The Chinese

[Iq75]

There was an interesting article on sundays Helsingin Sanomat (the biggest newspaper of Finland) about the Chinese "goldfarmers".

It says that in China there are tens of thousands of firms that hire people to play World of Warcraft, Lineage etc. The workes play to get virtual coldcoins and after that the firms sell those things (or stuff purchased with them) to players for real money in rich countries. It also says that in the biggest of these firms there are over hundred workers. The owners of these companies are complaining that competition is gettting tough, and that's why the profits are declining. A couple of years ago you could get 9 yuns out of a million virtual goldcoins (at Voyage Century), but now you can only get 1,5 yuans.

There has been some discussion here about the potential of the Chinese markets as a saviour of online poker. But after reading that article i'm declined to think that it's going to be the other way around.

There is allready a market for playmoney chips of poker sites. I think it's only a matter of time before some of those companies will try out poker. And when they see all of their workers beat play money tables, they start moving them to 0.01/0.02 and then 0.02/0.04 and so on. The best on them can advance in stakes very very fast, cause they work long hours. It will also be relatively easy to educate the workers when they can make the whole firm to read available books, give lectures.... And if they give the workers a piece of the profits, they will be highly motivated to beat the games to get out of poverty.

I hope that in the near future the games are not going to be full of chinese pro's even at the small/micro/nano stakes, but that most certainly is one possibility.

[asb165]

I cannot believe that there are hundreds of thousands of Chinese dudes hoarding virtual coins to sell.

If this is true, then my worldview is very skewed.

However, I do think that the Asian market for online poker has interesting implications.

[Gregg777]

All you have to do is be better than the majority and you're golden /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[viper930]

This is not possible because the Chinese government regulates online propaganda, gambling, and sex materials much tighter than you could ever imagine. I see no sites getting even remotely close to legally operating within Chinese borders (except in Macau) for a long time.

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
I cannot believe that there are hundreds of thousands of Chinese dudes hoarding virtual coins to sell.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know someone who runs such a site.

[Jeff_B]

sweet so we will tons of players trying their ass off working trying to get better at poker to get out of poverty to play against ? sweeeeeet games will get even tougher..

[MarkGreb]

[ QUOTE ]
This is not possible because the Chinese government regulates online propaganda, gambling, and sex materials much tighter than you could ever imagine. I see no sites getting even remotely close to legally operating within Chinese borders (except in Macau) for a long time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Legal or not I've seen several players from China at the tables on a few sites.

Just goes to show that when people want to play online poker they will play.

Regardless of the oppression of governments.

[RGL]

I have also seen Chinese players, particularly on WPEX.

[mungpo]

OMG THE POKER WORLD WILL BE OVERRUN BY CHINESE POKER PLAYERS. NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OUT OF THIS!!

[whangarei]

[ QUOTE ]
I have also seen Chinese players, particularly on WPEX.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've seen several on Stars, too.

[wingerli]

It is terrible.
Some is true, some is fault.
More and more Chinese will love the holdem, for it is very easy learn and gambling.
Someone who in interesting in China, please connect me at by msn cqlysee at hotmail dot com
sorry for poor english.

[Iq75]

[ QUOTE ]
All you have to do is be better than the majority and you're golden /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

And the rake. Dont forget the rake. Worst case scenario: All you have to do is to beat majority of those pros (that do 12h days, 7 days a week, 300+ days a year) + beat the rake.

And even then, i would rather just keep my current opponets, since i bet that i can beat them with a way wider margin.

[Iq75]

[ QUOTE ]
This is not possible because the Chinese government regulates online propaganda, gambling, and sex materials much tighter than you could ever imagine. I see no sites getting even remotely close to legally operating within Chinese borders (except in Macau) for a long time.

[/ QUOTE ]

China is a big country and there are a lot of businesses that the government does not approve.

It reminds me of an other article that i read about China couple of months ago. Since it has been a while I’m not so sure about the exact details of the story, but it went something like this:

The local government were planning a coal plant. As you all know there's a huge demand of electricity in China, so there was some big profits to be made and the local officials were getting a nice cut of the profits for providing necessary permits/ the land etc.

When the central government find out about those plans they ordered the local government to stop the planning, because the plant would pollute too much. So the local officials said that the idea of the plant has been suspended.

Except that right after their response to the central government they started to build the damn thing. The central government heard about that too and ordered the work to be stopped. Again the local officials told that the construction work has been stopped. And of course just finished the plant right after that.

Anyways just wanted to point out that if they pay their local party officials, they can Enjoy! their business. And I bet that a lot of the companies that would keep pokerplayers as their workers would be so small that they could easily just keep them under the radar of police.

[[Phill]]

Of all the things to worry you, THIS is it?

Besides, if the market changes, you change with the market.

[Josem]

lol @ this thread.

[Misja]

Chinese are the worst gamblers in the world. Let them come!

[ematz]

There was something akin to this in a recent Newsweek issue(international version anyways).

