HS/College or new grads: How big is poker among young people?

[El Diablo]

This is directed to the younger 2+2ers.

I'm trying to get an idea of how big poker is nowadays in high school and college, and among young graduates.

Here on 2+2 we read all the time about kids winning/losing 100k+ in a session before they can legally drink, and tons of stories about tourney scores in the hundreds of thousands or even over a million. But is that sort of stuff known about and talked about a lot at schools?

If I were to go to your high school or college:

a) What percentage of people play poker sometimes / regularly, like once a week or more /all the time, every day or almost every day / etc?
b) What percentage of people play at limits where they are regularly winning/losing over $100/$1,000/$10,000 per session?
c) How many kids in your school are making over $100,000 per year at poker?
d) How much do the people who don't play poker know about how much people are making?
e) Does the party crowd play poker? Do athletes play poker? Is it "cool" to play poker?

No need to answer these like a quiz, that's not the point, just write whatever you think the "state of poker" is among your peers. What I'm trying to get a feel of is how common it is to play poker, what kinds of limits are "normal" games, what the perception is of poker players, etc.

[ImsaKidd]

I would say a fair number of guys play poker casually, maybe 30-40%.

I know of 2 other serious online players at my school of 10,000 students, one of them might be pulling down 100k, not sure. We'll say 2/10k students making 100k/year.

Probably 6 or 7 playing at limits where they can be +- 1k/session.

I try not to tell people how much I make, although I told one other friend and word sort of spread. Oops! I get a lot of questions when people see my 8 tabling on 2 screens as well. I try to be vague, but its hard if they look at stacks or whatever- "OMG IS THAT REAL MONEY?"

No clue on the "cool" factor.

Blah, just read the end of your post, I answered it like a quiz anyway [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Thats_So_Gay]

God to be 18 again and discover both poker and 2+2...that would be so sweet. Add all the horny 14-18 year old hot chicks and life would be insane.

[LBJ]

I'm an 18 year old who'll graduate HS in a couple weeks. I've played online for a couple years so I can probably give you a good answer to your question.

a) In my HS, there is a decent subset of people who play regularly. I used to play with them all the time (think once a weekend), but took up partying and such and now don't play with them as much (don't play online anymore either). They still play once or twice a week. In general, though, there is a very large amount of people who play, and the group I mentioned is only the hardcore players. Almost all the guys know how to play, have played, and are semi-decent, but few are really good.

b) Maybe one in the whole school (I know almost everyone of the 600+ in my class, but maybe I don't know about someone)

c) 0... If you need to ask this question then I think you overrate the amount of people that actually have a large amount of success playing online. Maybe in college that will change, but in HS there is none even close. To give a good view, I would guess that there are maybe 2 or 3 people in my class who have made around $15,000. On the other hand I know probably 25 people who have lost around $100 (through transfers from me or others, AFFILIATE BONUS !! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img])

d) People have big mouths. My closest friends used to tell people I played online, I discouraged them from doing so because I hate when people try to freeload on me/ask for $50 loan etc. and pretty much I just wanted to be a normal kid...

e) Party crowd - When bored or screwing around on a Sunday afternoon.
Athletes do, and to tell the truth I can't think of one subset of people that DON'T play, besides the goths and such.

Overall, poker USED to be a lot bigger than it is now, but that may just be because my friends used to play more around soph. year but eventually got into partying. Tournaments were usually around $20, could get up to $50ish when playing with poker fans...

[guids]

Im 24, a semi-recent grad. Poker si not as popular, it used to be you couldnt talk to 3 people and not be invited to at least a game. most of the poker games have evolved into guys just partying and using it as an excuse to get away from the wives. There are very few "pros" that I know irl, sometimes you will hear a guy at a party that plays online for a living but it is very rare, and almost non existent anymore.

[Kimbell175113]

A lot of guys' brothers' roommates' have won a donkament and cashed out some money, if you listen to the talk, but I'm continually surprised by the lack of knowledge or awareness.

FWIW, I go to Purdue (i.e. everyone around me is an engineer), so you'd think people would be more aware of mathematical stuff, but when it relates to gambling, people r dumb.

[El Diablo]

All,

"Overall, poker USED to be a lot bigger than it is now"

"Poker si not as popular"

I'm really curious how many of you agree with those types of comments re: the popularity of poker among HS/college students.

If that is really true, then the current unprecedented number of people playing things like 100/200+NL could end up really drying up the games a lot faster than anyone expects.

[beeyjay]

el d,

I would agree with those statements. My feeling is that it peaked 1-1.5 years ago.

That was when some of my friends who had seen me playing for years but never played got chipsets for xmas and played, my sister who was in high school was playing with her friends and it seemed everybody at least knew of Celebrity Poker Showdown even if they didn't watch poker on tv.

edit to say I was also mid-late college at that point and now I'm out and live/work around slightly older people so that could have some impact, but I don't think I'm that out of touch yet.

[guids]

[ QUOTE ]
All,

"Overall, poker USED to be a lot bigger than it is now"

"Poker si not as popular"

I'm really curious how many of you agree with those types of comments re: the popularity of poker among HS/college students.

If that is really true, then the current unprecedented number of people playing things like 100/200+NL could end up really drying up the games a lot faster than anyone expects.

[/ QUOTE ]


I think that may be harder to judge though than we think. BandM has with no questions, at least around here, has declined, and it started to much before the legislation was passed. The thing is though, you dont know about online players, becuase unless you happen to run into them in a casino/home game, you dont know if they play or not other than teh random encounter.

[Learning]

I'm currently a senior in highschool in California, and I know of about 5 guys that are remotely interested in playing. However, I think this is somewhat tainted due to the fact that everyone knows me as a student of the game (and the few times I've played with them I've left with just about all the chips).

There are a couple home-games that I know have and have been to in town - mainly run by mid-twenties solid players. They seem to have a nice system where they find fish that are going for fun with friends and go busto. Very profitable for the stakes (.5/1NL).

I've spoke to a couple guys on 2p2 that already go to the college I'll be attending in the fall, and as far as they know there are no prominent poker groups, although there are individual players.

The general consensus amongst people that don't study the game is that poker is no different than multiplayer blackjack with bluffing. One girl came up to me while I was reading Sklansky at lunch and said "You know, card counting is a myth."

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]