I heard Doug was changing his name to Fernando.

Something I've been wondering for a while, which I figure is now the best time to ask is... are training sites/coaches teaching their best secrets, though? I might have read somewhere that Doyle Brunson regretted writing Super System, but it only makes sense that he still kept the best secrets to himself... Of course, that's just an assumption.

That said, while training sites will maybe up the average players' skill to "above average", if you want to be in the upper-upper class don't you still have to figure things out on your own, because the best aren't telling their best secrets?

What? That's not their dream, lmao. They can do that easily right now if they wanted. Most just choose to do it on things other than poker.

this is an interesting point, i think many coaches do share everything but some withhold some information. i have heard a couple coaches admit that they are holding back, one that comes to mind is Jens K. Its understandable, why divulge information that pertains to the highest stakes when you can get the job done with less, and educate your viewers with less. For the most part i think the majority of coaches dont hold back, because there is no 'secret' to being great (we all know this)

So I guess its harder to fold fold fold live then it is to fold fold fold online?

This is an incredible idea.

^ Someone let Galfond know so he can start working on this

What ruins the game more than anything:

Split player pools
More regulations and bans of population

I used to work at a gym, I believe something like 2/3 didn't even use the membership beyond the initial month, I imagine poker is the same.

Getting on a poker training site is step 1, then it's actually watching it (harder), implementing it (even harder) and implementing it correctly (hardest), just because people get to step 1 doesn't mean much.

Ideally, there would be some sort of poker player's union with the most powerful and rich names in poker lobbying governments around the world, but no one has the will or desire to create it.

If we got poker back in the states, it'd be quasi boom 2.0.

The root cause is actually pretty simple. Generally you make money by being one of the best at a particular skill. In 2004 that meant knowing how to use the fold button once in awhile, in 2008 it meant knowing how to bluff once in awhile, and in 2018 it means studying ranges and calculating GTO simulations on various boards for hours and hours every day. In addition as was mentioned above, the site takes a pretty nice cut first in the form of rake, so you have to be good enough to beat your opponents and the site.

As far as a root cause, I don't think poker got big because of Rounders and Moneymaker, I think it got big because it was possible. Before that, there weren't a ton of even non-money games you could play regularly. Internet was slow, connected to phone lines, and it could take minutes to load a page with images on it. Then high-speed internet came and people were able to play games like poker, esports, etc. There wasn't the same gaming culture that exists today, and that's why the boom lasted so long. It wasn't that it took that long for people to learn how to play poker, it was that there was a shortage of people who even understood the concept of improving at games. In 2008 there was still a debate on whether being a math player or a feel player was best. Even if poker had never existed and that argument had not been settled long ago, do you think such a debate would happen in 2018? The debate wasn't just settled in poker, it has been settled in pretty much every other industry, where more and more decisions are being made using analytics. Even most pro franchises now have analysts. In Moneyball it talks about how initially people didn't think anyone who hadn't played baseball before could help them and why would they listen to a bunch of nerds with computers? That was the same phenomenon that made poker a gold mine, and that change has happened in sports, poker, and pretty much every industry.

So I think the boom was more an analytics boom than a purely poker boom. Poker just happened to be one of the games where you had rich degenerates wagering a ton of money. So people who understood basic analytical concepts and used them to improve made out like bandits in 2004. Today everyone is better at those concepts in general, not just in poker. Back when it was big I played a decent bit of Starcraft II. Even the worst players would watch their own replays, watch pro videos, and try to figure out how to get better. I even had a few friends pay a few hundred bucks for coaching just to not completely suck. Sure this isn't a super new thing, someone mentioned chess earlier. But how many people took chess seriously and tried to improve their game? How many do the same today on games that don't even have any financial incentives like Starcraft II or pubg or whatever the kids are playing these days?

