Originally Posted by jalmavi
"Online the games are not there anymore, the player pool is dying off, I do not joke"

Quotes: PhaT Mack
"This is true of live games, also. I used to jump into the old Bellagio game occasionally, when the players would wheel in their oxygen tanks, but they wheel them no more...."
"Back-room stud games have virtually disappeared in the States. They are almost all flop games now."

Well, it's like I say, Stud has a problem, and yet the solution - the two-card flip and the adoption of non-fixed limits which it allows - is being ignored.

what is the two card flip?

3rd street only has 1 down?

The flip is to stud what the flop is to community-card games, and the draw is to closed-poker games, ie, a draw to five-cards at the second round, for want of a better name. You skip fourth street and shorten the game to four rounds.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/20...-flip-1233005/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...mples-1233717/

You are probably right, still, it's much less popular than FL HE, which I don't really understand, probably because I'm even worse at FL HE than FL Stud, which I prefer.

Stud is hard to multi-table however you deal it, that's for sure. But why isn't it being spread as Zoom? I just checked on PS and they've got Holdem, Omaha and Draw for high, which isn't running. Crazy. Stud has a much better chance of generating a player pool than Draw, surely. Fast-fold poker, for all it's faults, removes the multi-tabling issues.


(Note to OP: If this is too OT, we can take it elsewhere if you wish. Tx)

I'll date myself but from everything I can remember before nlhe took over stud was more popular. That's right up to the day nlhe/online poker really boomed. Hate to use Rounders in a reasonable discussion but have won a bet by knowing that there were more scenes featuring a stud game than hold em. That should say something.

Post the internet and nlhe boom I think low stakes lhe just came along for the ride. It's an easier game to learn for beginners (imo it's not even close...it's also significantly less intimidating...during the boom the beginners outnumbered the regs so the regs either played the great lhe game or sat at the bad stud game...it wasn't a hard choice. pre boom often times the beginners had to play the stud game or not play), it's faster/generates more rake for the house, the house promoted jackpots in those games better which is really all low stakes limit poker is now, etc. Also, hold em is/was much better for online so you both got some low stakes guys who once upon a time bonus whore'd paradise out of $50 and some younger higher stakes guys who made a living online and want to play it live (for the people who started their poker online stud was less an option). I don't think any of this really has anything to do with a flaw in limit stud.

Zoom stud makes sense. If it doesn't work it's more a lack of momentum than any game flaw.

I wasn't around but from what I read isn't the chronology something like this:

5 card stud->5 card draw/lowball->NL holdem (uncapped)->7 card stud->Limit HE->NLHE (capped)

It varied a lot and obviously I don't know what every card room in the world spread. Most places I can remember lhe never really overtook stud. It caught up some and basically caught and passed it right at the same time nlhe (and internet poker) got popular. When rooms rarely spread nlhe stud seemed to be the more popular of the two to me. There were some geographical differences and that obviously but to me lhe passed stud when it got popular on the internet (obv it was always much more popular than stud there, and was far more popular than nlhe at the beginning). So I guess I'd basically combine your last two steps and then yeah nlhe just buried everything shortly after that. Point kind of being I don't think stud lost out to a competing live limit game it lost out to all the new player pool coming from an internet background or from watching hold em on a movie or espn.

Yeah, I feel that TV was the cause of the 'poker/hold 'em' boom.
There are millions of players around the world that think of poker as hold 'em, and only hold 'em. How many cardrooms in the U.S. spread stud, 5 or 6 ? How many regulars under the age of 60 play stud ? How many WPT/WSOP stud events are televised ?

Hell, even the ol' timers/retirees have switched over from 1-5 stud to 2/4 & 3/6 LHE. Gotta chase that bad beat jackpot...
I still play live stud occasionally, but it's really getting scarce. Pretty soon I can see it being just part of mixed games.

