So I am a student at the University of Michigan and am going to be writing a research paper on the poker boom. One point I would like to make is that the boom of online poker could not last, even given an infinite player pool. I think this is because with the growth of training sites and forums like 2+2 that the average skill level would continue to increase, making the current situation inevitable. I am hoping to include the opinions of other 2+2ers so post your thoughts. Thanks.

tl;dr Post thoughts on effect of training sites and forums on poker boom, as well as general boom thoughts.

i always felt rake would eventually become the only long-term winner online

TBH I reckon if you gave a quick private tweet/message to a pro like Daniel Negraunu or even Phil Galfond they would be happy to give some thoughts on this. Better to get professional opinions than some opinions from random forum members.

Just let them know what you're doing, why and that you aren't doing it for financial gain.

instrinsicaly is the best word I've seen since cometishian

Seems like a pretty cliche argument to make, and there's nothing "intrinsic" about it. But, whatever gets you the B+ and the piece of paper on the wall!

tendencies change, online poker training goes out of date, people adapt....ball keeps rolling

5 instrinsical stars thread IMO

is this thread a level?

I will argue the opposite because a pool of skilled players provides a stable poker base for a sustainable poker ecosystem.

There is a reason that poker rooms are built around "regulars". The more regulars, the bigger a poker room can be supported.

Training sites, books, etc. help beginners become regulars.

The current situation is due to politics and legislation.

No boom lasts forever.



If you're serious check out the backgammon boom.

Its important to come to your conclusion BEFORE you do your research right? The world always needs more piles of monkey **** on the shelves of academic libraries right?

Maybe you should drop out of school and go do something of value to someone somewhere.

I would love to see the finished product if you wouldn't mind posting when its complete.

I don't see a problem with this. You form a hypothesis first and then the paper should be used to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

FWIW, I think the hypothesis is wrong. People are willing to pay money every month for games like Eve Online and World of Warcraft just to be entertained. I don't doubt a near endless supply of entertainment players were willing to keep the poker economy running from the bottom-up.

The real "Boom" is still to come

Zynga tho

This. Slots and other -EV games seem to be doing fine in lots of places.

I don't really like the way OP phrases it, but I think that thinking of the online poker boom as a temporary gold rush is clearly right. The opportunity to hoover up money is not going remain static - even with enough replacement losers bringing money into the game, the chance to get rich is going to attract more people with the right make up to be winners, driving down expected winnings and driving up what is needed to earn those winnings.

If it weren't for the training sites, it would have been something else - it's less a specific poker related event and more of a common phenomenon in a new market with fairly low barriers to entry. That's not to say that the steady state wont offer the chance for some or many to make ok money, and a few to make lots, but just that thinking of the golden age of the boom era as the model for the mature situation even after the US legalises the game is (IMO) unrealistic.

OP, you may want to analyze more than one factor, if you want your paper to be anything approaching worthwhile.

In particular, the UIGEA decimated the pool of casual players, and online poker never really recovered.

There still would have been some sort of equilibrium eventually, but it would have been 10x (or whatever) better than what happened, because there are WAY more casual and/or stupid and/or lazy players than there are smart, motivated, skilled players.

Plus you throw in the financial crisis/recession, and now you have two enormous shocks to any theoretical equilibrium model you might have had.

No, just a mistake.

MODS LOCK!

this

you aren't gonna sound too bright bringing a paper that applies to every boom that ever existed. Esp for a U paper.

You should talk about how a regulated market is -EV for an industry when it's done by brainless ******s like politicians.

This is very true, but more of a USA problem. If you look at poker globally, OP, which you should, Try to network with some players with access to Pokerstars in other countries, Russia and Spain have a LOT of casual players. If you can watch some sessions from a micro/small stakes player and then also find a winning Mid stakes player to watch sessions with, write down player names.

Go to Pokertableratings.com and look up these players results, on small networks like Cake, there are many many players dumping thousands in penny games, for Pokerstars I imagine that number proportionately is the same to the player pool, but we are talking about a lot of money.

What I would look for, while watching a session, would be number of winning/losing players per table, how much they won/lost, and what the Net would be, it should be a negative number as the rake has to get money from somewhere. Look at how long the losing players have been playing, how many hands, come up with a way to show how much casual money is coming in, based on number of full tables per site, or perhaps based on number of logged in players, and base this on number of hands played.

You should be able to figure out how much money comes into a site per hand if you take even a small sample of tables, how much goes to rake each hand, and how much money is up for grabs. And you could do this based on time zone, focusing on peak times for that particular country.

Write about something more important than poker. Why waste a good education?

why are you ignoring the fact that addicitions trump logic and reason?

This and this. Its harder for sure but there will never be no fish/gamblers.