Will the supply of fish eventually run dry?

[revots33]

I started playing holdem online about a year ago, along with 3 friends of mine. We all sucked in the beginning. I began to read books, I discovered 2+2, and slowly I began improving. My friends also read maybe a book or 2, but for whatever reason they never got any better. We all continued to play for a while, and as I got better I started to win a little and realized I had found a potentially profitable and enjoyable hobby.

But gradually my friends started playing less and less - they got sick of redepositing money into their accounts, and just got sick of losing. They didn't have the desire or inclination to work at getting better - they just decided they had better uses for their free time and money. They don't play at all anymore.

I'm sure there are many others like them, who will lose a certain amount and then basically give up the game. Right now, there are probably more new players coming in than there are losing players leaving. But I'd think eventually the trend will reverse, and the supply of new players won't be enough to compensate for the losing players that decide to pack it in.

This is just my hobby (and I play strictly low limits), but I wonder what any of the pros out there think about this? Are we near a "bubble" in terms of bad players in the game? Will we be playing games only against fellow 2+2ers in the future? (OK an exaggeration I know, but still...)

[goofball]

has the supply of fish run dry in vegas?

no. every day i see thousands of people making large -EV bets because they want to GAMBOOOL.

vegas wasn't built on winners.

[Grisgra]

On the other hand, there seem to be a lot more TAGs at Party 5/10 now than there used to be . . .

Maybe there's just as many fish, but a lot more winning players than before?

[goofball]

that's certainly true. i at one point didn't play poker and now i'm a winning player. I'm sure there are lots of people who can say the same thing, and conversely not nearly as many who were winning players a nd quit.

[Al Schoonmaker]

Darwinian evolution applies just as much to poker as it does to many other activities. There is a huge pool of fish, but it is not infinite. The weaker players tend to leave, and the stronger players continue.

You must continue to develop, or you will ultimately lose.

Regards,

Al

[TripleH68]

Grisgra,

Do you suppose there is a bit of a cyclical pattern through the big four sites? I mean, when I started posting at 2+2 I was chided a bit for playing at PS. Everyone was saying all last year that Party was definitely the place to be. Well either I am getting much better or PS is filling up with more fishy players. Just fish food for thought...

[Voltron87]

I think the online supply of fish will definitely dry up. The games have already declined in quality and the will decline some more. There are a lot of players who are not very good making money online because of the boom who will not continue to enjoy their current success.

However live boom play is here to stay, it is a lot of fun for people to watch poker on tv and a lot of fun to gambooooool.

There are a ton of new players and they might not love too many buy ins on PP but they will keep playing live because live>online in fun for fish EV.

[goofball]

This is certainly true if you want to play for higher and higher stakes. In fact, moving up is a much closer analogy to natural selection.

Your analogy for the general player pool is flawed though. First: The general consensus is that games are easier now than they were 5 or 10 years ago. Thus one can assume a player of teh same skill level will be winning more now then they did then. Second: For practical purposes there is an endless supply of fish. The percentage of people who play poker seriously and well who are students of the game is trivial inrelation to the percentage who are not. Third: if people strove to get better at gambling activities, to make +EV bets, to become skilled, the casinos would either be already broke or rapidly on their way to becoming so. The evidence is quite strong to teh contrary.

[FredJones888]

I agree with this. Internet poker was the wave of the future 3 years ago, but now its about as big as it ever will be. As the growth rate slows, the ratio of good players vs. bad players will get worse.

[Voltron87]

There is no room for losers in internet poker and PT, PV, etc will just crush the bad players out. They have no chance in the long run and don't enjoy losing again and again. But b and m is fun.