There is a group within the poker community who believe that coaching information/material is making the ecosystem tougher and ruining poker.

These people are wrong, and their mindset is whack. Information should not be coveted and withheld from people who want to learn. Watching some videos is not going to make you crush, being consistently dedicated to the game for a decade is what will make you that good.

What is ruining the online ecosystem is the lack of new players/growth. The online ecosystem is shrinking, partially because online players play so much volume that winning players bleed the pool dry faster than live. Yes coaching has probably affected the games, but the real problem is the lack of fresh blood in poker, new players who invigorate the ecosystem.

If we really want to create a healthy ecosystem we should focus on getting new players involved, not attacking coaching sites/material

So, what's the plan?

Coaching is clearly a contributing factor in poker getting tougher.

Poker is on the decline because it's simply too boring now. I remember introducing a guy to online poker about a year ago. He's quite nerdy and loves games, but he said it was the most mind-numbingly boring thing he had ever done in his life. He said everyone was folding most of the time, no one was paying off his big hands unless they had a big hand as well, no one would say anything in the chat even if he tried talking, winning any money was like drawing blood from a stone. After just 1 session, he said there was no way he could continue playing.

This is the experience of anyone new to the game these days. I can't imagine why any new player would want to play in such an environment.

Well the online ecosystem has become this way because of the lack of new players, if new players came in it wouldn’t be so cutthroat and boring

i mean people attribute the last ‘boom’ to moneymakers win and ‘rounders,’ so I think getting poker more exposure is our best bet but wtf do I know. Your guess is as good as mine, but the last thing we should be doing is demonizing something like coaching material

Every player is a representative of poker IMO, all of us should do our best to rep the game

should go back to lhe so da fish not scarz

So OP, what you are saying is that you have trained hard and are ready to take on the fish.

But the fish aren't there any more, so you want more fish.

But you don't have a plan to get more fish it seems.

Do you expect the poker sites to set up a plan to help you take the monies from the fish they attract? ...the fish that they want to protect and harvest if they come to their site?

Once people started multi-tabling to the extent that there was no table chat any more, and/or started berating players for making bad plays, the writing was on the wall.

People didn't mind spending a few $s for a few hours of fun on a evening, having a chat, making a few bluffs, and maybe winning now and again.

Why would they want to do that now?

As I asked before, what is YOUR plan?

Winning players aren't taking as much out of the player pool compared to the rake...

So much this. Poker/casino companies have enormous acquisition costs tied to new business cultivation. and most players who casually enter competitive games/sports aside from poker are used to competing within segregated skill tiers that don't exist in this game -- unless you count some of the poker operator practices that have been outright rejected by pros.

Even Fortnite is steadily moving in the direction of offering different skill-based game modes (like competitive pop-up cups) that incentivize highly-skilled players into other formats that don't discourage newer players. Here's a great vid by GronKy (29 kill console solo record holder who is a known competitive Fortnite player). Listen to how similar his verbiage is to how some in the industry might describe peer-to-peer competitive gaming.



"If the game becomes too difficult for new players to succeed in, then they'll stop playing. Then the player base begins to diminish, and that ends up with EPIC making less and less money. And a lot of people may see that as 'scummy,' or 'greedy.' But the fact of the matter is it's the same way with pretty much every video game that makes a large chunk of money from in-game purchases." (3:30-4:10)

If you really want to attract newer players to the highly-skilled real money games in a way that they aren't perceived to be more dangerous to casual gamblers than even some of the casino stuff, then Limit poker might be a good start along with maybe trimming down on these "Day 1-ZZZ" re-entry events and other mechanisms that are tweaked for immediate, maximum exploitation of lesser-skilled players.

The current environment naturally prompts many casual online poker players to pay 100% rake in a social gaming (play money) setting, where they simply don't have to deal with the social stigma, visceral bulls***, and potential public outings that come along with the real money "poker community." On one hand it might be great that so much is tracked/public knowledge. On the other hand it's easy to see why most newer players would think twice before getting into real money online poker when the few attempts they might make are pretty much destined to end quickly -- and negatively.

This is a complex topic, there is no simple solutikn but the point is we should be focused on the real causes of the problem. There are many people who blame training sites for the condition of online pkr. This thread is not soposed to be self indulgent, its not soposed to be about me or my relationship to poker/coaching. I’m just saying that coaching is a healthy part of the game, the real problem is the stuff mentioned above (rake, Pokerstars, culture, the hostility, grinding culture, etc)

There are lots of things hurting poker especially online poker
But one of them is without a doubt coaching/training videos

As someone in the thread pointed out,poker especially online poker in 2018 has reached a point where it is mind numbingly boring

Why on Earth would any fun players want to play online especially nl?

