Are you on drugs?

1) poker is negative sum. Expanding the scope to include the dealer makes no sense. If you do that in every situation then you can make every situation zero sum.

2) not an argument. Industry size does set a limit on growth.

3) using the word fungible doesn't make you smart. The baseline cost of living does have an impact on a player's bankroll if he is using his bankroll as a percent of his worth as most do.

Honestly, worst post I've ever seen. I've lurked for a long time. This is the worst. So smug but so wrong.

None of this is correct. Lurk more, post less.

MTT grinder loads $25K of comps per month, has edge of 25% (17% net of juice) clears $4250, living costs $3500, getting nowhere fast.

Also a limitation on how many MTTs it's physically possible to play per month, certainly at A game level without burnout.

Cash games are more scalable but at higher stakes online players are now predominantly swapping money around (e.g. look at IlariFin/Jungleman's recent graphs)

There are 10s of thousands of multi millionaires in other industries. Pro poker is minute by comparison and has a ceiling of individual growth that isn't present in most other industries.

1) A zero sum game would be if the net profits of all players = the net losses of all players, it clearly does not, it is less. There is not an exact balance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game

2) Has a relevance in this instance because I compared grinding small stakes poker to a regular job.

3) This doesn't answer where living costs come from. A bankroll (excluding if backed perhaps) can't grow very fast if a lot of it is being spent on living costs.

I agree that work is crap by and large, but poker has many actual/potential downsides too.

Just take the enormous L, delete your account, and move on from this

Virtually every time a thread is derailed like this, bad things happen. Which is why derails are typically frowned upon.

I realize that Doug, being a popular and provocative streamer/YT'er, elicits a diversity of various thoughts, feelings, and views surrounding poker. But this thread is not necessarily the best place to have "meta-discussions" about poker.

How about if everyone declares themselves to be correct (and/or the "winner" of the derail) and we leave the derail behind us?

Thank you very much.

Agreed, my apologies for being the starting cause of the derail.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion about if grinding poker is a good or bad idea or career choice and I respect everyone's opinions.

that's right! this is a thread to be about and ONLY about Doug!

How dare you talk about poker and BR management in a Doug thread.

Geez... what do you think this is? a forum where you can express your opinions?

Hes a moderator, it's kinda his job to try and keep threads on topic

The difficulty, though, is that Doug Polk's Youtube videos cover a range of topics, so if you want to talk about his videos in his video thread then the moderators will ask you not to derail the thread, even though you're talking about the exact topic of the thread.

Why do you compare grinding small stakes to a regular job sagedonkey, grinding small stakes is essentially the same as going to school, not working, you are slowly learning how to beat those stakes and move up where you can make a living

EXACTLY.

I personally am getting very very frustrated because of a not very good job slashing my hours by fifty percent which makes it near impossible to play higher than the most micro of stakes.

When I believed the job would work out, I could play stress free and play a one dollar tourney to learn and tell myself, "every paycheck take 50 to add to bankroll to move up and play 5 - 10 dollar tourneys. Then after a couple more paychecks, move up to ten and fifteen dollar tourneys"

As the job situation worsens, I feel more pressure on me to win instead of learn even though it such a minuscule amount and then bam, I start playing like crap.

Garrr, trying to go back and edit the last post. Didn't mean to derail further whining about things.

Basically, I agree with Fayth that microstakes poker should basically be played with the intent to educate and get better and move up in stakes gradually, rather than make a living wage from microstakes alone.

Got sidetracked talking about hourly wages.

Anyhoo, that being said AND GETTING BACK ON TOPIC

Seeing the bankroll challenge is a cool thing. In a sense maybe it's like a big ass band like Motley Crue playing a surprise show at the pool hall on a two inch stage in the corner of the place.

Moves that work in higher stakes don't anymore. Crazy hands all over the place.

Seeing a pro take on this challenge shows that No Limit Hold Em has become a different beast.

Things are different down here, down... in the dark of the micros.

Doug back to dropping vids every day. Damn right.

Damn Straight

We are also back in the bankroll challenge, you can tune in here.

www.Youtube.com/DougPolkPoker/Live

Also interested in an CoinPoker/Blockchain tech in poker video Doug. Probably one of the few people I would trust to base my opinion on it around...

Totally agree with this. I think he could get away with an 80% Bitcoin(Crypto) to 20% poker content split in a 10 to 15 minute video on his poker channel, as most poker players have at least some awareness of the impact/importance crypto does and will have on playing poker now and in the future.

I wouldn't mind also seeing the occasional video dedicated to mind set and the mental game of poker or to any other poker related topic that he is yet to cover, although he's probably covered most already.

It's totally unnecessary to 'segregate it' into a certain split. If it's talking about blockchain tech in Poker I don't care if it has 0% poker content. I want to know how that tech applies to a poker site...

Agreed.

I didn't write my post very well, I meant combined in those ratios, not separated or split.

Hasn't he been pretty critical of this stuff in recent videos already?

I've not seen anything where he actually explains how Blockchain tech can be applied to a pokersite, and if these ICO's people are offering are good or not.

As someone who just bought bitcoin and eth and held, I know very little about the real tech behind crypto (esp eth) - so when someone says they are starting a Poker site using that tech it's all a bit much.

Doug usually does a great job of breaking down things that might take 2-3 hours worth of reading to get a slight grasp on into a 10 min video...

yes and yes. this is the topic with the biggest potential to change current landscape. certainly the most interesting thing going on right now.

Also, most (prob all) of the new investment money coming into online poker space is likely going into some form of the above.

yes and yes. this is the topic with the biggest potential to change current landscape. certainly the most interesting thing going on right now.

Also, most (prob all) of the new investment money coming into online poker space is likely going into some form of the above.

If you dont know what thenoose protocol is, then you are not keeping up with tech trends.

If you bought CHPs from CoinPoker, might be good to better understand what you bought.

Berkey Responded to Polk
1) Poker After Dark does not pay the players anything
- old TV poker was huge amount of money when translated to bb/100 for the games they played, basically making reg on reg +ev
Now? Nothing
2) Mentioned that Doug should take responsibility for "his week" by getting players into the games himself
-He mentioned you can get action in any game if you bring a fun player with you
3) Doug's videos were really bad for getting those games going as people don't want to be talked about for missing games
- Him dissecting hands of fun players does the same, takes it away from them wanting to gamble
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=691sp7Vpl34
4) Praised his business strategy

one of the best poker hands yet.

The backyard bit was actually hilarious.