The fish are leaving the poker pond!!

CHOPTALK · Feb 8, 2006

I dont know if players are getting better or if its because all the new players that came from the Cris Moneymaker boom are not playing as much as they use to and its leaving just the old-timers that have a clue, or a combination of both. All I know is poker is not a game anymore to make quick and easy money.

I thinks its time for me to cut bait and move on. The play is getting much better. It use to be you could find an idiot that would go all-in with top pair on the board. Now the play is alot smarter. Im not saying you cant still find an idiot here and there but its much more hard to find.

I never considered myself a great poker player. I was good at finding the right table for my style. I was good at lurking around looking for a fish. They are hard to find now.

Insiders · Feb 8, 2006

This probably is so very true in LasVegas but, out in the other parts of the Real world the Explosion Grows everyday. House games around here are Booming and i do mean Booming.
I know a guy that has a Tourney Every night and 3 Tourneys on Saturday with Cash games after and dureing each one. When he started this it was hard to fill up one table. Now they have 6 and waiting list most of the time. He is makeing some Serious cash here.

5teamparlay · Feb 8, 2006

Stop by the poker room at the Hard Rock in Tampa Bay on a Saturday night, it's a 3 hour wait (minimum) to playand at least an hour during the week and they just set a new record for action in recent weeks.

This may be Vegas specific, Vegas may be a bit saturated, but they said that 40 years ago about Vegas in general. I predict a record year for the WSOP.

QuickLearner · Feb 8, 2006

I agree that play is better, but the games are still beatable.

OMNIVOROUS FROG · Feb 8, 2006

Yes, this is an avalanche of epic proportions, with no sign of letting up. Plus they advertise in almost all of the national rags. I think the baitfish supply is close to endless. If I were a betting man I would wager poker continues to grow to all time highs. Especially internet and wsop events. The exposure is also at an all time high. This trend is not reversing, I doubt it is even slowing down.

Best Wishes...OF :103631605

Dante · Feb 8, 2006

there are still idiots playing at online poker...I run into them alot at the low limit ring games

degenerategambler · Feb 8, 2006

Dante said:
there are still idiots playing at online poker...I run into them alot at the low limit ring games

Agree, I love the 6 person ring games at lower limits, that is where I have had the most success.

CY18 · Feb 8, 2006

The more lazy this generation I am gets the more wannabe high stakes poker players there are going to be. There are so many stories of kids my age who go to college and have lost their life savings playing poker all day while in college and don't even focus on school. One of my ex friends all he does is work at a grocery store and play poker and he gave up on school. He won 1200 bucks once on Poker Stars and once won 2400 in person, but he has no money management skills.

Point is that I am not saying it's a huge majority, but there are kids in my generation who all think they are all the best at playing hold em and it's such crap.

Each to his own, but the younger genertation is one of the things increasing the boom.

I haven't played in a long time online and I know usually any table I play there are at least three people that are better than me.

Chris

Matt24 · Feb 8, 2006

ChrisYandek said:
The more lazy this generation gets the more wannabe high stakes poker players there are going to be.

I play poker for a living and I am nowhere near lazy.

CY18 · Feb 8, 2006

Matt24 said:
I play poker for a living and I am nowhere near lazy.

You have a college degree though right Matt? You are hard working and structured. I wasn't talking about people like you.

You have a plan, goals, etc. Most of these guys don't.

WildBill · Feb 8, 2006

Its running out of steam as I assert in my article. There will still be plenty of games around, but the growth rate the industry began getting used to requires that many more new players a year.

Steve Lipscomb put it best. He said at first on TV people enjoyed watching it, but then they wanted to play it. If they did well or really enjoyed it, they would become regulars and make the community bigger.

We currently are between 2 and 3. Ratings are going down quite a bit because people now don't watch, they play. The part about becoming semi-serious and a regular is hard since most realize when playing decent players you have to be a pretty solid player to succeed. Many people still entering the live games have only played in for play games online or in home games with equally inept opposition.

