Future of online poker

[college_boy]

The games are getting worse and will continue to do so.

[StacysMom]

Prediction; Online poker will dwindle to the point at which only a modest winrate is sustainable for the bettre players out there.
Atm, there are many of us making way too much money for the amount of work we do. Fish are busting, sharks are not. Eventually the fish to shark ratio will not be so favarable for the sharks. THis will turn break even players into losers, good players into break even, and the best into moderate winners. The new losers wil quit, many good players will quit as they are now break even or sustaining a winrate that is no longer +EV in comparison to getting a job. As this happens, the shak/fish ratio will reach an equilibrium of modest profits for the better players.

[cardspeak]

The continuing growth of casinos offering brutal -ev games seems to suggest that it isn't much of a deterrent to be a loser. I think the growth may slow, but it'll be a long time before there's any decline.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
I am sure that fish will not continue to play stakes for longer than a year if they see theyre constantly losing $ without doing something(reading books, move down in limits, or just quit) to become a better player in the hopes they will no longer continually donate to the sharks out there.

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It's really cute how naive a long of new poker players are about the rationality of people. Statements like the above just blow my mind because I can't imagine having that sort of faith in the intelligence and discipline of random strangers. You would probably find it educational to go to a casino sometime and try to meet some real gamblers rather than guess how they should behave if they are perfectly intelligent and rational. In any poker game, you will probably find someone who has been playing for twenty years or more and is clearly a losing player.

[swolfe]

[ QUOTE ]
BTW, they don't read books...they made fun of anyone who did saying, "Dude, just play...don't buy that book from that old guy - I don't know even know who he is!" (Yes, they were talking about Doyle...)

[/ QUOTE ]

funny

[Nick-Zack]

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This is the 50th thread on the same subject.

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So don't read it. It is receiving plenty of responses so shhh.

[Art Vandelay]

To find out why the fish will keep on playing I suggest you read the Psychology of Poker. I read that and it gave me new perspective on why a fish is a fish, why a maniac is a maniac, etc. I always thought, because of the way I think, that any player out there would see they lose and get some books and learn. That is most definitely NOT the case.

[mcozzy1]

[ QUOTE ]
The games are getting worse and will continue to do so.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is right on the money. All you have to do is look at the past 3 years to see where the next 3 years will be.

Two years ago, most of the games were filled with fish. Now, it's not uncommon to see 6 or 7 pros sitting with 1 or 2 fish. Game selection didn't matter 3 years ago, now it's very important.

I don't think games will get worse at the same rate they have over the last 3 years; but when the number of fish stays at the same point and the number of multitabling pros increases, obviously the games are going to get worse......just as they have over the past 3 years.

[pretender2k]

It will grow for another 15 years or so. My oppinion.

[VarlosZ]

[ QUOTE ]
For every new, shark born, there are, a hundred, new, fishies.

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, it's more like 9 fish (players in the red) for each shark (players in the black).

The problem, as has been pointed out, is that the shark almost always stays, while, most of the time, all the fish eventually leave. Sometimes they can't afford to keep losing money, the rest of the time they just decide to play other games.

Poker is just entertainment for most, and as entertainment it will strike someone's fancy for a while and then, one day, it'll grow stale. If there's no profit to keep him around, a bad player will eventually get tired of it and move to horse racing (or sports betting, or Monopoly).

Meanwhile, the number of sharks only increases, so each new batch of players (9 fish, 1 shark) faces a tougher landscape than the one before it, which means the fish lose interest even quicker, which in turn makes the landscape still worse.

The current level of profitability is not sustainable. As has been said, at some point there will be an equilibrium. I don't know where that equilibrium will be, but I suspect that the current internet pros with more modest winrates will be forced to get actual jobs.