THREAD FROM 2+2

+1 for me on below on thoughts on the way game going at mid / high stakes


HeyEveryone I'm getting a job after 5 years as a pro

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been an online pro for 5 years averaging 6 figures a year and am finally getting a job. I'll probably get flamed for this but I feel this is the beginning of the end unless UIGEA gets repealed or Asia Embraces online poker, neither look particularly likely and either one would just prolong the unavoidable.

These new shallow games on FTP and stars are basically to keep online poker going. They are trying to lower the loss rates of the fish (and thus lower the per hand win rates of the winning players). That is what happened on full tilt and that is what will happen on Stars. The games even at Midstakes are 80% shallow and even when deep runs it is rare they are soft. It is rare that I play someone and they make the type of mistake I used to see every 15 minutes 3 years ago.

Ipoker is not letting their good players move money around as they please anymore.

Poker sites see the games drying up so are trying to prolong the process.

Pokertableratings has over a million unique views and has sold hand histories to almost 10,000 people. Are there enough fish to feed that many people that obviously care about studying the game and their winrate?

Look at how many of the poker site coaches are losing or slight winners. They in general used to kill the games. People still have leaks but you don't make ANYWHERE NEAR the kind of money from someone who 3 bets 5% too much or misses value bets as some one who can't get away from top pair meh kicker regardless of who is betting at him.

The WSOP main event player pool dropped by 20% from 2008-2009 I would be amazed if it didn't drop again this year.

When the economy returns is poker going to come back? I honestly doubt it will significantly. Look at Backgammon in the 70s, there were many people making a lot of money from it. It was sort of a fad and although it is still around the player pool is much tougher. My dad used to play a decent amount of Backgammon cash games in the 70s and told me as soon as I was making decent money from online poker "PLAY TONS, it will not be like this very long", citing his backgammon experience of just noone significantly weaker than him wanting to play for money anymore. It is really true.

The top of the top players will generally continue to make large money as will the players with connections to private fish ponds. Many of the top poker minds would probably be able to make similar as traders or in another field in my opinion and I believe that the next durrrrr will likely not be a poker player.

I'm going to make a Midstakes thread about some more of my opinions regarding the state of online poker and things I have learned along the way.

I will say that the best decisions I have made in my life was to play online poker professionally. Ive traveled to 30 countries and taken roughly a 3 year road trip through poker funds and still have a decent amount saved up. Having a lot of free time and money in your 20s is truly the nuts, but retirement money from online poker is hardly possible anymore without counting the biggest MTTs and I don't want to grind out a middle class income online until my kids go to college (which I believe will always be possible for intelligent players if nothing else solely because me and people like me are getting jobs.)

I'm thinking of doing a well or something like that, though I'm not sure what forum it will be in. If you count all my 2+2 accounts (like 2 or 3 of them) I have probably about 13,000 posts. I think all my bans were from OOT where the ban stick is basically meaningless (they'd probably ban me for saying that).

Thanks for reading

tl;dr notes
Pro for 5 years getting a job now, feel poker is no longer worthwhile as a career for myself and most people that were making good money at it a few years ago.