blonde poker forum

i happened to come across this

http://www.pokerupdate.com/poker-opinion/01082-the-skillfulness-of-online-poker-is-leading-to-its-downfall/

amongst other points it argues

- "Operators have told GamblingCompliance Research Services that retaining casual players — many of which were quickly beaten by skillful players and have yet to return — has proven to be difficult, or costly, or both."

- "The bigger problem is the casual players didn't improve at the same rate, so the gap between the floor and ceiling of poker skill has widened significantly."

- "the Poker Boom also brought about software and training sites that allowed players to increase their skills at an almost alarming rate, and further widen the skill gap between the players who were unaware such tools existed."

and gives some possible solutons

"What can be done?

This is the question the poker industry will have to sort out in the coming years.

Low-limit heads-up and short-handed games (where mistakes are magnified) might have to go.

Structural changes to the games may be needed to decrease the skillfulness of the game - obviously mindful to make sure the game is still skillful and beatable.

Sites may have to adopt policies that protect losing players from the sharks, whether it be segregated tables, cracking down on third-party software, or limiting multi-tabling to force players to move up to higher stakes games to maintain their win rate.

Sites might also switch to a regressive rewards system with loss-back programs."


thoughts welcome

Great article and it was always going to happen if people who make a living at the game insist on teaching their customers how and why they are getting beaten up via training sites etc.  I think the speed of this process has been frightening quick over the past 5 years.  If someone had said to me 4 years ago i wouldn't have played a hand of online poker in the last 18 months (apart from dtd sats) i would have laughed at you.  I think people also under estimate the impact of countries like Greece/Spain etc having struggling economies as there was bundles of 'mug' cash from these countries flying around 5 years ago which has dried up. 

Moving forward i don't really see what you can do to reverse it as poker has built up such a huge team of pros who play virtually perfect poker online that after rake and opportunity cost of using my time more wisely there must be thousands of people who just don't see the point of playing poker anymore online.

I stopped playing online cash a long time ago after realising I will never win at it long term.  I get my fix from playing DTD sats and huge field, low buy in stars tourneys.

I simply have not got the will power, or time to analyse sessions, worry about hourly rate etc etc and I will bet my last stars dollar that there are thousands like me around.

Online poker, for me is like putting my weekly football coupon on....I'll have a tenner and see what happens, and that £10 will last me around 4hrs on stars by playing multis, and maybe, like the footie coupon, I'll win a few hundred if I'm lucky.

I have a friend who plays 200NL online for a living and he is a much better player than me. However that is all he plays. He hates playing live, he is rubbish at MTTs and he only plays Holdem. I would imagine his winrate is diminshing all the time, even if he keeps improving and even though he is better than me at poker, I like my chances of being able to make money at the the game 5/10 years down the line than him because I am willing to play different games, different environments and adapt.

Personally I don't really enjoy zoom and I also don't enjoy spin and gos which seem to be the two most popular things these days.

Great way to explain what happens online. I tried to put it into words
this week with a few players how online is not rigged but the skill level
is or can be higher and it can be harder for people to control emotions while
in the comfort of there own home. Very good piece thanks for sharing.