It depends what way twitch goes whether it will be good for poker. If it's going to be educational than it's going to be bad for poker but if it's entertainment than it will be good for poker as they aren't told how to play as much. Jcarver when online has to have over 95% of the market share for poker streams. He's not telling people to play tight agressive, play starting hands etc. If beginners + recreational players follows what Jcarver does on stream there going to start playing poker be a loose passive player. He's the only poker streamer which has enough viewers where it would potentially benefit the game. The rest of the streamers who rarely get over 250+ views impact is going to be very minor.

Twitch will be the reason online poker comes back to the United States.

Why?

These arnt like 15 year olds, didnt you have money at 18+? i def had cash from working small jobs, was up to 6 figs by 22.

Surely these people will be depositing, 250 maybe? more likely 50 or 100 with multiple attempts over extended period. basically exactly what we want as poker players.

To write twitch off as being negative is borderline crazy at best. Its basically the future.

this x10000000

It's brutal for regs that the games are drying up, so that they don't have a 'guaranteed income for life' they might have dreamed of, but it was always completely inevitable, due to the nature of the (raked) poker eco-system. (As with a gold rush, there are diminishing returns as time goes on and deposits run out).
Ironically, the influx of 'Twitch money' might slightly extend the careers of regs, so it's weird to see someone like TimStone complaining about new people discovering poker.
But this thread isn't really about Twitch at all. It's about teh TimStone frustratedly realizing that he's eventually going to have to grow up and get a proper job.

okay a bit of background, i played poker online semi-professionally for 2 years and i made enough to cover my costs for 2 years at university, i primarily played SSFR(back when 100NL zoom used to run) and when i had to switch over to 6max(cos 100NL zoom FR never runs anymore) i discovered that i can no longer beat the game without putting in significantly more work and i had a lot of work at uni.

during my time i paid roughly 4.5bb/100 in rake at 100NL FR which means if i were to play 100k hands per month(i actually only average 70k hands per month but i'll make it a round number for easier math) i would have paid $4500 in rake.since i am a student and i don't have too many expenses winning at 1.5bb/100 was enough for me which means i take in $1500 and as a supernova i can get about 2.5bb/100 in rakeback. so my monthly income is $4500. so to maintain my living standard i need $9000 from the poker economy per month($4500 in rake and $4500 in income) let's say that the average new player from twitch deposites $100. which means I need 90 of them per month to survive and thats assuming that all of them are losing players(and that they lose their money fast enough such that their rake is negligible).

now then consider a -40bb/100 complete fish and a -2.5bb/100 bad reg. sure both of them will lose all their money eventually but for the -2.5bb/100 bad reg, majority of his losses will go to pokerstars and not me. the point is if all the fishes become bad regs will need a lot more than 90 fresh deposites each month to survive.

now imagine if a few of the 90 fishes becomes a winning player(then i'm ****ed now aren't i T.T )

so as u can see, for every winning player u need a lot of fishes to sustain him. free information on twitch makes fishes into better players. sure some of them will be complete donks, but as long as a few of them finds pokerstrategy.com and learn to short stack it will significantly cut into my win rate. They don't have to be winning players, losing money at a slower rate hurts my winrate(cos rake). sure, u will not become a winning player just from watching twitch, but even watching a skilled player for an hour can make u aware that the poker u were playing before was wrong. before the age of training sites, people wasn't even aware that playing 40/10/1 was wrong. sure, watching twitch alone will not make u understand ranges, balance expoitative play etc etc, but i can make u aware that those things exists and that is very damaging to the poker economy

in b4 tldr; sorry its not organised very well, its 7am here

I agree that giving out free information is stupid, and even if you're paid, it would have to be so high, no one would pay.

With that said, wasn't the same argument made by the pros originally when hole card cameras were being introduced and became popular? Don't think that hurt the games.

These threads are worse than Twitch. I'm a successful SNG/MTT player, I used to sometimes play cash just because or because I thought I could beat it. I couldn't. I'm never doing that again since now I know that everyone at NL50 is a 24 tabling russian GTO bumhunting seating script pro.

But I lose less than 51bbs/100 so what do you care.

++++1

No one thinks broadcasting poker on TV would be/has been bad for poker. But anyways, do you think poker is a sport?

i heard somewhere on 2+2 that Twitch dont like poker broadcaster. is this true ?

someone here have ever donate to a twitch channel ? cant believe some people pay for that.

It's pretty well known that twitch poker viewers are much less inclined to donate money then the video game viewers. If anyone is getting into twitch streaming to make money directly from viewers, not going to happen.

