Where did you come up with this "60k" thesis of yours?

Im not going to derail the discussion from game quality. But I think variance and game quality are correlated.

The games play out in such a way that you don't need to be gambling and taking high variance lines. This isn't PLO. The player pool isn't slinging their stack around Preflop like a game of hot potato.

If you avoid 3-bet/4-bet reg wars , stop making hero calls, and stop making fancy bluffs because you're tilted and determined to win the pot, then your swings won't be that bad.

Im not BSing you man. Just audit your play after every session. This is going to sound nitty, but cut out all the high variance lines and GTO that the wizard pros are doing at higher stakes games and you will come out further ahead at 2/5.

Once you crush the game hard you can go ahead and laugh at this advice.

Play like Old Man Coffee, beat the game!

There is a natural tendency for some to believe in the idea that maybe the game is dying, but their work ethic and ability in poker will still be able to sustain it. Hence the constant derails. Just more evidence that the game is dying.

Great thing about it is that if you're a casual rec player, the game is just fine as it shrinks slowly. Smaller games are thriving and I don't see regs and semi-regs changing their schedule. Like I wrote several posts ago, the game is trending toward a great makeup for a social club.

The impact is for these "serious" pros. Everyone in LLSNL are much better than they were before. Certain edges have eroded over time and EV is diminishing as the game becomes progressively less profitable.

Losing players will continue to lose and have some very big fundamental leaks. These players will never get good enough to win, but they also aren't really trying to win. They are perfectly content with learning how to lose less (even though they may actually think they're "winning" more).

If it prevents you from spewing off then yes. If you're a regular on 2+2 that plays a full-time schedule and you end up with a break-even year, I gurantee you tilted off somewhere in the ballpark of 35k-40k.


That's about 3k a month of blunders. Even a disciplined 2-5 grinder probably gives back approx 1k a month in profits due to awful decisions that were primarily tilt induced.


This another reason against "LOL live games are harrrrrd". If a rec or bad reg starts to run bad, expect them to start punting off hard. Preflop discipline goes out the window, and post flop becomes a train wreck horror show.

It's always refreshing to read how crushers of these games think .

Much of it being regional is a fair enough statement, but trends start to develop that eventually encompass most places.

Low BI donkaments is a perfect example. Our previous room offered a morning donkament and a nightly donkament, every single day. Just think of the overall action that brought into the room that spilled into the cash game. Our new room as of ~4 years ago eliminated the daily nightly donkament. And as of a few months ago the daily morning donkament was finally eliminated. Yeah, it's only one room, in one market, but the overall trend is clear.

You wanna show up in our room and just play a $60 donkament? You can't. It doesn't exist any more. And ditto for the Limit game if you were looking to play some 2/4 or 4/8. And ditto for playing at all in that room on the other side of the bridge, because it don't exist no more and now you have to drive an extra 45 minutes to get to a room. I'll let the OP decide whether that's a good sign for the future or a bad sign.

Geverythingwillbefine...solongasyoucanplayinLAat3: 00amG

Vancouver area? Place must be filled with money everywhere.

It doesn't make sense! Tons of money flowing in and poker is dying? What gives?!

We do agree. People don't play more poker unless they have to, because they rather free up their time to do things they really enjoy.

So you see, people don't grind more unless they have to, and it's easy to guess why they have to, especially if you are a grinder of 10+ years.

Thing about benefit package is that they are almost entirely math-based. 401k matching, health benefits, PTO, gym membership, free food, etc...

You can argue that you can get cheaper membership or free food in casino =).

But you can't get cheaper health insurance and you don't get free money via PTO and 401k.

It's silly to argue that you are better off without employment benefits, almost like you're arguing for higher rake.

One of the reasons I don't think poker is dying is that the games are still full of people who think they are right.

You're never going to get thru to him. Hes 100% convinced that massive variance is inevitable if you want to win. Hes 100% wrong and the majority of his variance is self imposed with the ridiculous lines he takes that he is convinced are correct. The guy is hard headed as they come.

The thread is about the state of the games in a professional context (he asked if poker is a dying "field"). I don't think it's a de-rail to talk about the state of pros. They are closely linked.

As a rec player, I'd be perfectly happy if 90% of the pros would stop trying to make the small stakes games as miserable as possible. If that means they figure out something else to do for a job, fantastic.

