Training sites have to some extent hurt the games, but i dont think it's as bad as some have made it out to be in the past. The traffic for one has died on a lot of them. There's also plenty of people on training sites who dont know how to properly use the tool nor utilize the information correctly. In some ways it's helpful because they start copying their favorite high stakes player without fully understanding the underlying concepts nor play even close to the stakes. And if they are watching someone playing relatively close to the stakes they play, then often they still dont fully understand the underlying concepts because they never took the time to build a solid foundation of fundamentals. I've been a big participant in training sites and in their strat forums and many people are still in the same spot they were years ago.

Also, there were quite a bit of books back in the day. When i first started, there were no training sites and only books. I read them and did well for myself. Pretty sure people like Brian Townsend (and many others of course) got their start learning this way as well.

The sheer mass of competent players nowadays (active or inactive) and available knowledge make it hard for me to believe that there will be another poker boom anywhere close to the extent of the one from 2003-2007.
The fresh money from fish will be eaten up so quick due to the massive skill gap..
Think of all the inactive regs who would become active again if they heard of another boom.

There has to happen a very very big wave of fish, much bigger than in the past, in order to feed all the regs enough to call it a boom in the first place.

Just my 2 cents, we will see

Speaking about USA poker, surely there's been a decent % of those regs that have moved on from poker since BF. The ones that have moved on will find that if they come back to the games, the games have moved on as well thus improving the reg to fish ratio.

Now, dont get me wrong, i dont think we'd have a boom like we did 2003-2007.

The reason we wont have another boom is because we will never get the games back like we had pre BF and pre UIGEA. I have zero faith in our government to logically handle the situation.

Yeah, the good players are so much better than before and there are tons of high quality players now. A new player these days would get destroyed immediately and stop trying.

I feel like people vastly overate the skill of current players vs those in past. Maybe at the very high stakes the improvement has increased but most "fish" play relatively small stakes and they are all still fairly terrible. The only major difference from now and in the past is amount of zombies multi-tabling so you won't have as much talk going on.

This. The games are tougher. But you can still make money if your are decent and can adapt.

Go to your local casino thursday friday and saturday there are people that will play poker and maybe 3/20 are anyway good.

For the average person just depositing online, it has become very hard to run up money.

But again if you are half decent and want to learn you can make a few quid.

Of course online, the novelty and fun is kinda gone. Unless the get the americans back and all of the rest of the world can play together then the games will keep drying.

If you play a 3.50 27 man on stars tonight, you may be favourite but its still not in anyway as easy as in 2008 even.

You'll find 5/6 guys playing 10 tables and playing the same strategy and their push/fold. You'll have 5-6 really bad fish. You'll have 5-10 bad regs and a few very good regs. They're all exploitable but if you just why would the normal put in so much study or effort to beat a guy that hasnt even noticed you for the sake of saving you 3 dollar stake. He was a game, he wants to have fun and if he loses by having fun on the bubble then hes had a laugh.

There beatable but for a normall guy throwing on 20 dollars to have a game, the fun is gone. He is having fun and trying to outplay a bot who is playing 9/9/3. He loses after a few games if he doesnt get a bit of luck and he doesnt bother playing again because it wasnt fun. The grinders make a few quid over the long run.

Now im not saying these games are tough but they're not as attractive anymore and they've become more of an effort rather than a quick gamble.

The days of putting on 30 dollars and making 500 over a weekend are over. That was the fun in poker. Its not there anymore.

For the boom to last more than 6 months. Table limits will have to much less than 24. I would say 4 max like in the Party Poker hey days. Back then they allowed mega donkeys to get credit on deposits similar to a marker. I can't tell you how many massive donkeys shot off 1k deposits on a Friday night at 15/30 limit back in 04'. I just don't see this kind of crazed stupidity lasting long, especially if the economy is on the verge of another recession.

