Sorry in advance if this doesn't belong here. Just something that came to my mind.


By capitalised I really mean "bled the poker economy dry". I was just reading about Chinese gold farmers working ridiculous hours for something like $1000 a year. Hundreds of thousands of people make a living that way, yet they could easily make 20x that by grinding the micros, with the possibility of moving up the stakes rapidly with the incredibly good work ethic they have. Same with the horror stories of sweatshop workers in Bangladesh and kids scavenging through rubbish in Africa for a few pennies a day.

Why hasn't the game become completely dried out by hundreds of thousands of 30-tabling Chinese nits? Has any kind of poverty alleviation scheme been set up using poker? It could change loads of people's lives imo

One thing that gomes to mind is that you can't loose by gold farming. It's a win/win situation that anyone can do, guaranteed profit.

Playing strict micro ABC poker might be a way for "30 tabling chinese nits", but even if everyone could do it for a guaranteed profit (I doubt it), it wouldn't last indefinitly, because the "pool would dry out" eventually.

Yeah I agree with op.

It seems like there are really no barriers to entry for Chinese poker players whatsoever.

In before "...everyones solid"

Keep in mind they still have to put up the money (in USD) in the first place and expose it to risk. Depositing enough to be bankrolled for even the micros would be relatively expensive for someone living on less than $1 per day.

[x] In after online poker is banned in China.

Hmmm, good question. Why don't these people making less than a dollar a day hop on their Dell Inspiron, connect to their reliable/always on high-speed network which they pay monthly bills for, and ride the poker train to deep stack city!?!?

A lot of people living in those countries do not have access to internet. Either they can't afford it or there isn't any decent infrastructure. If they do have access to internet the question is how can they afford to buy a decent computer on which they can grind a living together? And I agree with what some of the others posted. If everyone starts grinding the microstake, it's going to bleed to death.

loads of Brazilians and eastern Europeans on party

Access to stable internet connections and reasonable PCs, and in China's case; legal, social and technical barriers regarding online gambling.

Five years ago there were very few Russian, East-European and South-American players for these very reasons... Now there are loads. Let's just hope China does a good job of policing their anti-gambling laws and keeping the games free of nit-farms.

The problem is that they've already shown the lengths they will go (ie: gold farming). The "pool would dry out" in this case will literally mean: squeezing every last cent's worth of value from the games and western pros (and even the new "second world" pros) simply won't be able to compete (as was the case with gold farming in the last decade).

Juk

A computer + internet connection that can run world of warcraft can't handle a few pokergames, right? Maybe think about that again...

wasnt online pokers banned in communist china?

The same reason why you do not invest heavily in stocks, play the market and making millions. fool

I don't worry so much about honest grinders where ever they are from.


It's much worse when highly educated winners like Nick Grudzien (stoxtrader)/LittleZen, furbean/fua_ (SNE Stars limit grinders), sophisticated Russian bot teams (recently found on Stars partly by PTR), DON teams, cheat the poker economy for millions at a time.

Maybe there is a micro-financing opportunity here! Give them the stake and take their rakeback, imo!

An unstable internet connection or underpowered PC will prolly not make a huge difference to a game like WoW, but when it comes to poker just a couple of bad outages a week or a big hand folded from lag/PC-chugs could wipe out hours of profit.

EDIT: I can say this from first hand experience too: broadband used to suck balls here in the UK when I first started playing poker and yet it was still perfectly fine to play MMORPGs, etc on... When it came to poker though; I lost a ton from disconnecting and ****ups (BSOD mid-hand FTW!). Luckily the games were really juicy and playing more than 4 tables was pretty uncommon so it was still worth it... If you are a mass-tabling RB nit in today's games then it would be devastating.

Juk

Expect to see this on 2+2 in 2019

金钱在啤牌大家不是坚实的

Chinese people aren't good at poker

Chuckles! Several assumptions at play here - first, are we talking about Chinese folks specifically? Something tells me the people making pennies a day aren't the one's you mention who play WoW. China has taken around 400 million people out of poverty and into the "middle classes", but that leaves what.. around 8-900 million people who aren't playing WoW. I'm assuming the OP isn't talking about wealthy Chinese grinding micro poker, but I could be wrong.

this is prob the major problem

+

= the answer

1. The vast majority of poker players are losing players.

2. It costs more money to get started in poker than people in poor countries make.

havent seen too many dudes in the poorer parts of the worlds with laptops and worked out TAG PLO games.

maybe I havent been going to the right Coffee houses with internet access in war-ridden african countries, might be that....

ROR!

countries that can be described as having a WoW fan base arent poor.

Don't forget making a substantial (in dollar a day terms) initial deposit to start grinding with.

Momarr: Hey, Abdulla! Want to go down to the big garbarge pile and pick around and find something to eat? Or do you want to go split some rocks all day down in the pit for seventy-five cents?

Abdulla: "Leave me alone, Momarr. I just connected my 4 gig e-machine to that internet connection behind my cardboard shack, transfered my funds from FTP to Stars, fired up about 10 $5 sngs on Stars, and gonna grind until buddha smiles on me".

Momarr: "Very good, my friend. Maybe someday we will be able to take that long journey and find some place that accepts e-check. Then the table will be filled with fresh goat!"