When will the poker fad / bubble end?

[TransientR]

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It's now double that, so the pond is still stocked.

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It seems to me pretty similar to the "chess fever" the nation experienced when Bobby Fischer had his historic championship match against Spassky; for a while, people couldn't get enough of chess - taking their kids to chess classes and tournaments, etc. And then the popularity of the game retreated - to a level higher than it was prior to the fad, of course, but nowhere near where it was at its peak.

So in short, the fact that people see a fad and honestly think "this will never end" worries me slightly.

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I think the poker boom has a good chance to last longer than the chess explosion created by Bobby Fischer. Why? There is no luck in chess. It is a game where the superior player will destroy the inferior player every time.

Now in poker, the superior player will eventually best the inferior player, but the luck element will often allow the inferior player to think he/she is superior, extending the illusion and thrill for the weaker player.

In addition, there is excitement/torment for all in the drop of a card. The eternal allure of gambling....

And poker has a higher psychology factor than other games that have become national fads like chess and backgammon. You can win at poker using psychological tactics in a way that is difficult in backgammon, and rarely possible in chess.

And let us not forget, poker has always been a hugely popular game, if often kept underground.

Frank

[Dynasty]

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It seems to me pretty similar to the "chess fever" the nation experienced when Bobby Fischer had his historic championship match against Spassky; for a while, people couldn't get enough of chess - taking their kids to chess classes and tournaments, etc. And then the popularity of the game retreated - to a level higher than it was prior to the fad, of course, but nowhere near where it was at its peak.

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I doubt you are aware of how popular chess tournaments are in the U.S. Last year's World Open in Philadelphia drew 1,208 players. It's the biggest tournament of the year and has been regularly drawing 1,000+ players for a lot longer than poker has.

Scholastic tournaments are far more popular now than they have ever been.

[Jordan Olsommer]

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I doubt you are aware of how popular chess tournaments are in the U.S. Last year's World Open in Philadelphia drew 1,208 players. It's the biggest tournament of the year and has been regularly drawing 1,000+ players for a lot longer than poker has.

Scholastic tournaments are far more popular now than they have ever been.

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I am aware of how many people partcipate in chess tournaments - I think the difficulty arises because we are referring to different concepts of popularity. I'm referring to popularity in the sense of "presence in the public consciousness" - even though there are more people playing chess tournaments today, I would argue that the average player is much stronger than they were in the Fischer-Spassky phase, when chess was more popular in the sense that I originally used the word, since more 'fish' were playing then. The same with poker - more fish are playing now, and tournament fields will continue to grow. I argue that it does not necessarily follow from these two facts that the ratio of fish to sharks will remain the same or even increase; as poker has less of a presence in the public eye, I think this ratio will in fact decrease.

Of course, this can also be seen by simple common sense. Many, many people play bridge, but that doesn't mean that whatever tournament decides who the bridge champion(s) of the year are is filled with fish, simply because there's no "World Bridge Tour" on TV and much less of an opportunity for someone who has no chance in the tournament to get the bright idea and motivation to enter.

And that's what the bubble is, after all, from a practical standpoint at least - the fact that right now, the poker waters are the fishiest they have ever been. The bubble is not the fact that gazillions of people play poker now, because gazillions of people play other specific games, and I doubt that anyone would speak with a straight face about "the Monopoly bubble".

[PokrLikeItsProse]

I think that the poker fad will end about one year after porn stops being so popular.

[boondoggle]

As a former chess player I find this amusing. Chess is all but dead. There is no money in chess. Chess has never been a spectator sport nor will it ever be one.

In case you didnt hear the first time...chess is dead.

If I could go back in time, I would go back to watch the greatest ever play, Capa. No one came close to his natural talent--no one. If Capa and fischer play during their primes, Capa wins easily.

He was good. He was the best.

Capablanca lost only 36 games out of 567 in his whole career. He did not lose a single game from 1916 to 1924. Capablanca never had a chess set at home.

You can have fischer.

cheers
Boon

[woodguy]

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I doubt you are aware of how popular chess tournaments are in the U.S. Last year's World Open in Philadelphia drew 1,208 players. It's the biggest tournament of the year and has been regularly drawing 1,000+ players for a lot longer than poker has.

Scholastic tournaments are far more popular now than they have ever been.

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True.

But someone from Ellix Powers' background has never been anywhere near winning a chess tourney.

Poker is the opiate of the masses - Karl Binion

Regards,
Woodguy

[Dynasty]

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But someone from Ellix Powers' background has never been anywhere near winning a chess tourney.


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Actually, I often played with a homeless guy at the Boylston Chess Club in Boston. He was about 1900-2000 USCF strength. He was an even better blitz player.

[Daniel Hoerr]

This is something I think about and say "eh.. Give it another couple years..."

But then I hear all these stories from my friends whose young children watch WPT religiously and have chipsets to organize neighborhood games. We played Legos and Erector Sets at that age and the OLD PEOPLE played card games for the most part. Sure, I was playing family holiday poker games by age 16 or so, but I was a minority and it certainly wasn't something that all the neighborhood kids got together to do.

Last week we were in Idaho visiting some of my wifes family and old friends. I went into her best friends 9 year old sons room and among hand cut-outs of the solar system pasted up everywhere, he had a picture of Phil Ivey and a picture of Chris Ferguson on the wall. I was amazed. We sat and talked about poker and WPT for a good hour. He knew episodes, records, seasons. It was sick. Not only that but he showed me some things he'd learned, like checking a flopped set to a preflop raiser "but only when there's no danger of a straight or a flush"... I was now awed.

Who knows, perhaps we're not watching a fad...

[USGrant]

Holy Smokes, that is a scary story. Nine years old? If Gambler's Anonymous was publicly traded I'd dump everything (including my poker bankroll) into its stock.

[amoeba]

that kid will be taking my money 10 years down the road.