Card Player Article: The End Is Coming

[ChuckNorris]

Maybe you all should move to Finland, or some other country where you don't have to pay taxes from poker winnings [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

At least not if they come from EU, like playing at Eurobet.

[curtains]

I think the plan of these articles is to get all the good players who are winning to stop playing poker so the writers can have all the fish for themselves!

[1C5]

I agree with Scuba here. I mean I just started playing poker last year, I don't pretend to be a great player but managed to have a $3000+ month last month simply 8 tabling the 22s with a 20% ROI which has been my average over the last 2000 games.

For next year, my goal is not 100K as I don't play the amount as Scuba, but I think 50K will be possible and I don't play that much at all.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]

eastbay, you seem bright. Everything seems easy to people who are good at it. How would you feel if Barry Bonds asked you why you aren't making $15 million a year playing baseball? Spend some time in the gym and at the batting cage and you should be making a couple of million in a few years, right? Discipline is a skill.


[/ QUOTE ]

Give me 3 guys off the street, sight unseen, and give me the option of trying to get them to $100k earn rates in poker in 12 months, or get them a place in the major leagues in 12 months (with the help of a great coach, even.)

Which would you pick? Your comparison is ridiculous. Getting to the majors takes years of dedication starting from a young age and huge amounts of raw talent. Poker simply does not. Some aptitude, some willingness to think and study. How many people have I seen go from clueless to wailing on the games right on this board in the last couple years? A hell of a lot. But I haven't known anybody who picked up a baseball and was in the big money leagues in 12 months, ever. Probably because that simply doesn't happen.

eastbay

[microbet]

Not even with steroids.

[puzzlemoney]

[ QUOTE ]
Saying that the poker craze will fade is totally insane. It's like saying the lottery craze will fade or the blackjack craze will fade. There are millions of people playing the lottery and blackjack RIGHT NOW and there always will be. People LOVE to gamble and they LOVE casinos. The fact that you can actually gain an edge in poker by studying some books and reading some forums is just a bonus. Plus, the internet is just an unstoppable force that will keep expanding until every person on the planet is logged on from their laptop\cell\palm\toaster. This guy is reading into it too much. It's not some Darwinian competition where only the best survive. It's an unending river of cash flowing from millions of people into casinos and a small group of winning players (but mostly casinos).

dog

[/ QUOTE ]


The World Poker Tour's ratings have dropped this season--maybe even the last two seasons, I can't remember. When poker fades as a pop culture phenomenon, the poker shows will be pulled off of Bravo and the Travel Channel. All the people who would watch Celebrity Poker every week and decide to give poker a shot will take up swing dancing or Asian cooking instead, and the influx of new people will slow.

I'm not willing to predict an end to the poker boom, but to believe that it will remain at its current level of popularity seems over-optimistic. The free publicity for poker as a whole will diminish; the opportunities for mainstream advertising for poker rooms will be less ideal. Fewer people will sign up.

We can probably all agree that poker is, in fact, a craze at the moment. There is, to my knowledge, no blackjack craze; nor is there a lottery craze. People gamble at those games at rates that are in accordance with what they've always been.

Crazes never last. Beanie Babies no longer cause riots at Hallmark stores. We stopped doing the Macarena. Poker will become less popular with the general public. This seems obvious to me.

[FlyWf]

How many years have you made $100K, then? "Feel bad for me"? I have $50+/hr months of work myself, and it's nice for my ego to do some simple multiplication and end up living on easy street.

There's a huge difference between making $8K a month and making $100K a year. Huge. Look at the post below yours agreeing with you. Some dude making $3K a month who thinks he'll make $100K next year. It's a nice dream and it's possible, but we shall see. I'd bet against it given even money.

I'm cool with getting disagreed with on this point, but I'm going to ask people who don't make $100K/yr to refrain from telling me how easy it is. If it was that damn easy you'd be doing it, not hoping to do it.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm cool with getting disagreed with on this point, but I'm going to ask people who don't make $100K/yr to refrain from telling me how easy it is. If it was that damn easy you'd be doing it, not hoping to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the other posters point is that once you start to get into it, and have success yourself, you can start to see the big picture. And the big picture is that a lot more than 1K poker players out there are making more the $100k. That's the point. For me, to even be this close, is very eye-opening.

[FlyWf]

It's easier than baseball, yes(I highly doubt the best poker player makes $25 million a year, though). It was an analogy to help show my point about how things seem easy to people who are good at them.

I suspect 0 of your men off the street would reach either the majors or the $100K poker playing level in a year. The chance is significantly higher that you'd make a good poker player, but to balance that out if you've found a phenom baseball player he'll obviously make a great deal more than $100K.

Poker has very low barriers to entry, which is something that will never change. It's certainly conceivable that someone with $500 and ability could make $50K their first year, $100K their second. But it's damn unlikely. It takes all of the various skills that make good technical poker(math, putting people on ranges, table selection, what have you) along with the significantly more important skills of bankroll management, motivation to work, discipline to avoid tilt, etc. All of them.

What you dismiss as nothing is a skill that it is difficult or impossible for some people to develop.

[1C5]

I didn't say 100k next year, I said 50K next year and I firmly believe I will reach that number.