[elindauer]

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I think the games are tougher now precisely because hundreds and hundreds of people (like the 2+2ers Josh worries about) have moved up from .5/1 to 3/6 to 15/30,20/40 etc in the last two years. So the shark population has grown....so too has the fish, but I think it's true that the proportion of shark:fish has increased since the 'crazy loose' 15/30 days.

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I agree with you that the games have gotten tougher. I think many people see this trend though and project it out into the future expecting it to continue. My own take is that we saw an influx of bad players because of changing "market conditions", ie, all the poker that was suddenly on TV.

Players got hooked, they in turn told their friends, who in turn started up home games... these new players flooded the online market, and we saw super-soft games. That was great, but this sudden influx of new players represented a spike, and it has of course tapered off to a more equlibrium-like level.

There will always be new players and new money flowing into all forms of gambling though. It's true that the games have gotten tougher as this surge of new players has died down, but it's not going to go to zero. It's just returning to a steady state where the numbers of players getting busted by the sharks is similar to the number of new players and new bankrolls being generated all the time. If you want to know what that steady state looks like, go into any casino and look around at how many people are throwing away their money. Plenty, right?

I predict that a leveling off of this effect will occur very soon. I'm not concerned that the dead money is going to dry up.

my 2 cents.
eric