Not true. a professional button pusher will be ****ed if online poker disappears. The gambler will always be able to make money

meaningless. The rake in online poker is tiny compared to live. Not counting the cost of rake is dumb

I dont know what you're really asking here. I dont know how DD makes his money these days so I cant answer.

Not that it matters because even if DD never plays an other hand again he's still a poker player

This is a nonsensical statement. If online poker disappeared tomorrow, I'd be in much better shape than you going forward, DUCY?

and you're taking the discussion on a tangent. We're talking about the difference between rackback pros and people who win. No one cares about who has a lawyer job sitting in the wings

but you're statement is not necessarily true anyway

sorry, the level of superiority ITT got too much for me for a second there.

Yeah, you're probably right, it's just that I'm kind of saddened that players who can lose a ton can make decent money. Maybe I have a romanticized view of it, I dunno.

I don't understand, rake is an inherent part of the game and is always already included in any discussion on a player's profitability. They (the dbeckham types) are not winning poker players, although they do earn money. More power to them, but I don't know why they don't just cut tables and focus on playing well, winning midstakes players make more money than SNEs that lose 20k/year plus you have to play fewer hours ...

I don't CY

because he just becomes a lawyer again

you guys have a funny definition of "winning"

bah, this post is such a tease because we still don't know who you agree with!

Definitely -EV right now with the job market the way it is.

funny? how much simpler does it get than "a player who can sustain a win rate of .01 BB/100 or better"

I wasnt agreeing or disagreeing with Seth :P I was just stating what his point was for Emo

actually, i was about to say that i think any money >0 is "winning".... for a casual player, that certainly holds true imo, but i've reconsidered whether it also applies to professionals...

in an sense, anyone who derived their sole source of income from poker doesn "win", but rather "earns", regardless of the amount.

so the whole discussion comes down to you and zomg making fun of people who play full time, but dont make >100k yr and/or put in more hours than you think is appropriate...

because that is completely arbitary and dependent on the sites rake/rewards structure

not at all. My whole point is the reward structure is meaningless in determining if you are a winning player. Its like the old nits who bleed to death at a 3/6 live game for years but are winning players because once they hit the BBJ.

And the distinction you're making over rake is pointless. Its not like anyone can say "I'm a winning 30/60 player" because its a meaningless statement because the range of 30/60 worldwide is huge. When you're referring to whether someone is a winning player you're talking about what ever game they play. ITs completely possible to be a winning player at site X for limit Z and be a losing player at site Y for limit Z

its perfectly relevant... winning= money.... winning does not = my HEM db show positve BB/100

yeah, like the blog post Emo quoted from piranha.. If you play small stakes on an European site, you pay like 4-5BB/100 rake. On stars it's 2,5ish. I play small stakes for a living for a year (in before lol) and I'm a 2+ winner on stars. If I was playing on say Ipoker or Ongame, I would be an RB whore with the same wr, because they would take away that extra 2-3BB I get to keep on stars.. But they would end up giving it back in the form of a 60% rb program.. So where do you draw the line, how much money do you have to earn and how much rake do you have to be able to pay before that, to call yourself a pro?

And the conversation has degraded to arguing over definitions again......

My definition of a winning player is someone who makes money playing poker before freebies, rakeback, and bonii. If yours includes then thats fine but theres no point in us arguing over it. I freely admit losing poker players can make a lot of money.

I think it hasn't, because it was all about definitions in the first place..

it has though because everyone is just using the terms how ever they want.

I define a poker pro as someone who makes money on the tables. Most use it to mean someone who makes money by playing poker. I stand by my statement that anyone who is a "poker pro" solely because of bonii and rakeback isnt a poker pro.

that's why the convo is so long, cuz you're making up definitions that no sane person (emo doesnt count) would agree with

so if stars decided to raise the rake at the high stakes tomorrow, to the level of the small stakes (adding an extra 1,5-2BB/100 rake),
but increased their rewards at the same time, and the additional rake would "swallow" your wr because of this, but you got it back from the fpp points, the only difference being that hem doesn't show you in the green (as long as they don't implement rb in the winnings field)
then you would cease to be a pro from tomorrow, because of stars' new strategy?

+1

This.