I agree twitch just technically can`t be anything good longterm.
Yound motivated nolife geeks getting into the games can`t be great.
If all SC2 type top guys suddenly started 24x7 poker grind, u guys would runrunrun really quickly.
Having said that i dont see it being the nail in the coffin. Twitch is not the end of the world.
The fact that there are so few less games running compared to say year ago is the real coffin. Need more TVshows, fesh commercials etc etc. W/o that, and with lesser and lesser games that would be real nail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients

It gets played at a very high level and I think there are actually pro DOTA players in esports.

i mean, who likes tough games?

The more time passes by, the more I'm starting to agree with Dan Colman.

Poker is kind of toxic. It's the truth. It requires consistent advertising to introduce new players into the game so they can lose money. Sure, poker isnt played just to make money. Alot of people play just to have fun, but still...the truth is its a pretty toxic environment.

Probably no one but then most of us don't spend a decent chunk of money to buy the best seating scripts, make a career out of playing only the worst players and then have the audacity to create a thread whining that people are giving away free information on twitch. Only those who can afford the best third party software, training etc. are allowed to improve?

I know regs don't tend to care about anyone but themselves and that's fair enough. I just find it laughable that we/I (Whoever) are supposed to care that OP is scared of a future where he has to play people who aren't drooling idiots.

This was true few years ago, but for anything close to your winrate i can t see why you would refuse unless you just don t like the process, if you don t teach, someone else will, there is ton of site and material out there. It s always about offer and demand, and the market is always right, soo if people giving away secret for not soo high money nowadays it s becazuse it s exactly what it s worth. (sorry for the broken english)

You guys worry too much, people are stupid.

I watch Somerville most nights and the outrageously bad HH reviews he gets sent are unbelievable.

You can lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink.

There might be a reason why you made this OP, and not a top notch player, and a proportionate difference of expressivness of the content, depending on who posts this OP.

People like to overestimate their own skills, and if an outdated 1/2 reg posts this thread, teh majority of readers will think they are more intelligent and work harder and are better than the OP. I'd go out on a limb and say even most of the roughly break-even before rakeback NL10 regs will likely think they are btter than OP, so the false fear he is trying to create doesn't get through to more than a few anxiety driven grinders/droolers with the IQ of a saladbowl, who would have had to quit the game in a few months/years, anyway, with or wothout twitch.

I just think people who still grind nlhe cash, but complain about the toughness of the games and have to move down are reminding me of those guys, who wear 80's clothes and collect cans on the street nowadays.

Watched Dutch on Twitch today,very entertaining but fish would struggle to learn good habits from him.

This is a very silly thread from someone who started out on Pokerstrategy in 2007 like so many of us. Most of us wouldn't have been able to come close to winning even back then if there hadn't been someone trying to make a buck from poker instruction/entertainment.

This is just the next wave and I would strongly argue that poker instruction is at an alltime lowpoint if you look at the overall quality of training videos and the viewer participation in those videos. Watching a few streams is going to make you better but it is never going to turn you into a crushing player. You are probably going to learn how to push/fold at 10bb but you are never going to grasp advanced concepts if you are just starting out.

Making people aware that poker still exists and clearing up misconceptions is going to do way more good in the long run.

For the moment Twitch is really entertaining with tournaments and Spin n gos clearly being the fan favorite.

Also I don't see any repercussions from Athenes attempts at teaching everyone FR cashgames a few years back and it is not going to happen this time either.

Twitch can be good and bad for poker, IMO.

Good: I've watched a few minutes of Jcarver stream and he was one tabling, seeming to have fun, running deep in a MTT and offering some insights along the way. Made poker seem fun, kind of easy, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. His strategy consisted of things like I don't want to ghook up for a huge pot against the other big stack, etc... This is the kind of stream that can help online poker get new players, who can see themselves doing similar. They probably think I can play like this guy, I would like to play with this guy, and I can even beat this guy...

Bad: I clicked another stream, I forget the name, and watch some guy 4 tabling with a HUD running, and clicking on the stats before making every move. This guy has X% this, Y% that etc... so I can call profitably etc... This guy was working to make money, had a tool designed and running in a way he understood very well, and the casual player would look at it and think, poker is hard, and I can never beat this guy...

Bottom line, some twitch streams will help, and some will hurt.

+1

Twitch could have been golden for poker, if there were more streams like Big Dog's (entertaining, no HUD, minimal strategy).

The HUGE problem with Twitch poker is broadcasters like AJFenixx who are producing better content, and pumping out streams of very valuable information that is better than most instructional videos currently being produced on Cardrunners--that you have to pay for.

If this poker thing doesn't work out you can move to Philly. Buy a loft. Start a noise band. Get six or seven roomates… eat hummus with them. Book some gigs. Paint. Smoke cloves. Listen to Animal Collective. Start some type of salsa company.