Because of this I don't think a new game will even bring about a boom, because there will instantly be millions of people trying their best to solve it. And obviously coaching sites helped poker get tougher, but they were only the supply to the enormous demand for materials to help improve poker skills. And the problem is not only does that mean that any new "boom" with an influx of fish will have more competition from the other pros, but also a lot of the new people will become frustrated, do their best to get better, and probably get to the point where they don't completely suck and aren't bleeding money. Before there was the idea that being good at poker was about having balls and instincts, now people realize that the key to beating games like poker is having a good strategy. That's not a good recipe for a boom if your definition of boom is easy money.

What a great post sir.

+1

Bet Online tried this about six months ago. They added some LHE tables to their cash game lineup, starting at $.05/$.10. They've gotten rid of them now though, because NOBODY played on them. Probably because there's no money to be made from LHE compared to NLHE, especially when the newbies/fish do nothing but limp and check.

lol

During a gold rush you should indeed be selling the spades.

eh, dfs boom(ed) pretty good 10 years later. i made more from that than poker. it still takes a while for markets to adjust.

coaching material ruined (online) poker because it made it a much worse experience for fish. a more fluid gradient of skill levels is much healthier for the ecosystem. these days you might as well be playing a bot (which you sometimes are!)

All regs will just vote for the best reg, who will be replaced by someone off the waiting list. This would make absolutely 0 difference to the experience of the fish.

my feeling is that coaching material is a healthy part of the game, we should embrace the fact that poker is evolving and celebrate the fact that players are better now than 10 yrs ago

I like to think of it like sports: athletes/teams are stronger now than 50 years ago because of training, nutrition, medicine, gear, coaching, etc. yes poker is somewhat unique, but the point carries over. games evolve, and thats a good thing.

i think its foolish to condemn training sites, and blame the spread of good information for ruining poker. i wish the community would put a stop to this, and recognize the true causes of the problem.

yes, coaching material has made the ecosystem harder. but its a side note compared to other factors IMO

I had hoped all the poker vloggers would stimulate new players but I'm not sure if that's happening.

Yeah that's fair, but compare DFS when it got big (not sure when that was exactly) to poker in 2004. There were even a lot of poker players/sports betters shifting over, not sure how it looks now. I've spoken to a few people doing full-time DFS irl (including you a few years back I'm pretty sure) and my take away was being good at DFS took a lot more work than being good at poker and that DFS lobbies were worse than HUNL lobbies because there was nothing to stop $5k regs from also playing the $5 games and playing way more "tables" with the same lineup.

I think it is foolish to compare a zero sum game played for money/livelihood to sports (where there are contracts and endorsements and each game is merely played for standings/glory). Also you haven't mentioned variance. Poker has a ton of variance compared to sports. The masses can get good at sports and never be able to compete with the pros. When the masses get anywhere even close to decent at poker it becomes a variance festival and rake is the only consistent winner.



Also training sites inherently promote poker as a sport and not a social game. Poker is ruined when it is played as a sport (and it's pretty damn easy/awesome when it's played as a social game).

Training sites probably appeal to your academic side (fair). That's my guess. My guess is also that you don't play poker for significant money. Not hating, just saying.

Happy New Year/remember to always keep that left hand on your right shoulder.

yea how could you ever beat guys like this

comparing poker to professional athletes is a terrible analogy
basically nobody watches poker anymore bc it's boring as ****
people pay to watch great athletes which is why they make so much money
athletes getting better stronger faster is good it makes it more entertaining

poker games getting worse (this applies way more to online) and way less fun at the same time is horrible

people (other than those at the absolute top) who make coaching videos are short sighted morons

a lot of this was inevtiable. whenever there is easy fast money to be made the market corrects for itself. but players, sites and the gov't made it way worse than it had to be , and that includes coaching videos.

this is why i stopped playing barring the occasional lottery ticket in a big event a few times a year.
once i realized i was drawing stone dead vs pros entering their super +ev lineups in every contest i realized it was dumb.i understand the pros doing this- i think it's beyond stupid for the sites to allow it.

i did well on some smaller sites before they got bought out by the big boys.

i dont agree with you borg

do you wish that the entire population was just kept in the dark and games were soft like 2008? the sports analogy is relevant: games evolve, games progress. yes poker is zero sum, does that mean that we should condemn progress of strat/software?

call that bluff