One thing I just don't get about the "fish will lose their money" deal

Fish has always been there and will definitely stay here forever. I ´m pretty sure of that. Also they will never run out of money because new fish and new money will replace the old one. Einstein once said Human stupitiy is the only earth resource that will never be extinct or we will never run out of. So guys relax.
tess

[groo]

hmmmmmm....i must be stoned. Wait I gave that up years ago. I must just be confused. Sorry

[MicroBob]

I mostly agree....although that bit about 'poker is more fun' is obviously up to the individual.

Have you ever hung out at a blackjack or roulette table amongst a bunch of NON poker-players?
"they're so serious. and i don't get how that game works."
etc etc. doesn't matter if it's the friendliest 3/6 poker game in the world...it's STILL generally more serious than many of the folk at BJ or craps.


Otherwise, I do agree that obviously there have been -EV gambers for YEARS and they are certainly not ALL busting-out completely and never playing again.

There is one other similarity between many -EV BJ/roulette/craps players and -EV poker-players ('fish'):
Many in both groups actually THINK they are winners.
In poker, this is partly due to the fact that the game actually CAN be beaten.
In the other games, it's just due to their own ignorance leading them to believe that they have some sort of 'system' that can win at the game.


One thing that seems to be forgotten is that most of the fish don't KNOW they are fish.
Online I can play against a 60/20 type player and they will STILL complain and LOL at the 'really bad players' at the table.

About those guys from 30/60 who have since gone down to 5/10.
A majority of them will NOT tell you that they are a losing player. They will say that they just got 'the most unbelieveable streak of bad cards...so they are playing the een stupider players at the lower levels to build themselves back up.'


Not many players will say "Well...I played at the higher limits and lost. And it had nothing to do with 'bad luck'. It had almost EVERYTHING to do with me not being a very good player."


That's the problem that I see with the 'fish will bust out' philosophy.
Most don't think (or ever WILL think) they are fish in the first place.
Almost all poker players convince themselves that they are good....therefore, the reason they are losing is NOT because they are playing out of their league (or that they are worried about all the 'expert' multi-tablers), it's because the cards 'run funny' and the flops 'are all different online' or whatever. Because God forbid that some of these losing players actually admit "Well...I'm no good at this. And I think a lot of these people here are better than me."

[Rudbaeck]

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I'm just more concerned the fish will just lose all their money, period. If you need confirmation of this, look at the current state of the Party 30/60.

Half of my buddly list can be found at 5/10 and lower now.

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It's been that way as long as I can remember, though I've mostly seen it from the other direction. Many, if not most, of my buddies move up and down all the way from 1/2 to 30/60. I think many of them play in the biggest game they can currently afford, if they get stuck they redeposit come payday and try to get even.

[A_C_Slater]

The thing is fish will never decrease in a Brick and Mortar room because they don't keep records. It's easy to convince yourself you're a winning player if you don't keep records. Hell, go up and talk to a slots player and ask them if they're winners, almost all of them will say they have won more than they lost. That's because all their losses and wins get "mixed" in with their other money.

But online this "mixing" does not occur. The cashier box forces them to look at thier results in cold black and white fact. They know how much they've deposited and they can't lie to themselves when that number isn't going up above it's starting point.

Hence "online is rigged, I know, because I always win when I play live."

[Rudbaeck]

Very true, but I don't think that will hurt the fish pond as much as some people are predicting. It will rather make fish more likely to play tournaments. (Where a big win once in a blue moon is enough to keep em convinced they are winners on a bad run of cards...)

But yes, the games have gotten a bit worse over the last year.

I'm more worried about the shark population actually. Burnout seems to be HIGH among 2+2 posters. (Ok, I'm not worried about the shark population, but I am worried about a few of my mates.)

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The thing is fish will never decrease in a Brick and Mortar room because they don't keep records. It's easy to convince yourself you're a winning player if you don't keep records. Hell, go up and talk to a slots player and ask them if they're winners, almost all of them will say they have won more than they lost. That's because all their losses and wins get "mixed" in with their other money.

But online this "mixing" does not occur. The cashier box forces them to look at thier results in cold black and white fact. They know how much they've deposited and they can't lie to themselves when that number isn't going up above it's starting point.

Hence "online is rigged, I know, because I always win when I play live."

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, this is a concern of mine. I really wonder about the future of online gambling, due exactly to this. There's no way an online player can fool himself into thinking he's winning over time, because he knows he has to keep putting money into the casino and that he's not getting anything out of it. His balance over time always drops to zero and then he has to redeposit.

[MrBlueNose]

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. There's no way an online player can fool himself into thinking he's winning over time, because he knows he has to keep putting money into the casino and that he's not getting anything out of it. His balance over time always drops to zero and then he has to redeposit.

[/ QUOTE ]

I assume you've done studies on this, correct? Spoken to some of these 'fish', and confirmed everything you've said in your last post?

My neighbour plays poker. He is a fish. He thinks it is rigged. He thinks it is all luck. He thinks its purely gambling. Yet he plays at least an hour a day. Not for fun, but to try and make money. He deposits $20 at a time(used to be off his credit card, not sure now), and sometimes runs it up, sometimes goes bust, and he always withdraws money over $50. I've seen him withdraw $86, and take his family out for dinner to celebrate. Yet you know what? He's not a winning player. Not by a long shot. He's a big, big losing player, who'll jump up in limits hoping to get lucky, then dive right back down after being crushed.

Now, what examples do you have to back up everything you just said?

[primetime32]

I am not too worried about the state of online poker. For every person that decides poker isnt for him a new kid will come along and give it a shot. there are millions of people out there and billions of dollars are spent on gambling a year.

And one thing i have noticed is a recent growth of foreign players at the poker tables .there were always some, but there appears to be an even larger group of foreign players. And a large portion of the players are pretty bad in my experience.

I think the decrease in party's numbers is more associated with the new advertising of sites like pokerstars, fulltilt paradise and others. THere is a ton of competition so the amount of players is probably growing despite individual sites suffering a slight setback.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
. There's no way an online player can fool himself into thinking he's winning over time, because he knows he has to keep putting money into the casino and that he's not getting anything out of it. His balance over time always drops to zero and then he has to redeposit.

[/ QUOTE ]

I assume you've done studies on this, correct? Spoken to some of these 'fish', and confirmed everything you've said in your last post?

My neighbour plays poker. He is a fish. He thinks it is rigged. He thinks it is all luck. He thinks its purely gambling. Yet he plays at least an hour a day. Not for fun, but to try and make money. He deposits $20 at a time(used to be off his credit card, not sure now), and sometimes runs it up, sometimes goes bust, and he always withdraws money over $50. I've seen him withdraw $86, and take his family out for dinner to celebrate. Yet you know what? He's not a winning player. Not by a long shot. He's a big, big losing player, who'll jump up in limits hoping to get lucky, then dive right back down after being crushed.

Now, what examples do you have to back up everything you just said?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is good news for winning players, if you're correct that losing players can still fool themselves into thinking they're not losing. How does he manage to withdraw money and take his family to dinner, though? It's not as if you can withdraw the cash and have it in your hands an hour later, and you can't just pull the money back onto your credit card account.

Now that I think of all this, it seems to me that internet casinos and poker rooms are making a huge mistake by making it slow and difficult for players to withdraw money. They should be making it as quick and easy as possible to withdraw money, because only by allowing players to withdraw money and then put more back in later can losing players be fooled into thinking they are winning or breaking even. Some internet casinos make you wait a week and fax in your driver's license and other ridiculous crap like that. All that does is make a losing player 100% certain he is losing, as he never withdraws, only deposits.