what to make of a huge loss

[ QUOTE ]
You have to realize that average players are getting better and, just like the stock market, the poker craze is gonna bubble (if not already) and burst.

First, fewer and fewer new players will play.
Then the average players will get bored with losing, after all the fish are gone.
Then only the good (read addicted) players will remain, and then they start feeding off each other.

I don't doubt that some of those giving you advice to keep playing are the same ones that are taking your money at the tables.


You can stop playing, only play for fun, or read one of "Dr." Al's stupid articles and keep plugging at it. Enjoy.

[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just flat out wrong.

Yes, the bubble may be about to burst, but there will always be a supply of fresh fish. It might get smaller - and that might mean that fewer people will me able to make a living off poker - but there will always be new players, players who pick up the game for the first time, players who only play on occasion, players who play for fun, players who don't take the game seriously and players who are just plain bad.

[Phogster]

Ok, you can't open a post by saying "This is just flat out wrong." and then say that I'm right in some respects.

What I meant was this:

There's a poverty line in poker. Let's say player X started out his playing career as a novice (mostly likely a fish, as we all do), then got better by experience, books, and discussions. X is now above the poverty line. He's proud, and should be, it took a lot of hard work to get here. X on average tho, worked hard enough to be a winning player, not necessarily world class. This, I think, describes the majority of the readers in this forum.

The poker craze slows down. Less fish are in the sea. Now there are better and better players at X's table. This effectively translates into the poverty line moving up, and X is now below said line, and now is getting fed off of, instead.

There will be good days, but they will be fewer and farther in between. Players at this forum will keep saying that it takes thousands of hands to tell if this is for real. If X depends on playing to pay the rent, he might get in trouble way before that many hands show a trend that tells him that playing poker is -EV.

[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[OrangeKing]

The main problem I have with the idea of the poker bubble bursting is that it's not quite so much of a bubble as people think. Tens of millions of people in the US were playing poker weekly or more often well before this popularity surge, which makes me think that the game will be very, very popular for a long time to come.

[SNOWBALL138]

Thats a good point. I think that the poker boom that people talk about is partly owed to home game players opening up internet accounts or playing in public rooms.

[Phogster]

still think there's no bubble?

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/db5a6244-1f...00e2511c8.html

[ QUOTE ]
still think there's no bubble?

[/ QUOTE ]
Party revenues and users GREW. Just not as much as investors hoped.

[Dave H.]

Stocks go through their own periods of variance.

My reason for leaving Party was simple...no more rakeback. I wonder how many others left for that reason.