This is almost perfect. Just change the very high stakes to micro stakes, as it is because of the usa players being replaced by the eastern european nits at micros, plus the multitabling problem makes the games worse but it is keeping the win rates small and stars is happy, while we know what exactly should be done about it but stars business smartly shuts up. What about more players playing higher because of better games and so raking more? That would be the new poker boom. At this time it is difficult to impossible to even grind up, it taking too long.

it's really not impossible to grind up the stakes at least from micro to small/mid. I'll have to confirm later if i feel the same about going from mid to high. I've recently been grinding and climbing, starting at 10-25nl and now nearly to 200nl again in a relatively short amount of time. I also only play 2-4 tables at a time and dont put in near the hands some grinders do and mainly just because i'm only able to play part-time at the moment. I'm also taking a fairly conservative approach to bankroll management moving up when i hit 40 buy ins for the next level. And i'm not even including rakeback. I do get rakeback but i'm sent a check in the mail rather than added to my poker account.

The dream is not dead. Now that said, I am in the USA and have put in a lot of time studying to bring my game back up to speed to compete in a post BF world.

Quick and dirty history lesson for the yuets (did you say yute? What's a yute?).

A) In 2002, there was a TV show called World Poker Tour hosted by Mike Sexton. This was brought due to some cult interest in poker on ESPN for some years. Respect his game or not, it doesn't matter. The fact is the average person was listening to Sexton dissect hands about how this is what and what not and talking about 250K pots, etc., that the majority didn't even know was tournament chips and would question why the guy didn't just leave the table with 1.5 million in chips.

B) When they would split to a commercial, Mike Sexton would be saying, "Hi, this is Mike Sexton from WPT. Come play on PartyPoker.COM and win like the pros". This was golden. You have the host of a show, who most avg watchers feel are experts and can easily lend credibility to a business (which is great for an offshore gambling site), advertising for PartyPoker.com. Business went from 2000 players to 20000 in a month. The servers couldn't handle the traffic and the games were sick stupid good.

C) You could fund with any debit, credit, savings or checking accounts, and even PayPal.

D) NL wasn't spread and two tables of 15/30 limit were offered as the highest games. These games would have 6 to the flop regardless, 24/7. Winrates were sick good for those that had any clue. When they opened up the 30/60, it was more of the same. If you had any idea whatsoever, you were making over $100/hr 4-tabling those games (max allowed then).

E) Then later that year (03) a guy named Moneymaker got first place in a $39 super-satellite. The winner would go onto another super-satellite for free. The winner of that would get a free $10K entry into the WSOP ME. Moneymaker won both satellites and the main event for $2.5 million.

F) Moneymaker goes on David Letterman, Good Morning America, Tonight Show. Basically, he's loving the media attention like he's some kind of rock star. Most every time he's met with skepticism that Moneymaker is his real name; he proves it true in every case. In every interview he mentions how he's an accountant that likes to play poker for fun on pokerstars.COM and then pokerstars gets a ****ton of traffic boost.

G) It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and the next year, the $10K event has tripled in entrants. Everyone looking to be a Moneymaker. The economy is good and the poker economy even better. A few years later, and the main event increased in entrants ten-fold.

H) But, like any good Ciderella story, the stroke of midnight rang when the UIEGA was slipped into must-pass anti-terrorism bill during an election year.

Well, and y'all know the rest. Try to repeat those same perfect set of circumstances again? It's not going to happen. If poker were federally legislated in the states (which is a long ways away), the "boom" would be having the ability to play games that are just as soft as live games, as many live players would play on a site that is regulated by the gov.

Y'all keep stroking your hardons about untapped demographics, but everyone knows about it already and the info is out there. Remember when the kids thought the FBI taking down the domains of online poker and the DOJ seizing bank accounts of Tilt, Stars, and UB as their way of "paving way for US regulated online poker by getting rid of competition"?

Y'all wrong then; y'all wrong now. Yup, history repeats itself, but we're a couple of generations away from that.

Its gonna be 4 years next month, No more booms, the tribes are raising hell in CA, in florida they are showing all these commercials about the seminole compact which im sure isnt online friendly, not sure why we most gaming goes to little countries embetted in the big american landscape. If having online poker in your state means no merge, acr or bovada then is that going help or hurt, i feel it will hurt more as the people playing now will just say screw the intrastate online sites and then not be able to get on the rogue sites (NY etc)

but being someone who missed the boom entirely, I never knew this easy free money, they only money I know is hard fighting and very tough games that are constantly making me have to re-evaluate my play. Seem many players that knew easy times couldnt adapt to REAL TIME, so Im hoping playing now is making my game better.

