Population model for the future of poker professionals

[Heisenb3rg]

Poker for the longest time was an untapped gold mine...
This could only last for so long. It's too easy to make at least 2x minumem wage in the game at the small stakes. Anyone who is average or above intelligence with decent discipline and can read a book can accomplish this right now. There is NO way the games will get better than they are right now. It will go downhill, I have no doubt.

However, I am fully confident it will not die. Poker will imo reach close to an equilbrium point where a sustainable economy exists, and the games simply CANNOT get tougher.

My prediction on the future of poker:

Poker is part of macho male culture, it always will be. Gambling addictions are severe, common and a byproduct of our psychology, not just our society. This will always be there. This will stay relativly constant. How much apart of male mucho culture will fluxuate, but I can't see it dying. Poker in my opinion is the perfect game for bullys with gambling addictions.

Note: Things effecting the medium of "how" we play poker also has a drastic effect on this and drastically changes my model below. This includes legislation. In the past this would include things like online poker and televised poker.

I predict the poker economy will behave similar to a biological system hypohtesised by thomas malthus (high school stuff :P ) http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html

Where the fish, are the food, and we are the predators.But in this situation, the predators can also feed on predators.

Picture a graph with the Y axis being #Poker pros, X axis being time. I predict it will be broken up into five phases.

Stage 1: Y increases exponetially relative to T
Stage 2: Y increases logarithmically relative to T
Stage 3: Y noticeably decreases relative to T
Stage 4: Y very very slowly decreases relative to T
Stage 5: Equilbrium reached, with Y slightly oscilating respect to T.

I think we are in stage 2 right now.

Stage 0: Nearly everyone is a fish, poker knowledge is weak. Huge part of our culture, tons of players coming in. People do not realize how much profit there is in poker.

Stage 1: So many people are drawn the prospect of easy money, that people come from all over. With books out there they can learn to feed on the fish very quickly as well as defend themselves from being fed on. People are quitting their jobs, quitting university because the money is good. People see their freinds playing poker professionally making so much money and come in themeselves.
A "boom" in professionals.

Stage2:
Population overcrowding is now starting to feel it's effects, with some players dying off, but more players coming in than going out because the fish are still plentiful. The fish population is decreasing too because skill is inreasing, thus they are going broke faster.

Stage 3:
Eventually the pro's will swamp the number of addicts, making games tough , and fishy tables hard to come by. Trust me when I say we're not even close to this stage yet.
While many players still make a reasonable living, many others are forced to quit because they go broke.
Fish are going broke faster than ever.

Stage 4:
Eventually the system has come close to reaching an equilbrium point. This is where I predict it to differ from the malthusian model.

The "good" will not be able to sustain a living anymore so will be forced into getting a job or go busto equivilent to "dying" . The great should be still be able to survive. However, because of the influx of players, there should be more great players than early in the population, causing the fish to go broke faster and faster , causing a decline in the number of fish in the system.. Also killing off some pros.

Stage 5: Eventually the best players wont be able to get much better, the old greats will die off, and rate of new players becoming good is equal to the rate of old pros dying off. This is when the true equilbrium point will be reached.

We wont see stage 5 in our life time.I am talking poker in general however, limit itself may die.

[RonMexico]

I'm curious to know where you think bots factor into this timeline and how that will affect your theory for the online game.

[googleit123]

I used to play Party 3/6 back in 2004, when I first started and with almost no knowledge of the game other than play tight I won several hundred dollars in one night.

Now I return to the same game and it is filled with players who have seen over 100k-1M flops in their lifetime. As you indicated however, in today's modern game there are still fish swimming around.

The WSOP, WPT, the allure of BIG money and a job with very low overhead is very appealing. Poker is a time and potentially capital intensive endeavour as many pros now know. Newbies are finding out that there is a LOT more than meets the eye. Tip of the iceberg kind of analogy. Hold'Em requires more thinking and skill than they ever thought.

