An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker

[raptor517]

everyone keeps saying things about the party poker goldmine, but i played on party for over 2 years, and have made 5x as much since party shut down than i did the entire time before playing on it more hours than i do now. i feel like people just have this idea in their head about how great and wonderful party was, but theres still super soft games. sure the ppl open shoving pf for no reason are gone, but poker can still be crushed. how long though, who knows, but im getting annoyed with everyone referencing the 'party poker goldmine'

[basementproject]

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...possibly the most dangerous aspect in this debate going forward is that one of the most important skills in making a successful player also flies directly in the face of said player planning for the future. The ability to disregard the importance of winning/losing large amounts money. This, in my opinion, is the main reason we see all these frivolous car purchases, broke players with hundreds of thousands in winnings, etc. Is there any good advice on keeping said devaluation on the tables? I have always been fairly frugal in my life away from poker so I havent ever really had this problem myself, but I think this is a central issue in the future of many of the young players.

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Until kids stop defining 'rich' as having tons of money and material posessions, this will always be a problem. Kids are brought up to value money. They are taught from middle school that they can't have anything without money, and they are also taught that society rewards people who have more cash than the 9-5 guy. Therefore, from middle school, the race is on to get more stuff than the next guy, in any way possible.

Hence the drug dealer kids. And the kids working 2 jobs while trying to get A's and scholarships. And the kids playing poker. And all of those kids not saving their [censored], but throwing it away on shoes and movies and whatever. It's just the way it is.

Honestly, the problem IMO is not a maturity thing as somebody suggested- it's a societal thing. The generation coming up is dripping with materialism, and it's not really their fault. Spending your cash without real long-term thought can no longer be considered immature, it's just the norm, it's what kids are being encouraged to do.

I'm not like this myself, but I can attest to it, having gone through the system pretty recently.

[Ship Ship McGipp]

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Poker as a hobby or job is great. Some like to play the guitar, play bridge, ride motorcycles, shoot pictures, etc.


To what aejones said, making $250k, or more as 5/10 or $10/20 nl players make, that's great. In reality if you make $100k, have no deadlines and bosses to work for, and graduated college, happiness is the pursuit. If you don't get the degree, you'll likely experience "sheepskin effects."

If you're like ahnuld, cts, yvesaint/stan ivey, or any of the strong players playing and going to college it's an excellent hobby. Take time off for a semester, go do whatever the [censored] your heart desires.


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I'm a junior in college and I'm fairly certain cts dropped out. I know he took a semester off, from what I know he hasn't gone back (not that anyone can blame him).

[Ship Ship McGipp]

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everyone keeps saying things about the party poker goldmine, but i played on party for over 2 years, and have made 5x as much since party shut down than i did the entire time before playing on it more hours than i do now. i feel like people just have this idea in their head about how great and wonderful party was, but theres still super soft games. sure the ppl open shoving pf for no reason are gone, but poker can still be crushed. how long though, who knows, but im getting annoyed with everyone referencing the 'party poker goldmine'

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rap taht only means you have increased your skill level at a faster curve. the fact of the matter is that a lot of mediocre and bad players beat party for a lot of money, and if we could go back with this skill level we could beat it for 1m a year without nearly the variance or the hours needed to put in work now (excluding running hot at 50-1 or osmething, i'm talking about like 10-20 'grinding').

[Omnificent]

I'm just curious, if many are making then many are loosing, obviously it wouldn't be a great PR move to provide details on the % of loosing players in general or the amount in $ figures..but is there any numbers out there to indicate?..I suppose we could look at the opposite side of the coin and determine if the online poker scene will have a negative impact on society in a greater magnitude then the positive?

[ZeeJustin]

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If you are good enough to beat 5-10 and 10-20 online, you are going to be able to make a quarter of a million dollars a year for the rest of your life if you put the effort into it

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If you are talking about NL, then you are only talking about a very small percent of self proclaimed professional poker players. Hell, most of the top ranked pocket 5's guys can't even beat a 5/10 NL game online.

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i'm obviously talking about NL. and lol at the p5s comment, common now.

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OP was talking about the effects on a generation. Not the select few 25 teenagers across the country that can beat a 5/10 NL game online.

[El Diablo]

All,

Haven't read through much of this thread yet, but looks like some good stuff. I agree w/ Taylor, though. There's definitely still a ton of money in poker, but there are plenty of other similar opportunities - this just happens to be the one people around here are most familiar with. A lot of the other opportunities also scale far greater than poker - where you are obviously constrained by the number of hands you can play. Here's an interesting article about a couple of guys who developed a facebook sticky notes app: Business Week article

[lucksack]

It's not a very large group that is making big money. I think this generation in general will gamble more when they become older and wealthier, since they are more used to poker and internet. The "prodigies" won't have a big effect, since there aren't that many and many are slackers.

[Indiana]

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It's not a very large group that is making big money. I think this generation in general will gamble more when they become older and wealthier, since they are more used to poker and internet. The "prodigies" won't have a big effect, since there aren't that many and many are slackers.

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how many ZeeJustins could there be out there anyway? 100 tops? Id also gamble that Zee's net worth FROM poker is not above 1 million dollars......there won't be much of an impact at all i'd guess.

Indy

[Taylor Caby]

[ QUOTE ]
everyone keeps saying things about the party poker goldmine, but i played on party for over 2 years, and have made 5x as much since party shut down than i did the entire time before playing on it more hours than i do now. i feel like people just have this idea in their head about how great and wonderful party was, but theres still super soft games. sure the ppl open shoving pf for no reason are gone, but poker can still be crushed. how long though, who knows, but im getting annoyed with everyone referencing the 'party poker goldmine'

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QFT. It's unbelievable how often people say "if I could go back..." or "if i knew what I know now.." I mean comeon, you can say this about ANYTHING, and if you knew what you knew now in 2004, you should go back and create Facebook, not grind party poker.

tc