How many good players will end up failing?

[dankhank]

one nice thing is that busting out doesn't equal failing. a good player who busts could run up 3k, move to the midwest and rent a $300/month apartment and slowly but surely get it (money + confidence) back. for a truly good player to fail of his own volition i think would either require important personality/lifestyle defects or else a drop in the quality of games.

"i don't have to worry about money...i'm a great poker player." -mike matusow

unbannable...funny...

[Maulik]

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My main concern is this, poker is a zero sum game. Nothing is created, for every winner, there must be a loser. How long can online poker be sustainable? Ie, when people stop signing up and depositing money, are we all just going to get slowly raked to death?

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Card, I understand that this isn't exactly an informative post, but it's his first, so I think we should give him a break. At least point out kindly that these type of posts are unnecessary. There's been tons of 1st posts that are 20x worse than this.

To Bluff, a couple points I'd like to make:
1) Poker is not a zero-sum game. In fact, it's worse. The rake takes out a substantial portion of the total pool of money. I guess as you move up in limits, the rake is proportionally small compared to the bets, so it approaches one. (I'm not saying ideas behind zero-sum games can't be used to describe poker, but in reality, it's negative-sum).
2) This is just being nit-picky, but it's not true that "for every winner, there must be a loser". It's true that for there to be at least one winner, there has to be at least one loser, but it's possible to imagine a situation where 9 people at a table are up and the 10th person has dropped 200 BBs. In reality though, for every winner in poker, there's more like 10-20 losers.
3) Online poker continues because of the same reason that live poker continues. There's new cash flow coming in. People earn income and lose it at the tables. For online though, I guess it's much easier for a fish to lose large amounts in short periods of time. So who knows where online poker will be later on.

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I'm not sure how eloquently I'll say this but I'll give it a shot. Online poker has grown partly and may continue to do so as a result of the ability for players living in rurural areas to log-in with the click of a mouse. There are many 'fish' who prefer playing online rather than going to their local b&m to play.

[flair1239]

Bankroll management can save you from going bust. If a player is willing to move down to accomodate his roll I think it would be very difficult to go completely broke.

He may have to get a job at some point, but should be able to ride things out.

For example say a player has a $16,000BR and playsd 10/20. He takes a biggish downswing of 400BB. He now has $8,000... so he moves to 5/10... but it keeps going. Loses anohter 400BB, now he has $4,000. Drops down to 3/6 loses another 400BB now he has $1600.

$1600 is still enough of a roll to rebuild to a livable Limit in a relatviely short period of time.

I think those that go compltetly bust and leave the game (and are "winning" players in the +EV sense), go bust because the stubbornly refuse to move down in limits, or they refuse to take a job and deplete their bankrolls through living expenses (in essence inflicting a downswing as far as their bankroll is concerned).

[CardSharpCook]

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And what does your post bring to the discussion?
What magical insight did your 1st post contain then?

Give 1st posters a break!! Everyone makes a 1st post

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Well, you haven't seen as many 1st posts as I have. It is the duty of older members to both notice and point out fisrt posts. People must be welcomed to the forum. Now, I have seen some damned good first posts. Remember Sup bro? Some 1st posts are really awesome - funny and planned to be such. Others are insightful and useful to an on-going thread. These are your "A" posts. "B" is reserved for hand questions or advice that is well put together if not terribly interesting. To get a "C", you've basically placed a random comment in a random thread that no one will ever notice. A "D" posts content in a thread that isn't even tangental to the OP, but has clearly put SOME thought into his post, gives advice that is blatantly wrong, or asks some tired old question like, "How often should I steal from the button?" An "F" is a post that says, "HELLO WORLD!! LOOK AT ME!!!!!" Starting a just to say "hi", responding in a negative manner to a member of a forum, failed attempts at humor, etc. This poster earns a "D".

[Jdanz]

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I get very concerned when excellent players say this, because people who don't understand bankroll mamagement will not apply this correctly. So i am going to add this disclaimer.

***What James and Elmo are saying is only applicable if you have a sense of where you stand in your current game or maybe the one below. You should have a good idea of what kind of bankroll you would need at the stakes you KNOW you can beat to a VERY LOW risk or ruin. If your bankroll swells beyond that point, then you can use the excess money to take shots as frequently as you like as long as you don't endanger your potential earn in your regualr game by doing so. Taking shots every single time you have 300 BB for a stake level will generally not be a good idea because too much of your sucess will be contigent upon luck. For every James, there are MANY people who fail, so don't feel bad being slightly more conservative than he was, because not everyone has his charecter traits that made him sucessful***

Gabe

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Damn fine post. Really i should copy and paste it for when i'm making arguments for taking shots, and don't want to take the time to explain what that really means.

What does my first post rate as? just curious.

[CardSharpCook]

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What does my first post rate as? just curious.

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link us to it and I'll tell you.

[JihadOnTheRiver]

me. twice...

[PokerBob]

IMO the majority of it comes down to bankroll management. It has been said the every poker player goes bust at some point. I don't think that has to be the case. If you run bad, move down. IMO the problem is that ego tends to get in the way.