And if you ain't paying taxes on it you're a felon, so no fair cheating. Also, your hourly rate will plummet when you get caught and have to pay penalties and fees.

So yeah, scan in the tax form or you are full of [censored]. Making $9K in one month, or $18K in two.. That's not making $100K a year.

Re: Card Player Article: The End Is Coming
 

[ QUOTE ]
As to the number of $100K winners, I suspect 1K is optimistic.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
So yeah, scan in the tax form or you are full of [censored]. Making $9K in one month, or $18K in two.. That's not making $100K a year.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really feel bad for you. (unless ur a troll)

I'm gonna have to side with Degen. I really should pay attention more to how many posts people have when they make such cynical responses. I bet these are the same people who think that SNGs are just a crap shoot, fun, but a crap shoot.

FWIW, the better I get, the more I earn, the more I realize once you consider all the cash games, the MTTs, other forms of poker, there's got to be over 10,000 people who have made $100k. And I'm just a super small fish in this sea (well, maybe not a fish). I know I can't beat people who can play in the high stakes games. Maybe some day, but not today. And I think I'll be at or near that $100k mark over the next 12 months. Come on, it's only like $8k a month.