BITCOIN

PokerStars ad during the superbowl with legal US market

Mainstream celebrity makes November 9 being a close second

The Cheating Problem

It's interesting how virtually no one in this thread has mentioned the deleterious effect all the online cheating scandals - and the industry's abject failure to aggressively deal with the problem - had in destroying the game. When you have systematic cheating by the sites themselves with people like Russ Hamilton, Nick Grudzein, a convicted felon (A.J. Green), not to mention Phil Hellmuth and those Montana frat boys running UB/AP, all doing their thing with total impunity - is it any wonder us "fish" turned away? When we saw all this cheating being exposed on "60 Minutes" and by poker journalists like Haley Hintze and [the late] Diamond Flush - not to mention the good work by Noah-SD (and others) here on 2+2 - is it really that big a surprise that "fish" would be turned off?

The low point for me was posting a complaint here on 2+2 about Grudzein and somebody replying to me (paraphrasing) "... good players know how to recognize when they're being cheated" - implying that it's your own fault if you get fleeced by a crook! I couldn't believe there were some players on here actually defending the cheaters! This blasé attitude was the final straw as far as I was concerned ... (I do specifically recall Josem insisting - in a reply to me about Grudzein - that Pokerstars was serious about the cheating problem and had conducted a "thorough investigation" of Nick before they [initially] cleared him insisting that there was "no evidence" of cheating or wrongdoing by Nick and his buddy. (Nick was so thrilled over being "cleared" by Pokerstars that he actually bragged about it in an email to Taylor Caby.) Pokerstars "Nick is clean" line changed only after Noah-SD (and others) started looking very closely at Nick's play. So much for that "thorough investigation ..." So even the (supposedly "honest") sites were complicit in trying to cover up the cheating.

It wasn't just the big bad Government that destroyed poker. By ignoring the cheating problem - probably because it wasn't "profitable" to go after cheaters - the industry helped dig its own grave. Even if online poker eventually gets legalized here in the United States, I won't play until (and unless) there are severe penalties for players who get caught cheating. ("Severe" means cheaters get handcuffed, prosecuted, convicted and thrown in prison where they'll have plenty of time to consider the error of their ways.) As long as operators and regulators ignore the cheating problem and fail to deal with it, I wont play - and I wont encourage any of my friends to play.

The industry needs to understand that there is a cost to ignoring (and failing to deal) with the cheating problem. That "cost" is the number of potential players who stay away.

If there is one thing most of the 2p2 online playing community does not want to hear it is this, true as it is. 'Poker' became 'NLHE' and I'd bet that OP means NLHE when he says poker.

Other problems: TV poker turned it into a semi-fad which was a bad thing. Poker was just fine in B&M's and then the one game that was virtually dead, and dead for a reason, a game hated by B&M room managers took over both online and live. At least live players don't have to play against software aids but most online players that I read on here don't want to hear anything about that either.

Lol no. Just no.

A boom wont happen as such but i think with constant advertising and making poker look cool - people will try it.

in the uk i have seen many Full Tilt adverts and if i didnt play poker.. it would make me try at least.

Also when China gets online.. WOW.

Worlds most populous country + all gambling degens = potential poker unrivalled action

I mean you could have 50 million players. All at the 10c/20c level. Of that 6mill may progress to .25c/50c. Of that 1 mill to $1 / 2$ - 100k to $2/ $5 - 10k to $10/ $20

You could end up having high stakes of 100k/200k. Minimum buy in of $2 mill!

But also... i wish people would stop saying "fish get crushed"

Fish buys onto site for $150 ... fish gets pocket 9s... fish raises... fish gets 3 bet... fish shoves all. Villain calls with AK - 9s hold up - Hero leaves table.

Hero joins $10 180man SNG. Hero plays for 1 hour 40mins drinking a beer, then busts. Hero goes to bed. 2 days later Hero withdraws $290 from poker account... Hero rubs monies on titties... Hero likes poker, he can win at it

Won't happen.

Games could get slightly better but there're too many regs lurking in the shadows who will jump on opportunities for it to ever return to a golden age.

So much pessimism ITT.

What made poker blow up in 2003? ESPN took it mainstream, sold the "any man" story of Moneymaker beating a field of pros and turning $50 into $5million. Rounders played on loop for a million college freshmen.

I think you'll see a lot of the same things happen. There's too much $$$ in legalizing and regulating (and taxing) poker in the US for them to keep it on the shelf.

Once it's convenient and safe, the demand will return and you'll see Twitch and sites like it inspire a new generation of players. (Also possible/likely that it's the other way around, that sites like Twitch will inspire demand, which will finally get to the lawmakers, who then make it convenient and safe to play)

Koppelman will drop Rounders 2 and hopefully it won't suck. Cycle complete.

It's not like poker was invented in 2003 -- it's been around a long time. It's still here, Black Friday was just a setback.

Wot

Grunch.

If it was as easy for people in the US to deposit as it is for them to put money on fantasy sports sites that could create us another boom. We need a carve out like fantasy sports and stock trading.

Exactly

That graph is inacurrate. Obviously the people that have already searched won't be searching again.