You are correct it’s not ruining it,

Because it’s already ruined it long ago

The problem is that everyone in the Western World who wanted to give online poker a shot, has done so over the last 15 years. The vast majority of those people stopped playing a long time ago and one the biggest reasons is the huge skill difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ players that was partially caused by training sites. Most players who quit because “online poker is rigged” fall into that category.

TBH, the topic isn’t even that complex. Guy sees poker on TV -> guy deposits money online -> guy loses money while not having a really good time -> guy does something else. That’s basically it.

You have a problem when your pool of new players mostly consists of people who just turned legal gambling age, don’t have that much disposable income and immediately look for resources to get better upon starting to play.

I don't know man, when I had a Cardrunners subscription I'd just sit there and watch how SBRugby and Raptor would play and go to the tables and start crushing. I havn't watched a video in like a decade and I can't win for ****!!! Only reason I see is cuz I don't havea CR subscription anymore, time to hop on the old Cardrunners bandwagon again. Anyone have a promo code I can use?

nobody mentionned it but obv the biggest culprits are the governments, back in the day I was playing vs people from France, Italy, Spain etc. nowadays its only ukraine, belarus and russia lol

An influx of new players is not going to change what was described. Poker should be a social game. However, online has NEVER followed through with a social component simply because few ever use the chat functions because they were too busy trying to multi-table. And of those that DID reply, the manner of reply was rarely anything that a new player would have considered something that welcomed them to the game.

New players want to have fun. They don't want to have to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars on 'coaching materials.'

In some respects, I see similarities in the two camps to what I saw back in my days of professional bowling. Some people like to just go have fun throwing the rock for a few games while drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages. Those are NOT the same people that would have enjoyed the sport if they had to go through my practice routine (which often involved 15-20 games per day during non-tournament weeks) or even the grind of a tournament. They eventually scaled qualifying down to 18 games across two blocks of nine games each, followed by the cut to match play. Prior to that, the cut had been based upon 24 games across the two days with 24 games of match play to cut to the stair-step for the telecast.

Online poker is simply not something that is conducive to welcoming recreational players. And without the recs, you don't get Boom 2.0 forming anytime soon...

Further, there are others out there that feel like the emphasis on 'coaching material' and other online devices has taken the individual thought processes out of the equation.

I don't have access to online here in Texas, but I have no desire to return to online play...I much prefer the live dynamic, to include the social element.

Boom 2.0 has been here a while, you just have to look.

dont think we can consider the chinese apps a boom 2.0 if thats what you are getting at

if anything the only boom im seeing is the MTTs

I'm not seeing any boom in MTTs. If anything, the guarantees of the most regular tournaments are going down. ROIs are also down, since generalization of ko's and flattening of payouts. Don't let marketing of a few events make you think otherwise.

As for the apps, too much possible cheating and no security at all.

The only second boom would happen if the US, Italy, etc joined all in a global pool. As that will never happen, and regulations will be more restrictive in more countries in the future, there won't be a second boom.

books, videos, streams, etc...they help make hold'em strategies more accessible for people. i think the losses from this (tragedy of commons, incentive to mislead, all the bs in coaching) are made up by the ecosystem becoming more active and dynamic.

Bro I just saw some guy bet/call 50->150 with pocket sixes on a j9A52 board.

Live poker is boomin baby.


The guy in question is also missing a bunch of teeth but happened to bink a big tournament win last week for 5k. Pretty sure most of it is gone by now.

I am sorry you feel this way.
GL

this, they took all the rich eu countrys( italy, france, spain) + whole usa away from the international player pool that was the downfall

hope this will change somehow in the future

"Making the ecosystem tougher" doesn't require "mak[ing] you crush". Of course coaching information and material makes games tougher, and has done so for well over a decade now - as do books, software tools, and more.

Now, if your point is instead that solely blaming coaching for ruining poker (if one even grants that it's being ruined) is a step too far, I'd wholeheartedly agree with you. The games have clearly gotten a lot tougher over the last decade+, but there are a lot of factors. Among them - coaching/training, books, software, improving cheaters, and legislation slowing the pipeline of new players (I believe the latter reason is one of the biggest).

Aside from the fact that emphasizing one factor as the main cause is unfair, the main reason I think carrying on about coaching is a waste of time is that there's nothing to be done about it. This is just the way it is with any competitive pursuit, especially one where there is significant money involved - people will always make every effort they can to improve their skills, and there will always be others who make a profit from providing products and service that help them do so. Railing against them isn't going to change anything. One can change rules to curtail some aids, like software (much like sports regulate what equipment can be used), but there's no realistic way to stop people from learning. Poker's funny that way - can't say as I've ever heard people complaining about coaching ruining any other competition; everyone takes it as a given.

MURDER ISNT THE CAUSE OF DEATH OF PEOPLE WE NEED TO BE WORRIED ABOUT, OLD AGE IS!!!