At its current level, Twitch is great for poker, especially the more popular streams. Don't see how streamers giving new players mostly poor advice that they won't even retain as being a bad thing. Maybe future streams/streamers where they are just generally giving amazing advice trying to make the games harder but I have only really seen one of those, and once again they have to retain this information.

BIGDOG my favourite. Best stream for me personally. He's hilarious. A viewer said to him 'what do you do for a living?' he replies 'I play tennis for a living'

JCARVER very mainstream and excellent personality.

JAMIESTAPLES Again, very main stream, light-hearted and very personable.

Havent watched any others. But, also, watching these guys the last week has certainly dispelled the subconscious thoughts that these guys win every flip and catch cards all day long.

CONCLUSION TWITCH IS A TOOL THAT IS SO FAR PRIZING THE LAST NAIL FROM THE COFFIN.

The best streamers for me at the moment: PrimordialAA, Shaguar_Poker, Pulseau, Easywithaces.

Twitch streams can't stop people from tilting and breaking Bankroll Management which are both important aspects of winning at poker.

Not to mention most of the popular streams focus on tournament poker, and everyone knows basic tournament stuff anyway, so it's no big deal.

The point is that it's absurd to talk about twitch being the nail in the coffin when it's scripts and 24 tabling that drove the fish out. Talking about Jason Somerville streaming poker is so irrelevant at this point

I'm not saying that the OP doesn't have merits... as it does. I just find it absurd that Tim started it, as his core values about fixing online poker are on par with Donald Trump speaking of the virtues of socialism.

Just to quickly respond to this point, I produce training videos (not for RIO) for what is relatively speaking a very low price/video. I'm happy with this for two reasons:

1) the site I make them for is targeted primarily at US-based micro players so it's unlikely that anyone who sees the videos will be playing my games any time soon.
2) I couldn't give a **** about the poker economy since I don't intend to play poker seriously for more than at most about 15 months from today.

Hopefully this alone is sufficient to show you that there are valid reasons - similar to those for using scripts, since neither is good for the poker economy - and this is without my belief that ethically speaking poker is more justifiable if people have ready access to strategic information (to make it more of a meritocracy), and the fact that I really enjoy producing them.

+1 Scripts have driven more fish away then twitch ever will. It doesn't matter if it is not in the TOS of the site and is "not cheating", the result is the same and has caused many fish to feel they have been cheated and have left the game. Twitch on the other hand, is causing more people to join the game who never would have at the expense of adding a few regs, just like any other form of advertising.

yeah im playing too. ridiculous scramble tonight, ha. and wiggins is doing that silly dfs "bootcamp" (tilting name) thing. so i guess old habits are hard to break

by fading into oblivion, i don't mean not succeeding, i mean not trying to be a public figure who uses their status as training site czar to promote themselves.

and i don't care one way or the other if they play poker. you could argue what townsend is doing is less tilting than what taylor did because at least he's ****ting where he eats, whereas taylor did the ultimate bumhunt move which is grind 2005 games super hard-> training site -> become mr poker entrepreneurship guru -> become entrepreneur in general (fwiw, i think he did very well with draftday and is obviously really really smart, but don't think that cardrunners or any other training site is a particularly impressive endeavor)

From what I understand, Wiggins is doing the bootcamp as a favor to Smizzle, and is only attending some cities which are convenient for him (he was not at the one in LA).

The more you know.

Twitch - this gonna be the hump that broke the camel's back

Two Shae vs Vinivici

That is a battle I've been waiting to see.

Vini is extremely bitter and always has been.

Not only is Twitch not going to be the nail in the coffin, its going to be good for the game.

Disclaimer: Didn't read thread.

HOWEVER - OP is right all these people saying that twitch will bring on the next poker boom WTF? Are you all ******ed.

It is just another learning tool added to the ridiculous ****ing amount of poker tools and training that are out there on the market that have ruined the ****ing game.

The only thing worse than this would be someone physically playing and winning for them.

Online Poker is ****ed forever.

