Card Player Article: The End Is Coming

[Pudge714]

Obviously pokers popularity will fade, but it will be a gradual fade and as the level of play slowly rises good players should be able to adjust thier play accordingly and still win on a consistent basis. The writer is being too pessimistic and he is talking as if this change will be overnight.

[eastbay]

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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.


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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.

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


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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.)

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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.

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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

[microbet]

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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.

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I guess I'm just being argumentative this morning.

Some garbage men make good money some make very little. The differences are because of politics and unions which disrupt competition.

Do cigarette companies pay well?

I don't have a large sample, but the programmer I know who worked for a defense contractor said they paid poorly compared to the same job in other industries.

Drug dealing is dangerous and for the most part is not lucrative. In Freakonomics the author writes a bit about gangs and finds by far the largest group of them making like $3.30/hr selling drugs. Even guys fairly high up weren't making 8-tabling the $55s kind of money.

[microbet]

You youngsters might be surprised how many jobs seem like they would be productive but turn out to be not productive, counter-productive or downright harmful.

[eastbay]

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You youngsters might be surprised how many jobs seem like they would be productive but turn out to be not productive, counter-productive or downright harmful.

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My (cynical, but earnest) thoughts exactly.

eastbay

[MegaBet]

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Taken from the article:

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We’re seeing similar drivel in poker. Some people are learning absurd strategies from heavily edited TV shows. A few tournament stars are very young and have extremely unorthodox styles.

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Is he talking about us pushing all-in with junk? Im not sure if they do this on TV because I don't have cable, but I'm pretty sure are pushbotting is looked at as kinda retarded by some of the other players; at the low stakes games at least.

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Danny Nguyen says hi!

[A_PLUS]

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Slight Counterpoint

It is fairly easy for an intelligent person who is willing to do a little work to make a 6 figure income in many many fields.

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This is so wrong, it borders on lunacy.

Salaried income has more to do with:
connections, politics, upbringing, education, etc, etc.

than it does with intelligence. Most jobs are salary rather than performance driven. If I ranked the people I know based on their income, there would be a slight correlation to intelligence, but it would be far from the driving factor.

Also, even for those of us fortunate enough to have been given opportunities to go to good schools, learn social skills, etc. It will still take some time post grad to earn 6 figures.

[schwza]

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When making money at poker is comparably difficult to making money in other ways, then it may be stable for longer term. But we're not anywhere close to that point yet. It's too easy right now.


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it's a pyramid scheme, to use an old analogy. it's not going to "stabalize" until there is no more market for new poker players. also keep in mind that the vast majority of people cannot become 6-figure earners within a year (including myself, unfortunately). many will never become profitable at all because they are, frankly, stupid.

[Gramps]

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.

[Michael C.]

No one ever went broke underestimating the American public. As Barry Greenstein said, there will always be some loses coming back, because they've won before and believe they can do it again. But they aren't willing to study or (heaven's forbid) read to get better. Haven't we all seen certain players suck for way too long of a time? And somehow or antother, they still get more money to come back.