Why Current Online Win Rates Won't Persist

[pineapple888]

Yeah, I see your point.

Cause when your home table champs found Vegas and the WSOP, and were satisfied with much less in winnings than the top pros, the top pros really got hurt bad.

Then when college students, who were satisfied with much less in winnings than online pros with actual responsibilities, found online poker, the online pros got hurt bad.

Oh, wait... never mind...

[MrDannimal]

One thing people seem to be missing in comparing this idea to the MMORPG "sweatshop" is that with the MMORPG, there is no point at which the employee has access to actual money.

They sign on, grind out in-game currency, and at the end of their shift, they give that currency to another character (who is like the "bank" holding the currency for sale). There's no way to get actual real-world money other than as pay.

This is substantially less true in the hypothetical poker sweatshop. Even if the "company" sets up all the accounts and handles the process of getting money into the poker account, what's to keep the pleyers from chip dumping to a friend who isn't in the sweatshop? That friend then gives them a cut after cashout, and all it has to do is be bigger than their hourly pay and voila!

Also, with an MMORPG, there is no risk of losing real money. The only fear is that an employee won't reach his quota (and in fact, you can often fleece gold farmers at the end of their shifts as they cut "prices" on items in an effort to make quota), that he won't generate enough on-line currency.

In poker, there is a definite risk of losing real world money. In my last 6 hours of play, I made 8 BB. Two 3-hour sessions, one was -37 BB, the other was +45 BB. Both are outliers in comparison to what I normally see in a single session result (although the net result is a little low, it's pretty inline for a small sample). But imagine I'm working for a "poker farm", and finish my shift down 37 BB. Do I even get the chance to have the +45 BB session tomorrow?

On top of that, there's a definite cost involved in finding out if a given employee is a winning player. It's not like you can dump 100 people into the play money pool (or even micro-limits) and say "Learn!". There is far less cost involved with an MMORPG. There is a LOT of zero-revenue time spent learning how to even be a .2 bb/100 player at even 2/4.

Overhead/startup cost is also much greater. Let's assume that the equipment cost is the same (1 station per employee). If you're going to put your employee at .5/1, you would need to bankroll each player with AT LEAST $100 (and probably more). MMORPGS cost less to play in places like China and the like (partly because they can't afford $15/month). Even at the U.S. rate of $15/month, that's almost 7 months worth of play!

From a "farming" standpoint, there's little financial incentive to try poker over any MMORPG.

Now, I'm not saying that there won't be people in foreign countries who will play and win, and be happy winning at a much lower rate than your average american. In fact, I think the individual player is the only one there's any amount of concern about. However, those individuals fall under the same fish/shark rule that any other poker player would. For every third world player who comes in and is happy at .2 bb/100, there will be 5-10 more who lose money trying and the barrier to entry is much higher than that for a company.

Yes, if you suddenly added a large # of marginal winners to the playerbase, it would impact the existing winning players AT THAT LEVEL. I don't think worrying about this scenario happening is any more worthwhile than worrying about extracting the maximum from a flopped Royal Flush. It's so unlikely, and there are so many other things you could be thinking about that would have a greater EV.

[blackize]

I refuse to read all these posts. But here is why you are wrong.

It takes money to play poker. You need substantial capital for a bankroll and to buy computers and pay for your internet connection. Just this investment alone will hinder people in underdeveloped nations from playing.

Now how did you learn to play poker? You probably bought a book and then lost a bunch of money honing your skills. I would venture to say that most players do not become profitable for several months. The people in these countries don't have the time or the money to invest in learning poker.

[ QUOTE ]
I refuse to read all these posts. But here is why you are wrong.

It takes money to play poker. You need substantial capital for a bankroll and to buy computers and pay for your internet connection. Just this investment alone will hinder people in underdeveloped nations from playing.

[/ QUOTE ]



You should have read the whole thread as this was already addressed. Yes people in developing nations have a harder time getting computers then people from developed nations. Crayzee put up a good link explaining that. It is not impossible and many people in these nations already have computers. His link even explained how it is becoming easier to get computers for these people and that computer use in these places is going to take huge jumps in the coming years.

[ QUOTE ]
Now how did you learn to play poker? You probably bought a book and then lost a bunch of money honing your skills. I would venture to say that most players do not become profitable for several months. The people in these countries don't have the time or the money to invest in learning poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly why fish in these places won't take up the game, and why the ones that do will quit very quickly. That leaves only sharks, and soon to be sharks to take up the game. The ops argument as I understood it was that the ratio from these countries will be different, and they will settle for lower wages then current professionals. This makes complete sense to me. The only real question is how likey is poker to become popular in developing nations. I think it is unlikely to happen in the near future, but it will eventually.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I refuse to read all these posts. But here is why you are wrong.

It takes money to play poker. You need substantial capital for a bankroll and to buy computers and pay for your internet connection. Just this investment alone will hinder people in underdeveloped nations from playing.

[/ QUOTE ]



You should have read the whole thread as this was already addressed. Yes people in developing nations have a harder time getting computers then people from developed nations. Crayzee put up a good link explaining that. It is not impossible and many people in these nations already have computers. His link even explained how it is becoming easier to get computers for these people and that computer use in these places is going to take huge jumps in the coming years.

[ QUOTE ]
Now how did you learn to play poker? You probably bought a book and then lost a bunch of money honing your skills. I would venture to say that most players do not become profitable for several months. The people in these countries don't have the time or the money to invest in learning poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly why fish in these places won't take up the game, and why the ones that do will quit very quickly. That leaves only sharks, and soon to be sharks to take up the game. The ops argument as I understood it was that the ratio from these countries will be different, and they will settle for lower wages then current professionals. This makes complete sense to me. The only real question is how likey is poker to become popular in developing nations. I think it is unlikely to happen in the near future, but it will eventually.

[/ QUOTE ]

About the popularity. I travel to Argentina about 4 times a year and speak to a brazilian kid a lot. Poker is catching on down there. Getting popular among friends and more popular online too. It seems like to me they are about 2 years behind us (seems to to have explosive growth the year moneymaker won and it was televised on ESPN. And even if the game didnt' catch on, it certainly would among those who wanted to pursue it as a career. A job is a job.

[ QUOTE ]
I refuse to read all these posts. But here is why you are wrong.

It takes money to play poker. You need substantial capital for a bankroll and to buy computers and pay for your internet connection. Just this investment alone will hinder people in underdeveloped nations from playing.

Now how did you learn to play poker? You probably bought a book and then lost a bunch of money honing your skills. I would venture to say that most players do not become profitable for several months. The people in these countries don't have the time or the money to invest in learning poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

I did read a book, but i never lost money. I started with 50 and never had to redoposit. Its really not that dificult if you start at lower limits to get experience and play profitably.

[kapw7]

That's so scary. That means some of the ppl that left college to become online poker pros will have to collect garbage in the near future? That's so incredibly amusing.

[gabbahh]

You are now assuming that people from developing countries make great poker players.

[kapw7]

[ QUOTE ]
You are now assuming that people from developing countries make great poker players.

[/ QUOTE ]

They make great doctors, great lawyers, great scientists, great athletes, great chess players etc. What's so special with poker that is beyond their abilities?

[FromTheSouth]

Hi all. I am from Argentina. I haven't read all the posts here because I got tired at number 20. Despite that, I can talk from my experience. I play at the 200 NL and 400 NL. There are several factors that would influence in making the decision of making a career at poker. We can discuss it later if you want.
But I think in this discussion the the bottom line is: 2 OF 10 PEOPLE AT THIS BUSINESS is/are a winning player/s (meaning by this capable of a wealthy life wherever he/she lives).