hi
I have noticed some very good players who have kind of hit the wall and are either stuck at mid to high stakes or had to move down in stakes.Players like cog dis or mocachoca have seemed to plateau and are not making the kind of money that they did in previous years.What levels do you think are the most profitable to play at?Also I am a little concerned about this mafia situation that happens when you move up in stakes.
Games get harder over time as the general player pool gets better. Black Friday removed a large % of the recreational player pool and the game's general popularity seems to be steadily decreasing over time. To maintain an edge over your opponents takes a great deal of ability & work ethic.
Judging by Cog's sharkscope he never made more than ~ 20k a year from playing poker and is approx breakeven this year. But I believe he lives in Indonesia where the cost of living would be relatively low and he would derive a significant portion of his income from coaching.
Personally I think that hypers aren't worth playing >= $60 level if you're not playing full time. The lobbies are regulated by a cartel which to gain membership to will cost a fair amount of time & money (via the swings & likely -ROI vs approx equally skilled players). I think over time, the best few guys in the game are likely to make more and more because are so actively avoided by mid tier players such that they get the biggest fish all to themselves at the largest stakes those fish are willing to play. The system ends up being somewhat self-regulating in that people will stop playing if it becomes not worth their time (some regs will leave). The system's sustainability is ultimately dependent on losing players continuing to deposit into the poker economy.
Learning poker is not as financially attractive today as it was in the mid 2000s when the fish pool was rapidly expanding. Frankly if you're in it just for the money, you probably won't be very successful at poker. Suggest you have a read of this article:
http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/issue33/sklansky-schoonmaker-poker-good-for-you.php
I think the author makes some really good points which you should think about. Considering something like 10% [?] of poker players are long term winners, of which online probably 1-2% [?] of players make an hourly rate >= what they would make by working, probabilistically you should be factoring in the non-financial benefits of the game when you decide whether it's worth playing for you & what stakes you should play.
hi
thats a great post cd..thankyou for the information!
I like some parts of the post. But two major corrections:
Games don't get relatively tougher by any stretch over time. Tougher in terms of "yes everyone on average is better" is true, but that is misleading and not what we should look at when judging profit.
In 2005, if you played HUSNGs and were the best, you could expect to make high five figures, maybe 100k. In 2007, you might've made a few hundred thousand if you were the very best and ran well, but most people that were still really good made low six figures or high five figures.
Hyper turbos really changed the game. It grew the game, so much more new money was put into the game and regs made more money than ever before (on average). The amount of profit in the games went up, even as the playerbase progressed. That's because there is a lot of edge to be had in this game, and better players got better at a faster rate than losing players. That's what you want to look out for.
As for "cartels," it actually helps those that work harder and are better players. I agree with Cdon, if you're not going to go at this seriously and full time, don't bother playing $60+ levels. But if you do work hard, there are few jobs in the world where you can make so much money without putting in 4 years of hard work at school + all the money required to do so. It's just that most people that don't go to school aren't going to work hard like they are in school (or they'd be in school in the first place!). I say most, not all. I never went to college, and I know plenty of successful people that did not. But when you drop out of school to play poker without having a long and successful track record, the sheer odds of success are going to be low. Hard work and confidence really help separate the 1 out of 10 that makes it from the 9 out of 10 that do not.
Onto other things, Cog's results. I think you forgot FTP Cdon! He made over 100k on FTP over 3 years or so. You also forgot rakeback.
So you have FTP from 2008-2011 130k+ after rakeback.
You have another 10k in 2011.
50k in 2012.
50k in 2013.
3k in 2014.
But you also have another 20k in rakeback on Stars from 2011-2014. You also have coaching (Cog is one of the longest running and most successful coaches) and videomaking over the years. Cog has done some staking and affiliating too before.
I'd say it's safe to venture that he's consistently made 50k minimum on average up until 2014. Considering the cost of living in his country, that's like making 100k+ in the USA. And Cog plays what many would consider mid stakes, he has a beautiful wife and family and lives in a relative paradise. That's pretty damn good. He's a former teacher, so it's not like he's a lazy guy holding onto poker. He'd of went back into teaching if he wasn't doing well and enjoying the benefits of his success (freedom of schedule).
To be clear I was talking about online poker in general not specifically HUSNGs. I assume that good players can learn new games to chase the best action as it changes over time. It is analogous to companies expanding their capabilities into parallel markets where their core business profitability has been eroded by competition. I think we both agree that the best players in the game will continue to prosper because they are the best at exploiting the markets in which they are operating.
I disagree that games don't get relatively tougher though. The profit of a poker player is equal to:
Profit = [EV of hero's entire range] - [EV villain's entire range] - [Rake]
The extent to which you have an edge net of the rake depends on how much marginal EV you yield from your entire distribution of dealt hands vs your opponents' entire distribution of dealt hands. I think Tommy Angelo summed it up quite well in what he coined "Reciprocality in Poker". I prefer to think about it as a pre rake EV differential because a reciprocal already has a distinctly different meaning in my mind.
Over time everyone improves and some will improve at a greater rate than others leading to a pre rake edge. But over the time the relative size of the improvements diminish. Take the rise of Jungleman for example. He has risen to the top of the game and is considered a world class player. When he was a beginner the rate at which he improved would have been very fast. Say he got to that point in 5 years [?]. Do you think he will be that much better again in another 5 years? Of course not => because he is starting from a much higher base => his marginal improvement per unit of effort will now diminish.
