Future for Online Pros

[MicroBob]

700,000 Million people?!?!
Damn, it must be REALLY crowded over there.

[Colonel Kataffy]

[ QUOTE ]
700,000 Million people?!?!
Damn, it must be REALLY crowded over there.

[/ QUOTE ]

oops

[TStoneMBD]

i want to clarify my thoughts.

poker is going to get harder. it should. its too easy right now. the game getting harder would only be fair.

[excession]

If you play 6 max NL the games have never ever been better - if you're a full ring limit player then it's hardly surprising you're finding it harder to make $$$.

[wiggs73]

All,

Poker is only going to get harder for those that fail to adjust to the game getting harder. What I mean is this... most people started out by playing losing poker because they didn't understand the basics. Right around 2003-2004, there was an influx of people who started playing and most of them played badly. So folks that had been playing online and winning called this the golden age of online poker. The next step is that this new crowd of folks started learning basic strategy. They learned pre-flop hand rankings, how and why not to give free cards, "tight is right", etc. Those that were ahead of the curve still called this the golden age of poker because not everyone had caught on yet.

So now we're to the point that most everyone knows this basic strategy. However, not a ton of people put much effort into learning anything more than that. And here again, for the people that stay ahead of the next curve, it will continue to the the golden age of online poker.

I do think it's true that you can't beat online games now as easily as you could a year ago. However, I also feel that online games are still, and will continue to be, very beatable. But not if your game hasn't progressed since you learned the fundamentals. Consider this... some while ago, "everyone" played too loose so the correct strategy was to tighten up. Now that the majority of people have done that, what do you think the correct strategy is? And eventually, I think LAG play will become so popular that TAG, or even TP play will be the way to go (I'm probably stretching it by saying TP, but you get my point). The end all, be all of this rant is that online poker will continue to be plenty profitable for those of us that do more than read a book or 2.

Also, it isn't as if new people aren't still continuing to play. Just look at the numbers on the poker sites. They're continuing to sky rocket. Every time I think "man, these games are getting harder" I have another friend tell me "hey, I put some money in Party Poker this weekend... It was so awesome, I played 72o just to [censored] with people and stacked a guy!!!".

On that same note, I think a lot of the reason that people are saying games are tougher is because they have gotten better and moved up in stakes over the past couple of years. Yeah, I think people are generally better now, but at least part of that is the fact that over the past year I've moved from $5 tournaments to $30 and $50 tournaments and from NL25 to NL100. As you move up, you should expect the games to be tougher and less beatable. Are the $5 tournaments still as soft as they used to be? Probably not. But is it fair to assume they are a LOT tougher now just because today's $50 games are tougher than last year's $5 games? Again, probably not.

So that's the long of it. The short of it is, I don't think it should be a huge concern. And if I'm wrong, at least we have casinos.

[aflaba]

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Europe has 700,000 million people. The internet using population in asia is growing.

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When poor chneese people with internet connections start playing. Will that be the end of profitable online play? I can see them and others generating massive amounts of TAG:s until TAG:s only make like a buck an hour.

[stigmata]

The thing is this: The chinese like to gamble just as much as the next guy in the street.

Sure, there are issues with lower cost of living in the developing world, such that they can survive from multi-tableing for lower winraters.

But to some extent, this will be balanced by that element common to all human cultures -- the naive person who initially goes looking for a fast buck, who then gets tied up in chasing their losses and compulsive behaviour.

[chicagoY]

Hey, you know the basic truth of the matter is that, for a good player, half the rake, bonus whoring, and r--back are a winning combination over time with good game selection.

[chicagoY]

Red queen theory in evolution.

[ski]

my earnings have been continuously growing, but my playing ability has too. I think if I played the same as I did 1 year ago, I'd probably be a losing player.