There is already a thread about the chess vs checkers thing.

Busquet is right anyway. Internet poker made poker big. Strange thing is that probably the two people to benefit most, DN and PH, are among the most contemptuous towards internet players.

Are you kidding or do you really not get that he's talking about Hellmuth?

no need to study or learn the game.. the key to success was within you all along! use those instincts!

ffs, that was the secret! and you gave it away. F U

Internet poker helped accelerate the poker boom no doubt, as did holecard cams, rounders, moneymaker and other personalities but in reality the main driver was the economy and the biggest bubble in human history. you can lay a chart of the housing boom/bust directly over a chart of the poker(gaming) boom/decline. If online poker would have started in 2008 it would have struggled to survive just like we see Ultimate poker (and others) dying now in a legal regulated environment.

You want another poker boom? let everyone in america refinance their home with a "fog the glass" loan again. or raise the minimum wage to $20/hr. Poker booms with everything else and busts right alongside it.

Hi Phil!

I don't think the bolded is true. Poker was an early/mid 2000's fad that stopped being popular in the mainstream for reasons mostly unrelated to the economy. I think white American college kids had the same financial capability of depositing $30 in 2009 as they did in 2005. I don't doubt that the struggles of the US economy played some role in reducing the size of the poker economy, but I think a much larger reason for the decline in poker is that it stopped being trendy (and then Black Friday).

Also, Daily Fantasy Sports started exactly in 2008...

But internet poker provided the money to put those other things on TV for people to see (except Rounders).

I am not sure who is saying current poker pros "owe" anything to those TV pros from the mid 2000s.

Busquet is completely wrong in his assertion that those people did not help grow the game however, and his assertion that those people "weren't good" at poker is ridiculous; it's like saying "oh the computing industry doesn't owe anything to the people who were using vaccuum tubes in the 1950s, they didn't know anything about C++ and weren't good at programming." It's very easy to stand now, with years of TV to study, training sites, and other analysis tools and say "they weren't as good as I am now". In 2004, none of that existed, and it's pretty uneducated for a current day player to insult those players for not having the knowledge you gain from it.

at the margins $30 makes a big difference in a negative growth environment. DFS is growing right along with the economy. makes perfect sense.

Gaming booms and busts with the economy, this is not a debate.

the poker "fad" still exists, just look at main event entries. its the money thats gone, just look at the number of poker rooms closing and downsizing.

Bingo.

In the end: it's the incomes, stupid.

What's funny is that states where gaming wants to expand (either B&M or internet), all of these states have seen a huge downswing in personal median incomes over the last decade.

From 2000 to 2013, Real US median household income fell 8.6%.
California -9%, Texas 1.5%, New York -2.3%, Florida -8.9%, Illinois -8.2%.

States where real median household income fell >20% from 2000-2013: Delaware, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio.

The only time that saw median incomes rise, between this slump, was in between 2003-2007, which was also when the US Government and the Federal Reserve where propping up the mortgage market and stock market, respectively.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. The main event peaked in 2006 and the number of entries has been way lower ever since. I think it's pretty clear that that's a function of the popularity of the game.

But I'm not even arguing that the post-2008 economy hasn't hurt the poker economy -- it has. I just think you're way overstating it and ignoring all other factors.

exactly. cracks me up when people on here say, "zomg i woulda made so much during the party poker days, you had it soooo ez!". the ignorance of that statement alone proves you wouldnt have.

I guess we'll just have to agree to... agree.

So if the US economy gets back to how it was in 2006, should we expect poker to be equally as popular as it was at that point? Why wasn't poker massively popular in the 90s? Believing that the economy is the single reason poker is dead is wrong.

This man speaks the truth

Hardly way lower. It's still higher than 2005 for example and more than 10 times higher than pre-2003 levels.