#whalesB4pros

If poker is dying (spoiler warning: it isn't), it is not because of the behavior of pro players.

Very well said. I'm not sure where this crazy inflated idea of salaries generated from but it makes me pull my hair out. Also I don't know why people look at trying to play poker for a living any differently than other fields where your salary can vary and isn't completely guaranteed like sales, small business owners, independent contractors, barbers, etc.

For one, all of your listed comparison has upward trajectory.

Very few people move up in poker.

You can say the same thing about a lot of fields. The negativity around trying to play poker for a living is just funny to me. Plenty of people crash and burn in all the fields I mentioned.

Poker will die when mothers stop telling their sons that they are really really smart.

Not sure why it's funny to you.

If a field doesn't offer much opportunity for upward trajectory and has a ton of people who crash and burn, I would call it out the same way.

Not sure how making such reference has any redeeming value to poker as a "less negative" career choice.

"Playing poker for a living is not that bad. Look at how people who works in Subway for living."

There are millions of people working jobs for a living that are capped advancement wise and if they aren't capped they aren't willing to put in the work to advance so they just cruise along at relatively the same level forever and they are content with that. They have no emergency fund savings, no real retirement nest egg built, and are living paycheck to paycheck. This is why I think it's funny. The average US worker doesn't have a lot of the stuff you're demanding a poker player to have. You give some good financial and life advice but it should be applied to EVERYONE not just those trying to play poker professionally.

I see zero difference in making a serious effort in playing poker for a living compared to making a serious effort to have a successful small business or any other entrepreneurial endeavour. I agree with you that most people that try are going to fail but that's with almost everything in life worth a damn. Naturally you'll get weeded out if you aren't good enough or if you aren't taking it serious enough. Yeah most people aren't going to make a serious effort or they're gonna be in over their heads but that's no different than in the business world and a lot of life in general.

If I am reading this correctly. Your argument for poker as a career is that there are millions of people without real career advancement, real retirement, and are living paycheck to paycheck, what's wrong with poker being a career even though it might resemble these same career?

You are kind of making my point very clearly that poker is a really bad career choice.

Not everyone have what it takes to be a small business owner and entrepreneur. Many businesses fail.

Again, that's kind of making my point, except that small businesses have an upside and potential to grow into a sustaining model. Professional poker by itself simply doesn't have any real upside even if successful.

PSA: Don't do it unless poker is really your best option given your personal circumstances.

We actually agree a lot more than you probably think and I understand where you're coming from but what you're saying about poker you can say about tons of things. There's just this weird double standard with poker that isn't there with a bunch of other entrepreneurial endeavours that have just as low of a success rate.

Please allow me to summarize this thread in my own words after reading er thru...

1. Poker is absolutely harder to beat now then it was in 2006-10. It just is. The days of show up and collect your money are gone.

2. Poker is absolutely still beatable. I play 1-2 NL and every qualifier into big tourneys I can at my local casino, and I'm in the black nearly every year. It may not be sexy or super exciting to play qualifiers and sell the seats for cash, but it pays.

3. Poker does not provide PTO, 401k with match, medical/dental benefits, etc.

4. I truly wish people would stop acting like douche nozzles at the table... Is it single handily killing the game? No. Does it hurt the game to berate new/bad players? 100% yes.

5. I do not believe the game is going to be snuffed out anytime soon. Shrinking, sure. Dead, I don't think so.

Good luck at the tables, all!

Games vary place to place. I'm not sure this is appreciated enough. For example, Florida games seem much softer from what I hear from acquaintances playing down there in addition to my own experience.

Just because we play the same stakes doesn't mean we share poker environments. Bodybuilder talks like there's 7 fish in each of his games, so no wonder he thinks just playing ABC is all it takes. I played a 1/3 last week that had 1-2 real, live fish. And yes, it was even after dinnertime. I doubt ABC makes more than 2-3 bbs an hour in my games.

The upside thing is kinda overrated.

Sure, being a pro poker player isn’t bragworthy to mom & dad,

But I’m betting on the crushing poker making more lifetime than the supremely talented entreprenuer if say he chooses to open a restaraunt these days. Sure he has more upside, however miniscule it is....

This is absolutely correct. It was equally correct during the boom. For how many people has the overall decline in the poker economy caused it to go from being the best option to not? I think it might be significantly fewer than you would think.