[nineinchal]

Yeah, but can they overcome the rake?

[godofgamblers]

This is hardly new. Virtual economies exist/existed in a lot of popular online games and MMORPGS (Everquest, Ultima, WoW) Even on a smaller scale such as Diablo II people had sites that sold virtual items where basically a website is created by 10 geeks who do item/gold runs all day and sell it for money. I'm not really up to date with any of that anymore, but I'm assuming they are still abundant now. It's different to employ people at no risk to do these things than to fund them money like in poker where they could potentially lose it. Also, they would be in indirect competition with each other, unlike games where they each profitably get their gold/items.

Might as well worry about 2+2 forums/books educating fish.

[PBJaxx]

I love that there is a thread named "The Chinese." Unsolved Mystery music should play when you click on the link.

[Iq75]

[ QUOTE ]
This is hardly new. Virtual economies exist/existed in a lot of popular online games and MMORPGS (Everquest, Ultima, WoW) Even on a smaller scale such as Diablo II people had sites that sold virtual items where basically a website is created by 10 geeks who do item/gold runs all day and sell it for money. I'm not really up to date with any of that anymore, but I'm assuming they are still abundant now.

[/ QUOTE ]

I too knew that there are some people harvesting virtual gold and selling it. But i thought that the amount of people doing this for full time job is minimal (like 3-4 nerds in the whole world not counting the underaged ones that do it in summertime). I was just amazed that there actually was literally tens of thousends of this people doing this for living.


[ QUOTE ]
It's different to employ people at no risk to do these things than to fund them money like in poker where they could potentially lose it. Also, they would be in indirect competition with each other, unlike games where they each profitably get their gold/items.

Might as well worry about 2+2 forums/books educating fish.

[/ QUOTE ]

If somebody would do it right, i think that there would be very minimal risk at first. One could hire 10 of the most mathematically talented people out of the Warcraft bunch. After that they could give them 1 week worth of lessons and make them read the books. Then make them play 100 000 play money hands (they could sell the play money chips). If a person A is making 10bb/100 or more move him to 0.01/0.02, if not then fire his sorry ass and hire a new worker. After that 100 000 of 0.01/0.02 and so on and so on. In some point a worker would be high enough at stakes that it would be worth keeping him playing in the X level eventhough his not making enough bb/100 to move him to a next level. And considering that they only pay the Warcraft players 60$/month they would not have to play in a very high level to be profitable to the company (60$/300h in a month --> 0,2 $/h to break even). Obviously if a lot of companies would do this in a higher scale, there would emerge a lot of talented players who could beat the higher stakes. And a seriously large number of profitable mid/small stakes grinders.


To all,
there has been some comments on this thread that i should not be too worried about the possible chinese impact on poker. Well to tell you the thruth i'm not that worried. It could take years before anything happen. The chinese market could also bring millions of fish too to balance the negative effect of the chinese sharks (the fish/shark ratio might even improve). Their goverment might enforce the ban of online poker so hard that in the future there might not be any chinese players on pokersites. Who knows whats going to happen. I read the article, thought it was interesting and wanted to discuss my thoughts about the possible impact of these facts to the future of poker. And at the same time point out to those who think that China is going to create a new poker boom in the near future, that it most certainly is possible that the chinese might actually make the games worse.

[wet work]

We could do this right here in America! Buy a bunch of orphans, I bet they're pretty cheap. Give them each $100 on their account. For every $10 they lose, there goes a finger.
I guarantee once a few fingers go the whole team will become winning players. Or else! I don't think I need to mention the penalty for going busto.

[viper930]

[ QUOTE ]
We could do this right here in America! Buy a bunch of orphans, I bet they're pretty cheap. Give them each $100 on their account. For every $10 they lose, there goes a finger.
I guarantee once a few fingers go the whole team will become winning players. Or else! I don't think I need to mention the penalty for going busto.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL

[AntonHeat]

[ QUOTE ]
We could do this right here in America! Buy a bunch of orphans, I bet they're pretty cheap. Give them each $100 on their account. For every $10 they lose, there goes a finger.
I guarantee once a few fingers go the whole team will become winning players. Or else! I don't think I need to mention the penalty for going busto.

[/ QUOTE ]

ahah thats sick

[puckle]

Bring on the Chinese!!!

They are nutso gamboolers who, for the most part, will be more inclined to use superstition than Sklansky to make their decisions at the poker tables. C'mon these are the people who gave the world the glorious science Feng Shui and the amazing philosophy of Falun Gong for crying out loud!

Luckily for us, Mason, according to his Publisher's Note in the January edition of the 2+2 Internet Magazine, has not yet closed a deal to translate the 2+2 opus into Mandarin (or Russian or Hindi).

Yes, in recent weeks I have noticed their presence on Stars and Party.

Sooooo.....lets light the incense, kneel before the Buddha and pray that the Chinese will play poker in preference to blowing up satellites.....or New York.

Regards,
puckle.