No, because the government now is getting in the way in both laws and the "pay-for-play" system we have today in our legislatures. The "boom" happened because the business model was unfettered and unregulated, which is why FTP happened (for the good and bad). Innovation is generally stifled in a crony capitalist system; Pokerstars or FTP wouldn't happen in today's world because mediocrity is rewarded in the form of stock buybacks, M&As, etc.

The US economy is doing OK, but it's only really hitting the top 5-10% of incomes. That's why you are seeing less and less people in your $1-$2 games, but more high rollers for people like Bill Perkins to play. The average consumer is not doing OK.

Access mostly. Gambling (and other vices, think: weed) have become more favorable to the public over the last decade, and governments have followed suit in being more amicable to it (casinos, lottery, fantasy sports). Talking the football lines at the office was a big no-no in the 90s. Now? Everyone from the hot girl in the cubicle next to you, to the CEO at the holiday party, now is discussing who they are playing on DraftKings this weekend.

Why wasn't gay marriage popular in the 1990s? People didn't socially evolve yet.

I never said this, and there are many factors I agree with you, in why poker is flailing - but when the customer base is in ad hoc, mostly due to wage pressures and lack of job opportunity, its going to effect the product. When senior citizens, a big consumer of any form of gambling, is only seeing 1-1.5% increases from SS (and haircuts to their pensions), not even beating the CPI "inflation" number.......consumption of ALL forms is going to take a hit.

Poker is a consumption product. It's a form of gambling with a lifestyle of its own that has many off shoots for product placement and sales. In order for consumers to consume, they need money. They need a constant stream of money because most people who play poker lose at it, and less than 5% make enough significant money off of it to be 100% independently wealthy of of it (without help).

I get what Olivier is saying, but I find it hard to believe that personalities such as Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, and others haven't helped grow poker. I remember back when I was just learning that I made a goal of trying to play like Dwan. Surely there were others like me, depositing because they were inspired by nosebleed winners.

yes. the main event is a decent measure of the "fad" aspect of poker. the health of the poker economy is measured on the cash game floor of a run of the mill casino some random wednesday after traffic. These games used to be filled with players running through 5 BUY INS discussing the house they just flipped, now its about half those players with one buy in complaining theyre still under water.

Yeah, that's true. I meant main events after 2006 were all smaller fields than 2006. What you're saying, though, supports my larger argument.

This is the only tweet I disagree with him on. It wasn't just Moneymaker in the 2003 main event that helped create the poker boom, ESPN did a great job highlighting some pro's and their off the table talents. I still love old episodes of HSP because of the players. In my opinion some poker personalities helped grow the game and then online poker became its own beast with its own set of hero's (Dwan, Isil, ETC).

Also note that these "personalities" where heavily marketed the crap out of.

Money being set on fire does produce smoke for those to stare at.

If you replaced Moneymaker and Hellmuth with Colman and Busquet pre-boom, there would have been no boom.

One wants to hide and never say a word....The other thinks he's better than everybody and only appeals to people already playing poker.

Dude has zero bracelets, has been playing the series since 07... How many bracelets does Ivey have since 07 ? The top players always find a way, period. Trust me the game was juicy in 07 he definitely was around when it was "easy" to make money in poker....For instance Hellmuth has earned bracelets thru the "light and dark ages" of the game.

So was the easy era of poker from 03-07 im confused????

Im just wondering if he thinks he stood a chance at the 2001 final table....

1st Juan Carlos Mortensen $1,500,000
2nd Dewey Tomko $1,098,925
3rd Stan Schrier $699,315
4th Phil Gordon $399,610
5th Phil Hellmuth Jr $303,705
6th Mike Matusow $239,765
7th Henry Nowakowski $179,825
8th Steve Riehle $119,885
9th John Inashima $91,190

After black friday the game got alot tougher everywhere period. Between less fish, people having money tied up online, less rec players, and in general games running.

Irony is busquet has 2 cashes in 07' series and 3 cashes in 11' .. Does that mean the game was easier in 2007 than 2011 , yeah im reaching i know.....