As others said, it never gonna happen. Even micro players are too good these days, and every information is available for free to become a good player. From the deepest hand/situation analysing, coaching videos to mental coaching articles. Everything. Not to mention the free coaching and staking opportunities. Most of the new players give up after losing a few buy ins, or they search for “poker strategies” in google, and they start studying the game. Those who don’t care about losing, will never deposit 1k or so to have “fun” losing at 100nl or 200nl.

We're still in a poker boom. Imagine what it's going to be like in 10 years time...

I see there is a lot of pessimism in here..

But let me quickly summarize:

Def. the most important point is regulations. All we can do here is to elect the parties who stand for a free market and to join petitions.

Also we need to protect the fishs more. They should lose obv but not so fast. They need winning moments too! Autoseating might be a problem here!

NLHE is basically too tough these days. The next boom has to be about another game I guess.

Twitch can be important especially for the asian market.



Steps to do to help poker:

- Engage politically for a free market (Right parties and petitions)
- Pressure poker platforms to stop autoseating script based on players
- Learn new poker games.
- Twitch to make it poker more popular in asia
- Advertise poker as cool in your social circle (like Dan B)


Thats what we have figured out so far. I dont say its easy or even doable im just saying. If we want to do sth, what could we do.


btw im not a be grinder. Im a micro to low grinder who makes money but has a very good main job of which I can easily live off.

In markets that started to grow rapidly in 2003, the boom was over before BF came around.

That doesn't mean there aren't lots of opportunities for growth like regulation in the US or undeveloped markets in Asia and maybe even Africa in the more distant future.

In 2003 the poker market was highly inefficient. Even the best players were making massive mistakes without even realizing it. Plenty of fish could come into the game and play against other fish and even beat regs with an okay frequency. The dead money would flow around the poker economy, fish would redeposit because they had fun and had memories of running up a big bankroll that one time.


Fast forward to 2015 and the poker market is a highly efficient well oiled machine. Sure people still make mistakes, but even the fish dont spew anywhere near as much as they used to. Regs hoover up any fish money as soon as it is deposited and weak new players probably never get a chance to play somebody worse than them. I'd bet a lot of money that the number of people making a 2nd/3rd/4th deposit is way down on what it used to be, mainly because losing your money straight away to TAG players is no fun at all.

The health of the 2003 poker economy was not just based on there being lots of fish, it was based on the fish having enough fun that they kept the money coming.

It's not dead yet, but then end can only be slowed.

The only poker boom possible imo is if the player pool ceases to be so segregated. And what we see usually with policies like segregation is that once it's law it's quite difficult to reverse it.

What you're not grasping is that in this scenario there would be an influx of new players with new idea that may or may not be any good. Plenty of money to go around.

That's why something new and different would have to introduced, like the ability to watch some of the best players live (or on a small delay) play and interact with them. Or watching Bobby's Room live or the WSOP Main Event on stream.

I think the ability to play anywhere will be important, on mobile devices, maybe voice activated actions? There's a lot of cool stuff to come. I was watching Live at the Bike two nights ago on Twitch and they're using something called RIFD technology. Pretty ****ing amazing, it presents the game like ESPN or WPT without any cameramen or crew.

Get rid of all of the hudtards. Thats a start. Seems most people on this site fail to accept the fact that all of these 3rd party aided softwares have eroded the poker economy and the rec players. All it has done is lined the pockets of a small percentage of winning players and the companies that create them and completely fleeced the fish, rec players and enthusiasts.

Back when I first played in 2008 over on ipoker, it was FUN!!! Lots of action, lots of hands played in cash, lots of loose plays and all ins in mtts and sngs were immensly fun but beatable if you knew basic abc poker.

Now, when a person signs up and deposits he has no chance. Not really. What fun is it for a newbie when he makes a raise in a micro game on stars and is either picked off because of his vpip or pfr% or whatever, and floated every street because his 'tendencies' have already been logged, and displayed for the hud tard???
He will play a couple of times maybe, find it extremely difficult, boring and frustrating and move on to another 'recreational hobby'

I wish to see the day when a site becomes brave enough to launch a hud free site. Its easily do able and guaranteed to be way more FUN.

If you want another boom, then make poker FUN, FAIR and give a sense of or at least a glimmer of hope that making a final table is possible as opposed to impossible.

Legalization of Online Poker in the USA.

A PLO BOOM.... SOMEHOW?

Quit Berating / Bashing bad players or bad play. I see this at every table I play at Live or online. Its freaking stupid to bash someone your going to make most of your money off of.

Having more sites that hide players names like bovada. It keeps the fish coming back knowing that if some one is constanly bashing them all they have to do is switch tables.
And huds are only effective per session on that site. There is no long time HUD benifit since the HUD data is only as good as that player sits that day.

The last point is interisting.

Threads on the subject of the health of the game always degenerate into arguments about HUDs. Here we go again.

HUDs are probably at the very bottom of the list to what caused the slow down. People who constantly bring up the HUD debate are completely irrelevant to the game anyways, they don't play higher than .01/.02.