The future of online poker - to fish or not to fish

[wonderland]

Hi chaps.

So, i'm new to online poker, been playing for a few months now and breaking even. As a noob i've been doing a lot of reading, mainly articles here and in 2+2 etc.

Man if i had a buck for every time someone wrote: "back when it was fishy" and talked about the golden age of online poker (like two years ago).

So, we can assume that, as EVERYTHING in this day and age to do with making money is, online poker will contain less and less fish. Or can we? This is what i propose to discuss. What are the implications of the 'pond drying up' so to speak.

How does online poker look in the future and what would happen if skill was very similar per table (hypothetically speaking of course).

[daven]

fish is relative - there are always barrels full of them

[Keilah]

erm. I disagree. Top players will spank me like no tomorrow, but not nearly as bad as I'll spank the Sunday donk who 'bankrolls' himself with $67 and gives online poker a try.

Online poker will always be profitable. Do you not read the posts here?

[The_OG_Rocco]

fish is relative - there are always barrels full of them

Actually, If you saw that one episode of 'Mythbusters'.
Shooting fish in a barrel is not quite as easy as you would think. Because the water usually stops the bullets from actually hitting the fish.

[wufwugy]

im suspicious that 'back when it was fishy' was no more fishy than now.

[Stacks]

fish is relative - there are always barrels full of them

Actually, If you saw that one episode of 'Mythbusters'.
Shooting fish in a barrel is not quite as easy as you would think. Because the water usually stops the bullets from actually hitting the fish.

Actually it's just "God" protecting the fish from the bullet. He's a good man.

[Deanglow]

Nothing compares to the old 2004 Party Poker. It used be worse (late 06 and 07) but the games have gotten better since.

[badgers]

Internet poker might become a lot more difficult in the future and a lot less profitable. As the games get harder sometimes the winning regs aat one level become the fish, and then they need to move down and have halved their income. Just a random badly worded example.

Just work on your game and get better and try and make as much money as possible without worrying about the future. It is important to note that internet poker playing making sacks full of cash without much skill (there are some cringeworthy 100nl regs that I'm sure are winning) may not always be possible so we don't have much job security.

Cliff notes: stay in school.

[cardsman1992]

I am one of the cringworthy ones, I'm afraid

The games were much softer pre-UIGEA, then got considerably more difficult for about a year or so. In the last 3-6 months I have noticed some re-softening.

Bottom line is, a competent player still has an edge, but it may not be the 6-8ptbb/100 edge that some of the middling players were claiming back pre-legislation. Some of the competition has left, some of the competition has simply gotten better due to more widespread strategy discussion.

[badgers]

cman i dont mean you His name begins with E and ends with toi that's who I was thinking of when I wrote that comment. The dude is taking shots at 200nl atm :S

[Miffed22001]

the average knowledge of any player is much improved than it was 2 years ago. It doesnt mean the fish arent there anymore, it just means they are different.
However, id argue the absolute numbers of complete donks isnt as big as it was, AIGEA has had that effect

[wonderland]

i'm from the UK so don't know much about the UIGEA thing. Just looked it up briefly.

So... i'm a little confused, it says something about not being able to transfer funds to online gambling sites? and also says it sets up the framework for taxing it!

How did it affect people? I must be missing something because it seems that all US citizens can't play online poker if that's the case.

I have a pretty good grasp on how government thinks in terms of finances and ANYONE earning a living without paying tax is fucking doomed. They will not take kindly to it.

[Keilah]

I think that's basicaly the idea, USAers aren't supposed t be playing... but he ones who really want to play find ways around it.

Dude they're so rich and stupid... we need the American public!

PS I effing WISH a guy could average 6-8ptbb/100. That's so much money =[

[spoonitnow]

I think that's basicaly the idea, USAers aren't supposed t be playing... but he ones who really want to play find ways around it.

Dude they're so rich and stupid... we need the American public!

PS I effing WISH a guy could average 6-8ptbb/100. That's so much money =[

The bold is what people are supposed to think but there's no federal law against it. It is illegal to gamble on poker in certain states, however.

The average NLHE player is better than they were a few years ago, but many people forget that NLHE is only one out of a few dozen poker games you can play online. Also, micro and low stakes players are still pretty bad so you shouldn't be discouraged from learning to play.

[badgers]

i'm from the UK

...

I have a pretty good grasp on how government thinks in terms of finances and ANYONE earning a living without paying tax is fucking doomed

have you looked into what the UK government does?

[wonderland]

shit... nope... ??

this seems ok though:

http://www.out-law.com/page-4087

just says the obvious stuff like you need a license to provide etc. to protect under 18s and stuff. Unless you know something i don't?

edit: oops, that article is 2003

[badgers]

That's for businesses. Individuals do not have to pay tax as far as I am aware (and I have looked into it a lot, don't have any links to hand though.)

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[cardsman1992]

PS I effing WISH a guy could average 6-8ptbb/100. That's so much money =[

There's a reason I said "claim"

[BankItDrew]

Internet poker will be available for many many years to come... just not in every country. So, what I may have to do (if Canada follows suit with the US is move my place of residents. Possibly Europe, which would be nice because I've never been.

Regarding the quality of players: It will continue to improve for every existing player that plays today, this week, or this month. In order for there to be a large gap in skill - requires a new pond to fish in ie. Asian market. This is a newly tapped area for the likes of Party and Stars. Take the APPT for example: This is a brand spanking new tournament that began this year in Asia and it was a big hit. I'm optimistic that online poker will survive because of Asia (specifically China).

If you want online poker to survive and continue to keep the fish coming in then we need to collectively promote the game as much as possible.

[wufwugy]

i believe that a decade or so from now it is likely that online poker wont really even exist. this will be due to AI and computer advancements.

the games are 100% solvable, yet they're not solved now because of the colossal amount of effort it would take, but as computer power increases exponentially and very dramatically, what it takes to solve the games will become rather easy. an example of this is (i dont know the exact dates and im not gonna look it up, but im close) the human genome project of sequencing one human genome took like a decade in the 90s, but now scientists are embarking on a cancer/genetic project which is equivalent to approximately 14k human genome projects, and they estimate that could be achieved in five years. this is solely due to the exponential and rapid growth of computer power.

even if the game doesnt become solved within a few decades, a different thing that will likely happen is that the gap between the top and bottom end of players will increase almost exponentially due to 'intelligence' chips. probably a decade from now brain chips that improve just memory will be underground. thirty years from now brain chips in intellectual arenas will have more of an effect than steroids do in high impact sports.

you can be damn sure that if AI doesnt take over before the end of the century then humans will become biotech machines.

also, it's likely some of us will live to see a handful of centuries due to what are now becoming exponential advances in medicine due to human genome sequencing and computers' role in biology, but thats a different topic.