Fold kings?

[n1232]

I just wanted to quote a post from the awesome baltostar that really lets us into his amazing mind. This is from a thread that was about if the poker boom is over or not



Thus planting the seeds for the inevitable collapse of the poker boom.

All gambling booms die the same way. Multitudes of overly-ambitious participants with poor understandings of markets, risk, and opportunity-cost become over-involved, creating a surreal set of expectations that lures all but the very best into over-extending themselves.

Ultimately, a near complete disassociation between game currency and real-world currency occurs and risk feeds upon itself in a doomed upward spiral of impossible expectations.

Various forms of unadvisable leverage are sought out and utilized to maintain place in the accelerating status quo, catalyzing an expanding series of personal collapses that becomes extreme and unsurvivable for most. Only the strongest can endure the real-world consequences of a cycle of personal ruin and rebuild.

Once the feed of naiive money dries up, the pyramid of surreal expectations collapses and only those with an awareness and a keen eye for signs of impending implosion properly adjust their risk profiles and emerge enriched.

The large majority emerge damaged for decades, if not life, and the game itself is tainted for years, if not decades.

[baltostar]

[ QUOTE ]
I just wanted to quote a post from the awesome baltostar that really lets us into his amazing mind. This is from a thread that was about if the poker boom is over or not



Thus planting the seeds for the inevitable collapse of the poker boom.

All gambling booms die the same way. Multitudes of overly-ambitious participants with poor understandings of markets, risk, and opportunity-cost become over-involved, creating a surreal set of expectations that lures all but the very best into over-extending themselves.

Ultimately, a near complete disassociation between game currency and real-world currency occurs and risk feeds upon itself in a doomed upward spiral of impossible expectations.

Various forms of unadvisable leverage are sought out and utilized to maintain place in the accelerating status quo, catalyzing an expanding series of personal collapses that becomes extreme and unsurvivable for most. Only the strongest can endure the real-world consequences of a cycle of personal ruin and rebuild.

Once the feed of naiive money dries up, the pyramid of surreal expectations collapses and only those with an awareness and a keen eye for signs of impending implosion properly adjust their risk profiles and emerge enriched.

The large majority emerge damaged for decades, if not life, and the game itself is tainted for years, if not decades.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're in the midst of exactly such a collapse in the mortgage-backed markets, and China is accelerating nicely as the next extraordinary speculatory bubble.

Poker is more speculation than skill. Those quitting their jobs and schools to concentrate on poker are betting on the liquidity pipeline of easy donk money to expand indefinitely. It will not. Worse, most will deny the collapse as it is occurring, blame their own play, regroup, reanalyze, retarget, and refund. Ultimately, most young players of today will be broke, and worse, seriously in debt and lacking any real-world marketable skill.

Those who haven't hands-on participated in full-cycle speculatory bubbles grossly misunderstand them. I know I did during my first experience with a bubble.

Professional poker is misperceived as a static game of skill. It is not. It is speculation.