I fully expect my scenario to play out within 18 months. Too many NL games will bust a lot of good donators and there won't be enough fresh bait to take their place. What bait does come and stick around naturally gets better, not to being winners, but to not being such rank amateurs. Eventually we will be back to late 90s levels of players with maybe twice as many games going on. Late 90s were very tough to beat HE. It was almost all limit and lots of tough competitors left over from the last boom that came in the late 80s when HE and Stud were legalized in California.

Insiders · Feb 8, 2006

Anyone care to take a GUESS at what the entry number will be in the WSOP this year? I betcha its MUCH more than last year and that was just like a lottery.
Poker might be looseing its luster in Las Vegas but its NOT throughout the USA by NO means. IMO

CY18 · Feb 8, 2006

When I interviewed Phil Hellmuth in December he said 10,000.

I am not a poker expert, but that would be 4400 extra people from last year correct?

Insiders · Feb 8, 2006

Chris
I think there was something like 5600 last year. I think there will be Many many more this year...JMHO

Matt24 · Feb 8, 2006

Yep, I have a degree

CY18 · Feb 8, 2006

Matt24 said:
Yep, I have a degree

Hey Matt. Again I want to apologize if I offended you. I mean you are not like these others. I know that. You got your own site with all your info and you promote yourself well and have strategies.

Chris

Matt24 · Feb 8, 2006

No problem, just not a fan of the lazy connotation. I understand what youre saying.

steeser · Feb 8, 2006

WildBill said:
Its running out of steam as I assert in my article. There will still be plenty of games around, but the growth rate the industry began getting used to requires that many more new players a year.

Steve Lipscomb put it best. He said at first on TV people enjoyed watching it, but then they wanted to play it. If they did well or really enjoyed it, they would become regulars and make the community bigger.

We currently are between 2 and 3. Ratings are going down quite a bit because people now don't watch, they play. The part about becoming semi-serious and a regular is hard since most realize when playing decent players you have to be a pretty solid player to succeed. Many people still entering the live games have only played in for play games online or in home games with equally inept opposition.

I fully expect my scenario to play out within 18 months. Too many NL games will bust a lot of good donators and there won't be enough fresh bait to take their place. What bait does come and stick around naturally gets better, not to being winners, but to not being such rank amateurs. Eventually we will be back to late 90s levels of players with maybe twice as many games going on. Late 90s were very tough to beat HE. It was almost all limit and lots of tough competitors left over from the last boom that came in the late 80s when HE and Stud were legalized in California.

I think your article fails to recognize the number of players playing online.

QuickLearner · Feb 8, 2006

Concerning the "boom," within the last week, Mason Malmuth was asked whether he still thinks that no-limit games will decline or die out. Here's the important part of his answer:

"What has happened is that we are not really having a poker boom but more acurately a no limit hold 'em boom. The boom is occurring in both tournaments and cash games. I don't know how long it will last but I suspect that there will be no limit games for a fairly long time to come."

This is coming from someone who is no fan of no-limit. He always wrote that it is a flawed game in that the edge which good players have over weak ones is so great that the weak ones stand virtually no chance of surviving. I think it's much easier for today's rookies to survive in an online, low-limit, capped buy-in NL cash game than it was in the pre-online era. Also, online tournament poker is wildly popular for a very good reason. They get to play a lot of poker (just like they've watched on the WSOP) for a small financial risk and have a chance for a big score.

I expect that if I checked the number of players online at just the big sites (Party, Pokerstars, Ultimatebet, Paradise, Prima, Crypto, OnGame) tonight at 10pm I would find the total to exceed 150,000. I'll also bet that at noon EST the number would be at least 75,000. And those numbers wouldn't include a bunch of other sites like Bodog, TruePoker, B2B, Victor Chandler, and the other small ones. The numbers are probably 30% higher on weekends.

And wait until the land-based casinos get American-based online poker legalized! I'm not convinced that the boom is over.

TTinCO · Feb 8, 2006

It's not over, but I fully expect the growth rate to diminish greatly in the next couple of years.

The fish are leaving the poker pond!!

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