Online Cash Games Will Even get Tougher

The following blog post does not really belong to me but from another forum but I like to quote him because I kinda share the same sentiment, the discussion is about online poker cash games being tougher nowadays.


There seems to two shared fantasy in this community regarding fishy players

1) Poor players are too stupid to get better over time

2) Poor players have infinite resources available to keep dumping into playing online poker

I lurk around these forums and find both of these fantasies repeated over and over in various forms ... and they are exactly that ... fantasies ... having nothing to do with the reality of what if means to be a bad online poker player.

I speak from personal experience, as a bad player. I'm very happy to report that I'm what is affectionately known as a FISHY player. I'm your dream customer, and not embarrassed to admit it even in the slightest. How do I know I'm a bad player ? Easy .... it's because I lose more often than I win. A lot more often.

But being a fishy player does not make me a STUPID person ... and this is the point that is so often overlooked on forums such as this. Because I can do the math pretty well .. and at the end of the month ... my lack of stellar results cannot be denied. The red color of my results is all there in black and white on my credit card bill ... each and every month. And that's exactly why I so rarely play online poker any more.

And there are millions of others just like me ... MILLIONS. Countless players who for whatever reason don't want to take the time and concentration required to be able to beat the current incarnation of the online version of our favorite game. So that's why I play live now .. which is just fine ... because when you are a BAD ONLINE PLAYER .... playing live is a lot more fun anyway.

Online poker is obviously doomed as a way to make an "easy" living. And even as a tough living, it's obviously coming to an end sooner rather than later. In very short order, the game has becoming a remarkably sophisticated and difficult profession. Like so many other 'soft' ways to make a buck in this tough old world ... very quickly there is an explosion of smart people intent on taking their own piece of the pie. Because at the end of the day, it's just not THAT difficult to become a solid online player ... plenty of resources exist to help one become a stronger player ... IF you are willing to put in the time. Those who are so willing become the regs who post on this forum ... those who are not so willing become the fish who feed the regs for a short while ... until the day they decide it's not that much fun of a hobby to be shark food ... and they move on .. just like I did.

Regardless of the proposed change in US laws regarding online gambling ... at the end of the day ... there are simply far too many good players now to make the experience of being a fish even remotely fun. The new laws (which probably won't pass anyway) will hardly become the Nirvana that so many people on here hope that it will. There are simply too many strong players now ... if you look at the game from the perspective of the fish ... it's just not something very fun to do in one's spare time any more.

I'm guessing 90 percent of the current crop of US based online "pros" will leave the "profession" within the next two or three years. Regardless of the changes in laws. The reality is the same as it has always been regarding playing poker as a profession ... if one is smart enough to beat the game .. one is smart enough to make far greater amounts of money doing something more worthwhile. This is just the way it is.

Thirty years ago I dropped out of college and moved to Vegas to play poker which I did for about nine months ... I beat the game okay .... and thought I had found my life's calling. Until one day I found myself sitting next to an old guy named Johnny Moss who basically talked me into going back to school in one sentence. Moss told me that there is no sadder life than one where your BEST day is finding a table to sit at all day long with eight people stupider than you. His words stuck with me for the next few weeks ... and eventually led me to quit playing poker for a living ... and going to find work instead making video games ... I never looked back .. and it was without question the best decision I ever made.

No doubt this post will receive the standard put downs and insults reserved for 'outsiders' who post on this forum .... and that's fine. I'm sort of looking forward to it, actually. But if one person out there at least thinks about the message here ... it's worth it. Because I know that reading this is at least one person who is giving serious consideration to leaving this profession and going back to the "real world" they abandoned so that they could play poker for their daily bread. Yeah .. the games really are a lot tougher know then they were even a year ago. Sure, you can get better, study more, hang tough, etc.

But just know that it's a blessing that the games are becoming a lot tougher ... and you are considering leaving this profession and finding an "honest" living so to speak. Because if you are smart enough to beat this game, especially in it's current form ... [B]you are smart enough to make TONS more money and live a more fulfilling life doing something else. [/B] It's so not even close