History moves in cycles. There will always be a time when young males (re-)discover that they can win money by playing cards. It will just take a couple of years until the crowd forgets that the only consistent winner is the rake. All it usually takes to kickstart the boom is one good movie.

I'd say wait to see what happens with the merging of states online poker player pools. Right now DE and NV are merging player pools, NJ may in the future, PA and other states that I can't remember is considering online poker and may be added as well to the interstate pact. I wanna see what happens in the next 5-10 years, I imagine it will be like medical/recreational marijuana where a good amount of states join and the bible belt yet again lags behind until some federal stuff starts changing like marijuana is going thru now.


Things actually look up if there is a decent competitive market going on in the states, the catch is we have to wait for law makers and the companies to catch up to reality.

It's crazy of all the attempts to create traffic when you eliminate the usa player pool, it just fascinates me

Don't get me wrong, i support fighting for our rights and I support federal legislation because my state will never allow it otherwise and probably not even if a federal bill is passed but it's my only hope. As an American, I'm quite happy with playing on the current offshore sites. Games really aren't that bad. Somewhat the fruits of prohibition. Thanks government.

I suppose that it is theoretically possible that a majority of politicians (who require huge amounts of contributions to remain in office) will simultaneously be motivated by a sense of fairness and freedom and will therefore vote to allow us to play (and fund) poker on the internet, and avoid invoking the excuse that they need to protect children or prevent funding terrorists. If that happens, I promise to make a post here and admit that I was excessively pessimistic.

Until then, I will play on the best "unregulated" site that I have found.

it will happen. and it will happen within asia

VP$IP:

Back in 2012, public radio's "This American Life" aired a very illuminating program on just how critical a role money plays in the conduct of politics and business.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...run-for-office

This is what doomed internet poker in the United States. Folks like Howard Lederer, Isai Sheinberg, et al. didn't grease the right palms. If you want something from the political class and you're not playing the game (as in "pay for play") you're apt to be ignored and/or screwed. Because they weren't making regular contributions to majority and minority leaders, key committee chairmen, and members of key committees - while lobbyists for Caesar's Entertainment and MGM probably were - they got zapped with the UIGEA.

The flawed "thinking" probably went something along the lines of: "F**k the politicians! We're not going to get into a pissing contest with Caesar's and MGM to see who can shower these jerks with the most money." As noted in "Take The Money and Run For Office" (above), politicians see it differently. They don't like having to get on the phone and beg for money. They expect you to give - preferably without having to be asked. When you fail to play their game, they take note - especially if you suddenly show up asking for something.

Every organization in this country that is serious has a political fundraising operation. Think the NRA, the AARP, AIPAC, The Chamber of Commerce, the NFIB, the AFL-CIO, defense contractors, trial lawyers and hundreds of other "special interests" whose business can be directly impacted by the Government. The reason politicians don't try to screw gun owners and old people is because they know there will be a price to pay - the politicians fear their power - and their numbers.

Internet poker was lost in the United States because the operators got too greedy ... they weren't sharing enough of the spoils with the politicians. If they had been "playing the game," the UIGEA would never have been inserted into the Safe Ports Act. Mark Shields, the syndicated columnist, has referred to the role money plays in our politics as "legalized extortion." That's a cynical interpretation, but it's also true.

I've thought this since UIGEA and have always been slightly pissed about it.

poker is still pretty alive and well IMO. the usa unregulated sites are not to bad at all, plenty of money being passed around. I like this whole new twitch thing to. i think that has to bring poker awareness to new people and just general awareness. People in streams are frequently asking about where americans can play online

i feel sorry for those of you that missed the golden era though, it was pretty ****ing great.

I think there is a ton of truth to what Allan posted. It's the way our country works, for sure.

And yeah, it sure seems that politicians would rather keep it in the shadows. I mean, look at RAWA. Does absolutely nothing to the offshore sites. Keep the market smaller than if federally regulated so it makes sense.

Only problem is that we have plenty of sheep in this country that think laws are based on good reason or scientific fact. If it's legal, it must be safe. If it's illegal, it must be dangerous.

I mean, how backwards is the marijuana and alcohol/prescription pills situation in this country?

Anyway, i guess ignorance really is bliss.