In Poker Essay's there is an writing on each indivudual game. The 2+2 community thinks that because of the skill difference between the expert and the novice that the No Limit form of Texas Hold'Em may ease off if that skill gap does not close.

I would not be suprised though, to see a professional poker school that students actually go to and learn both theory and practical applications of the game.

The Internet poker side of things will be legalized again, more pros will make a living off the game which will in turn attract more newbies, which will in turn keep the game alive and well, at least in the intermediate term.

However, evolution is a funny thing. The game will change. Maybe a deck with 104 cards. Bring back the Joker. Change a few rules.

Build it and they will come.

Google

[Heisenb3rg]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious to know where you think bots factor into this timeline and how that will affect your theory for the online game.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is an external circumstance that I mentioned early..

I really have no idea.. I wrote a paper in my undergraduate AI course on the current state of poker AI and did a lot of research.
It is insanely complex to program good multiplayer poker AI.
Limit is extremly hard, NL at this point in time seems impossible.

If the bots ever get good enough to beat medium stakes? online poker is screwed unless there's some cryptography that can guarntee no bots exist (unlikely).
So yeah they can kill online poker.

No way to predict how long this will take

[duckman]

[ QUOTE ]


The Internet poker side of things will be legalized again, more pros will make a living off the game which will in turn attract more newbies, which will in turn keep the game alive and well, at least in the intermediate term.




[/ QUOTE ]The internet will not be legalized anytime soon in the US as the B&M Casino and relgious right lobby will prevent it. Ask gun control advocates how easy it is to get past the NRA.
And new entrants generate pros - not the other way around as you put it.
The internet poker trend is on the downside and Frist's bill was an accelerant to a process that might of lasted several more years.

[duckman]

I think we are at stage 3

[ginko]

I dont know about this..

Shouldnt poker be insanely tough right now since the bill past?

"fish" are still depositing though. Poker is getting more and more popular, tv shows, advertising, movies. Everyone plays poker or knows someone that plays.

People think online poker is illegal since the new law. But every day more and more people realize they can still play online, so they do.

Although I do admit the general skill is raising, but so is mine.

[GittyUP]

[ QUOTE ]
I think we are at stage 3

[/ QUOTE ]
Do you really feel that when you sit at a 6max table there are 4 or 5 "pros" sitting with you?
At the stakes I play NL100, NL200, NL400 I find that MOST not all 6max tables have 1 or 2 "good" players, 1 "average" player, and 1 or 2 "fish". Occassionally you will see an "expert" player around but not much.
I define an "expert" as a player in the top 5% and according to most estimates the top 5% or less are the ones actually making money.
Now what was considered a good player 2 years ago is now an average player. The average player 2 years ago a fish..ect ect. But by no means are pros starting to pick off pros at this point. there is just too much bad play around for a pro to even want to take on another pro.

[Sheakspeer]

On page 15 of The Theory of Poker, David Sklansky writes "To think of poker as something glamourous is very bad. You must think that you are just working as a poker player and that you are not particularly anxious about making a big score." If we take Sklansky's words as the gospel it is on these boards, this is an understatement.

I believe there are a lot of people playing poker right now looking for "a big score." Playing poker is "not glamourous," yet I also believe many people playing now believe it to be.

There is far too much money in America (where poker is most popular), and far too many other ways to make money, and far too many other things to spend your time doing, for poker to completely dry out because poker is a dirty, mindless, frustrating grind just like most other occupations . . . not a quick fix.

I'll throw in one more quote even though I hate to use this (because it's used so much), but PT Barnum said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public."

There's enough money and stupid people in the country and I believe we'll be fine.

[RonMexico]

Bots are already populating some card rooms at the lowest stakes of fixed limit. While their postflop play is very exploitable by a decent player, the aggression and preflop play tends to be solid and should give bad players a lot of trouble. I think this has interesting implications. For instance, these sames bots are milking the fish while we are both sleeping. Does this mean the fish 1.) go broke faster, 2.) quit if/when they find out they are playing bots, 3.) provide programmers with a fine-tuning playground for their code? Perhaps all three I assume.