Card Player Article: The End Is Coming

[jon462]

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obviously he's right. In june i played 600 sngs averaging 35% Roi, including 150 50s near the end of the month with 40% Roi. In august i had 500 with about a 15% ROI total. obviously they are getting much harder!!!!!

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You clearly have a large enough sample to represent the millions of SnGs played on PP in that time period.

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Thats what I thought too, im glad you agree with me.

[Karak567]

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Have not read the article. But my opinion is one based purely on gambling in general. Poker to most, is just another form of gambling. Some like blackjack, some like roulette, some like craps, whatever. Casinos have been around a long time. In fact, I'm sure many of us have local Indian casinos now. The act or desire to gamble will never go away. In the end, it just comes down to game of choice.

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winner ^

I completely agree.

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.

[otctrader]

And just to add, casual players that do have productive jobs are only a paycheck away from replenishing their BR, so fears of the fish pool dying off are overrated.

Society is full of -EV bets (slot machines, lotteries, etc...) and I would gander a vast majority of the players are repeat customers who don't give a rat's ass about learning, or else they wouldn't be playing those games.

[burningyen]

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i for one am hoping that poker is a big hit in China [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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Be careful what you wish for.

[Ricardido]

There are always going to be a few fish in a poker ocean.

[A_PLUS]

Of course, gambling and poker arent going anywhere. People really have to stop using that as some sort of answer to the 'when will the party end' question. People dont necessarily spend a higher % of their income on gambling now than they did 5 years ago, they just play poker rather than blackjack.

If you dont think poker is a fad, you are kidding yourself. The fact that it existed prefad, and will exist post fad in no way discount the fact that it is currently a short term pop culture phenomenon. There is a very good chance that in 1-5-10yrs things will be markedly different. Just think of your own personal experience. How many friendly gatherings now end up turning into a poker game now vs 4 years ago. Why is it that this attitude will never change?

Will the fish all die? No, but their will be less of them.

For people to wonder about China and other Europe is a little comical. Why hasnt poker spread? Why would it? Why hasnt baseball spread to those nations? American football? Why hasnt Soccer spread to the US?

[eastbay]

I think a common sense argument supports his claim to some degree:

Can you think of any way at all that is easier to make money than to play poker right now? It's absurdly easy. And that means there's a market inefficiency right now that will correct itself. How quickly, it's hard to say. But you can't have it be so simple as to read a few books and a forum for an hour or two a day and become a six-figure earner within a year like is possible in poker right now. There's too many smart people in this world who will capitalize on this and drive the market towards efficiency. It's only a matter of time.

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.

eastbay

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I think a common sense argument supports his claim to some degree:

Can you think of any way at all that is easier to make money than to play poker right now? It's absurdly easy. And that means there's a market inefficiency right now that will correct itself. How quickly, it's hard to say. But you can't have it be so simple as to read a few books and a forum for an hour or two a day and become a six-figure earner within a year like is possible in poker right now. There's too many smart people in this world who will capitalize on this and drive the market towards efficiency. It's only a matter of time.

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.

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.

Those two factors will likely decay with time; what won't decay with time is the fear of variance. Professional poker players are likely people who tend to be less averse to variance than most (although we certainly still hate negative variance). Even this group would likely take a slight hit to EV to lower variance (and we often do).

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.

[microbet]

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. Currently only a very small percentage of poker players can do this. The difference between poker and most other fields is that it takes much less time to get there, if you are capable of it. That is because it is totally a function of your ability, not your connections or your resume.

There are a lot more smart people, but there are also a lot more not so smart people. If everyone on earth played poker, the games would be easy.

I think that while the numbers of players are growing the game will be easy because the number of sharks will lag, and vice versa when the number of players shrinks, so I basically agree despite the above quibbling.

Still, is the number of players growing or shrinking? Remember the Chinese. Gambling is popular. Incomes are rising. Internet is spreading.