[QUOTE=cmurl904;34425742]Yeah, I feel that TV was the cause of the 'poker/hold 'em' boom.
QUOTE]

Definitely.
In Italy there is a 24 h TV channel dedicated to poker (pokeritalia24)...ehm...just to NL hold'em poker...
The stupid gambling all-in coin flip moments are what people are looking for.
And every other poker game cannot beat that.
Sigh.

10-20 stud 8 run everyday on merge. 40 hours a week is definitely possible. Come join the pool and keep the game alive/running.

Runs reasonably regularly from what I understand. And of course there'll be a 30 or 40 game neatly every day.

There are a few players in the 20-40 and 30-60 stud games at Commerce that play this game as their primary source of income. They play much more than 40 hours a week though, and I am guessing they clear less than 75K a year on average (Although stud is a very swingy game, which could include big + years on occasion).

You also have to take into account how the standard of living in the Los Angeles area is MUCH higher than most other places, so 75k here doesn't go very far (Renting a 2 br condo in a decent neighborhood + owning a Camry/Accord)

There are a much larger number of good breakevenish players (mostly retired) who might be small winners, but the vast majority of their income is from something else, and play more because they enjoy the game and to pass the time.

The 1-2 games seems to have died out in the last couple years as a few of the big donators have either dropped down or disapeared altogether, and it only runs sporadically when a donator is playing.

Moving forward it will be interesting to see how the pro stud players cope with their game running so sporadically, as most of them probably don't play NLHE or limit holdem well enough to beat comparably sized games (which are also running less and less, although there is a lot of action right now cause of the LAPC).

My honest advice to any hometown hero who has aspirations of coming to LA and crushing the big stud games is don't, unless you have other income streams (either playing a different poker game or non poker related) that will get you through the lean times when the stud game isn't running.

If your goal is just to play the 20-40 or 30-60, again I would say proceed with caution, as even if you do have the skill to "make it" you might find yourself having to play very long hours for a middle class lifestyle in a game that is literally dieing out as most of the regular donators are elderly and literally dieing out themselves.

As far as to why stud is dying out and holdem took over, this was happening long before the TV boom. IMO the main reason is that holdem is much faster and less variance, which all else being equal is perceived as benefiting all parties.

Fish prefer holdem because it is faster and less boring.
The house prefers holdem because it is faster and more $$ being dropped (I think this is the most important reason casino's started pushing HE over stud).
Pro's like holdem because it is much less swingy so they don't have to survive protracted downswings.

The reason I say "perceived" benefit is that for a fish that is going to lose anyways, they are actually much better off playing the slower, more higher variance game. But most of them do not realize this, and even if they did they might still prefer holdem just because it is faster and more fun.

The TV poker boom actually fueled the growth of NLHE, which casinos resisted spreading before, because it is much slower and the fish lose their money faster to good players, instead of slower to the house. But the house worked around this by capping most games and having draconean rakes, and it was still probably a net + to the casino's because it introduced so many new players to the game who would have never come in otherwise.

I've always kind of wondered if Stud is worth learning. It looks like the game is good (a lot of passive old people), and FW never seems to be lacking a few games running. Not to mention 75/150 is one of the biggest games in the house, and after playing some of that player pool in 20/40 limit, I'm less than impressed, so I can imagine what the 20/40 player quality is like.

So, 7CS looks like a viable option if I'm waiting on the 20 LHE game, or the must move game consists of something like 3 other legitimately talented players, two decent, and one fish (happened a few weekends ago, that was a grind to get to the main). Obviously, though, I wouldn't bother if the game isn't good, though I'd be willing to play $1/$5 for learning. Anyone familiar with the FW player pool?

I agree with this. I played stud high full time from 2005-2007 and then switched to NL holdem in 2008 and have made about 4-5 times more per year than I was making then.

From what I can tell, there is exactly 1 guy in Atlantic City who makes his living playing exclusively 20-40 stud high. I think he hold me a couple years ago that he makes about $50K a year.

Regards,
Carlos