I know why there are so few long-term winners at poker

[Slappy002]

What's this business about the games getting tougher?

It's bunk, and I'll explain why.

Fish can learn odds. Fish can learn TAG. Fish can learn to lay down hands. Fish can learn all of these wonderful things.
Winning players can learn to adjust and exploit said fish.

That is why the games will never really get tougher for the true winner, they will simply require adjustment.

This is the reason why only %5 of players are lifetime winners.

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
What's this business about the games getting tougher?

It's bunk, and I'll explain why.

Fish can learn odds. Fish can learn TAG. Fish can learn to lay down hands. Fish can learn all of these wonderful things.
Winning players can learn to adjust and exploit said fish.

That is why the games will never really get tougher for the true winner, they will simply require adjustment.

This is the reason why only %5 of players are lifetime winners.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's some truth to this, but you are also ignoring something obvious. When a fish makes fewer mistakes, there is less money to take from him. Yes, most players when they first learn to play tight before the flop, for example, still make a lot of mistakes and can be profitable for a good player to play against. But they are much less profitable when they were making the same postflop mistakes with a much worse range of starting hands.

HE is a hard game to master, but it's actually pretty easy to play so that others can't beat for much more than the rake. So they still profit off of you, but with a variance that is so high that making a living off this improved fish is no longer feasible. And it's a little tougher but not exactly requiring an IQ of 120 to play so that others can't beat you for more than the rake at all.

That said, failure to adjust and adapt does lead to the downfall of people who might otherwise have the potential to be lifetime winners.

[vhawk01]

I agree with your post entirely. It seems like people are combining two things that arent really the same at all. The actual act of beating the games, i.e. BB/100, can be tough, and might only be possibly positive for X% of players, given current conditions. As the game conditions change, that % can change, and so can the degree to which X% win.

Then there is the other aspect, the long-term job of professional player. Its a tough life, and there are many distractions, all of which impact whether you can hold on to any of these BB's. I dont think this is what people mean though, when they say only X% are winning players. Stu Ungar was a winning player. He wasnt a winning person.

[winky51]

True. But I remember 1 1/2 years ago. The players were easier. If I knew then what I know now I would have been much more successful. Even though I have improved so have the players. I still make money but they make less mistakes. Thus will I still will always beat X bad player. I will not beat X bad player for as much as 1 1/2 years ago. There are less bad players out there at 2/4+ than before. I remember going to tables loaded with fish. 1-2 TAGs at 3/6. Now 3/6 has maybe 3-4 really weak players.

You can't argue that beating a fish is easier then beating a guy that was a fish and has gained some information and is less than a fish. Which means you get less money. If he makes 1 less BB mistake per hours thats 1 less BB you make per hour.

[sternroolz]

Correct. And eventually the fish play well enough that they still might be slightly losing players, bud not badly enough at all that a good player can beat the fish enough to overcome the house drop.

As has been posted several times recently here and in B&M, players seem to severely underestimate the amount that gets taken off the table in the rake.

[ QUOTE ]
True. But I remember 1 1/2 years ago. The players were easier. If I knew then what I know now I would have been much more successful. Even though I have improved so have the players. I still make money but they make less mistakes. Thus will I still will always beat X bad player. I will not beat X bad player for as much as 1 1/2 years ago. There are less bad players out there at 2/4+ than before. I remember going to tables loaded with fish. 1-2 TAGs at 3/6. Now 3/6 has maybe 3-4 really weak players.

You can't argue that beating a fish is easier then beating a guy that was a fish and has gained some information and is less than a fish. Which means you get less money. If he makes 1 less BB mistake per hours thats 1 less BB you make per hour.

[/ QUOTE ]

[iSTRONG]

The reason why there are so few long term winners is because the poker economy works in a sort of pyramid. Granted the rake is a huge factor in the number of overall winners. But I think a bigger factor is that the winners at one limit end up moving up limits too quickly and lose their money to the the higher-level sharks who in turn move up and lose it to the top sharks.
For example, when I started playing poker it took me 1 year to grind out a $10K bankroll at .5/1, 1/2, and 2/4... all donations of small time fish. I then lost it all in less than a month to 1000NL sharks. By now I'm sure most of that money has landed in high-stakes players pockets or diluted in rake.

What I mean is that even if there were no rake, you wouldn't see 50% winners, 50% losers overall.

[sweetjazz]

The reason there are so few long-term winners at poker is that I don't play often enough.

I think the pyramid thing is SO true.

[iSTRONG]

Another piece of evidence comes from PT data. There was a huge thead a long time ago showing that at each limit there are 60% losers and 40% winners. Why is this different from the 6-7% winners reported by online casinos? That's because online casinos report individual win/loses CROSS-LIMITS. It takes a lot of 0.5/1 losers to provide for the winnings of a 30/60 winner.

[Paul2432]

I personally believe that if all players are counted, including those that lose $50 and never play again, the true number of winning players is less than 1%, likely much less.

Suppose a pro plays 8000 table hours per year, or the equivalent of one table continuously for one year. A typical table rakes around $100/hr or $800,000/yr. Let's say the pro wins $100,000 for a total of $900,000 taken off the table each year.

At 1%, the average losing player would need to lose $9000 to support the one pro. That seems kinda high to me.

Paul