Small Stakes - People who literally throw money away

IMO, there seems to be 3 major classes of players. It reminds me a lot of golf in that the vast majority are just hobbyists. Then there are a small number of good players who take the sport seriously and actively practice and improve their game. There are then a very small number who are capable of playing professionally at some level.

~ 95% - Players that are just there to have fun. They don't take the game seriously and have no intention of improving their game in any meaningful way. They consider it gambling and are just hoping to get lucky. To them it is little more than a a hobby. Some of these players THINK they are good players because they watch WSOP or learned the game from a family member or friend, but they are not. They will never be winning players.

~ 5% - Players that take the game seriously. They are actively trying to improve their game. They study and practice. This player is a long term winner to some degree as long as they are mostly playing against the 95% who are just there to have fun.

< 1% - The professional quality player. Either makes a living playing or is fully capable of doing so.

I assume these people who are throwing away money usually play to (try to) win but have gone on tilt and don't care about the money anymore. I think its very, very rare that people log onto a poker site and don't care about the money from the start, because thats the whole point of playing poker.

[WhoIam]

This is probably more true of live than online poker. A lot of live players are there to socialize/have some fun/have some drinks and don't care to much about losing. This also probably applies more to limit; any totally incompetent or maniacal player is going to lose a ton of money (by almost anyone's standards) playing 25NL or higher.

[scrapperdog]

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I assume these people who are throwing away money usually play to (try to) win but have gone on tilt and don't care about the money anymore.

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Good point. Everyone but tilt proof players throw money away from time to time.