As the poker market approaches equilibrium, the RELATIVE edges of its profitable participants will undoubtedly decrease over time as players strategies converge towards each other. The only way the edges can stay constant, is if there are no diminishing returns in winning players rate of improvement. The the spread between winning & losing strategies would remain constant because everyone would be improving at the same rate. I believe this is not the case and that the lower tiers of the player pool improve at at a faster rate than the upper tiers. Strategies do converge over time (albeit slowly in a practical sense) which does make the games "relatively tougher".
Or if you're a glass half full kind of guy, you can think of it as: one day, as time approaches infinite, you will be as good at poker as Jungleman :)
To the OP, it's tough to judge on so few players.
Cog, for example, is just a 7 month bad run so far. If you were to bet on his next 6 months, would you bet that he makes 2k or 10k or 20k? Probably closer to 10-20k. Cog also has never really been interested in taking huge swings and moving up and pushing things to the highest level. In a game where many winners are borderline degenerates, Cog has given stability and consistency to his profession (as much as you can given variance in poker).
I don't know moca's situation. I do remember at times people say things about top players being "done" then they come out and make 150-250k. But there is bias in "names." For every guy that was popular 4 years ago and may not be working so hard now to improve or may be burnt out (that's not about moca, I don't know his situation), there are new guys that have come in and dominated. Chadders moved up like a fireball, challenged the best player in the world for a very long time (in high stakes time and games), lost, and is back fighting in the $500s.
When a big name falls for being lazy or tired of the game, there is a hard working guy below him ready to take his place. The "mafias" have actually helped regulate it so that regulars aren't just sitting there in long lines waiting for losing players. Lines are smaller, good players have to fight to get in. And at least at the $60 and $100 levels, the groups are more like a fair "VIP group" where only the best 80-100 players get in. The "getting in" is done by results, and you can get in over 2-3k games (in hypers, that can be under a month of playing for some people). So if you're good enough to be a top 100 player at the $60s or $100s, it can take you a month to move up, and then you play a very high % of bad players, and the lines are smaller than before. To me, that sounds like rewarding the best players in a pretty fair way.
The $200s have been pretty fair this year too. They don't have the results based system to get in, which I think is the best system to use, but if you look at the results of the people they have been letting in, you'll see that they've been letting in good players.
There's no telling where poker will go. 5 years ago most people said HUSNGs wouldn't do well and would die at some point. Rarely did you ever find someone who would say they would stay good, let alone get bigger and more profitable. And they got more profitable. One of (imo) the best minds in HUSNGs back then, said when hypers were introduced that it would be really bad. What he says now is that he didn't realize how popular they would be. It's hard to predict this stuff. I have never felt that HUSNGs would "certainly grow" though I've also never felt that HUSNGs would "certainly decline." Over years players, good regs, message me every so often, worried that the games will "certainly decline, I know it, we're done." So far, this hasn't proven to be true (and has been opposite true in most cases over the years).
It's best to just work hard, and if HUSNGs ever decline enough overall to where there is less money in them and they are trending down, your skillset should be built up so well over the years to play MTTs or PLO or Zoom cash or something else. And if poker overall declines so much, so fast, your decision making and analytical skills in poker should help you greatly in life. I can tell you that they can help you run a business. If you don't want to start your own business, they can help you in the world of finance. Many poker players went into finance after doing nothing but poker for years. You should understand people, the reason behind their decisions as well, not to mention how to calculate the expected value of different opportunities and decisions... and much, much more from working hard in poker.
What doesn't work is when you don't give it your all for years, then find yourself tired, burnt out and lacking confidence. Those are recipes for calling up the parents and asking if they have a spare room. To me, that's the real dark side of poker. Not some guy that lost a lot of money in a short period of time. Money can be replaced if you have the right mindset and outlook. Achieving the mindset is far harder to do once you've lost it or are stuck in a bad place. When the motivation is gone, you're just floating around, hoping to land in that one in a million spot that will break your cycle. You don't want that.
Some great posts in this thread. Something I wonder about is how your potential game volume per month is affected as moving up in stakes. Say you could easily achieve a volume of 2500 + per month at the 15`S can you also expect that at i.e the 100+´s.? Some how I would expect the player pool at the latter to be smaller and people might compensate for that by playing at several net works..But maybe the truth lies elsewhere..Can anyone clarify?
cheers
As you move up, if you don't play a higher % of games vs regs, you'll see a decrease in volume (if you aren't on the computer in lobbies all the time).
Other sites can help mitigate that. iPoker, Black Chip, Carbon, even sites like Betsson, Party and 888, along with Full Tilt of course... provide some hyper action to fill in up to 25% of your grind on Stars.
In 2014, it's all the more important to be smart, play where you can, split your roll to play multiple sites, improve your game constantly, be confident but leave your ego at home...
Thanks for the answer Ryan, so if you are willing to play the regs at the 100+ you dont necessarily need to see your game volume decreasing, is that what you are saying?
cheers
Thanks for the answer Ryan, so if you are willing to play the regs at the 100+ you dont necessarily need to see your game volume decreasing, is that what you are saying?
cheers
Just take a look in the "high stakes rail" part of this topic and you can get an idea about the weekly volume. :)
Hi.
Sorry for the noob question but I haven't played poker in a while, can someone explain what this means?
"The "mafias" have actually helped regulate it so that regulars aren't just sitting there in long lines waiting for losing players. Lines are smaller, good players have to fight to get in. And at least at the $60 and $100 levels, the groups are more like a fair "VIP group" where only the best 80-100 players get in. The "getting in" is done by results, and you can get in over 2-3k games
Discussed in depth here:
http://www.husng.com/content/interview-60-cartel-leader-allingirl777?page=1