Peace

A little off-topic but I think it's funny that bumhunting gets so much hate when it's literally one of the first things someone learns when they start playing poker.

I feel like you are really overrating the average Twitch user and their ability to learn. They aren't gonna learn from Twitch and if they come to online they won't be any different from average player. They spent ****ton of time playing online games and are heavily invested into them, but still the average player from League, StarCraft or HearthStone is terrible.
They follow their favorite games, spend hours playing and watching them and they still suck. You really don't want people like that playing on PokerStars?

When it gets to the point where great internet connection and best seating script software are dictating your opponents it's a long way from learning to take a note, colour tag a player and then trying to get on their table with your own speed of movement.

Now all that stuff that required brain power is automated.

It's one of the way losing players rationalize their loses - "I'm really a better player than them, but I lose, because they bumhunt/use HUDs/use scripts etc".

Coincidently, hating on buhhunters is also a good way for top players to get action.

A poor learning tool that reaches a large audience for free including people who have never played poker online. Its a lot different than searching out and paying for a subscription to online training videos that are also a lot higher in quality. I dont think it will bring a boom that is really ott but it is definetly good for the game.

Without new money coming in, online poker would eventually die.

Potential players seeing poker played online for the first time or watching it enough to get comfortable with the idea of depositing can only be increased by Twitch broadcasts. How is that a net negative thing?

This is just spot on. As much as I believe that twitch is nice to watch and refreshing for poker, what OP said is essencially true for most cases.

Games are dying, it cant be helped, things evolve.

The problem with that logic is that we get older. I was 18 and broke when I started playing poker after watching Rounders. Now I'm 34 and have money and still play poker. A lot of these young people will graduate college and have disposable income in the next 5-10 years.

The other point to consider is that Twitch is primarily for gamers now but it may not always be. We saw the Ultra music festival on there a few weeks back, there's talk about daily fantasy sports being introduced, etc. In the future, I expect you'll see more mainstream appeal on Twitch and a much wider audience.

Many players start to play in college and dont even get to finish their studies, Ike for instance did exactly that. Twitch is only gonna be efective if it can draw people to spend money now, they're not gonna spend money 5 yrs from now just becaused they watched twitch. Also, let's be honest, gamers are never easy opponents. Gamblers are.

This may be a good point, let's see if it could draw other markets, would be nice.

Dont get me wrong Im not criticizing Twitch, as it being good or bad, good or bad is a point of view, how it affects your goals. Im just saying like OP said, that it being a huge bulk up to poker might simply not be true.

At the end of the day twitch is mostly a source of free information for poker pro aspiring players, or players who r pros already, be it, how to play hands, what software to use, what bonuses to apply for,...etc. It cant be making games easier.

I'm sorry, these are generalizations and not based in fact. In fact, many gamers ARE gamblers and vice versa. On balance, people have more money as they age and so getting more young people interested in and playing online poker now is nothing but good for poker.



This is a pessimistic view - try reorganizing your thinking. Free information is mostly a good thing. Not all the information is profitable or easily applied. For example, I watched George Danzer's stream the other day and he was playing 2-7 Triple Draw. Now, I've read Daniel's chapter in SS2 on Triple Draw, I've watched an elite player play his hands and explain them so now I'm ready to sit high limit Triple Draw, right?

Yeah I know the basics, I have enough information to be dangerous, I might even have some false confidence but there is going to be a learning curve until I have a few thousand hands or more.

But the cool thing is now I want to play and I probably will, even though I'll be an underdog at first.


Hopefully that makes sense.

Same old same old, but op has huge point. Twitch, growing in streamers will rapidly disburse knowlege(some better than others but still -EV for our game as a whole).

The people who create videos usually just in it for the glory of being affiliated with said training site and gain no other benefit. If they used their conkers they would realize their actions have a huge negative effect on game states.

The same can be said of this new wave of streamers. It's going to be overall negative for the games.

I am one of the has been regs that Tim refers to. 2005-2010 i crushed and got swallowed up by the curve. I play live now and crush there. GG online.

Enjoy having fun streaming and watching these shows.