Now that pokerstars has a monopoly on the poker market, I can not motivate myself to try and improve.
It's like they are completely draining any edge that is out there, and they are capitalizing on the fact that beginning players don't know how much rake is manageable.
What is your take on the rake at small stakes and medium stakes, in heads up poker formats (cash and husngs)?
Have any of you given up poker like I did? I feel very betrayed by pokerstars
There is a select group of sponsored players who are doing the marketing, portraying this fancy lifestyle which is paid for with excessive amounts of MY RAKE.
Whereas the regulars who are trying to move up in stakes, are the victim of it. We're grinding our ass off to break even and pay pokerstars affiliates
Hi,
Its actually not so bad as everybody thought in the beginning of rake increase. I can't give you exact numbers for all stakes, but for example at 7s HU hypers after rake increase you loose only about 0.5 % roi, so if you were solid reg with 4%+ ev roi, then after rake increase you still can make profit 3.5% + , which imo is enough to not quit...there is till money to be made :)
p.s If you were BE player, then ofc now you are slightly loosing player and you should either study more or quit to not waste your time.
Look at it from my perspective, Jack
The average monthly salary (net wage) in Belgium is roughly $2000/month for young people. This seems rather low but it's because we pay 50% tax which goes to health care and uni etc.
So for poker to be a good investment of time, I'd have to make at least $2000/month on average. At what stakes do you think this goal is achieveable? I think you'd have to crush $30s or do well at $50s, playing full time. The profits are not consistent (high variance) which is not ideal like a monthly salary from a job.
I grinded $10s and some $20s in Thailand for a month, full time. It made me lose balance with my social life and people found me a degenerate for being in my room so much. Girls think you're a nerd and would much rather score a guy with a social job. Most medium stakes regs I know play until the middle of the night, sit in their underwear all day having pizza's for breakfast. Not exactly how I pictured my future
Mersenneary himself said that poker players in general do not have a long lifespan. The most gifted husng player in my country Belgium was Spamz0r and must have lasted max 5 years before he was full of it, grinding nosebleed husngs. I have no clue how much he made by the time he quit, but I'm convinced he can't retire and he'll have a normal job in the future.
Considering all this, why am I actually trying to improve?
For a 3 year poker career which pays exactly as much as a normal job? Being a online poker player is socially unacceptable for people around me, which has given me trouble in the past.
With the increasing rake being introduced, it's a very logical decision for me to say no to poker and get better at a normal career.
I believe you have answered your own question.
Why focus so much on being a pro? I have a good job but play about 10 hours a week and maybee study anouther 2-3. It seems like everyone is either pro or bust. Why not just try to have for secondary income. I enjoy the game so maybe I'm different than those that get in it for solely profit. However I have been playing 7 years now and it takes care of a nice vacation for the family and pays my real estate taxes and I couldn't be happier.
i suggest you do as i do:
get a proper job that you actually enjoy and treat poker as a fun hobby. and who knows: maybe you get lucky and win a huge tourney and you still can become a pro. or you make enough money in your job that you actually can afford to play live poker, where the edges still are ridiculous. a full ring NL200 game at my local casino plays like an online NL2 game. in omaha players are even worse.
also there is another problem that jeff hwang in one of his omaha books briefly speaks about, which is the resume gap: what if you quit after three years? what will you write in your CV if you apply for a job?
2014-2017: self employed
you´ll get asked: what did you do exactly?
what will you answer? truthfully saying: "i tried to become a poker professional, but it didn´t work out, because the rake was too high." may be a problem.
as you said: playing poker still for the vast majority of people is not a sport and people who play it for money are viewed as degenerates.
so: find out what you like to do with your life other than playing cards and do that for a living and pursue poker as a hobby.
cheers
s.
I am new to all this so correct me if this is wrong. This is an argument for playing for a living but I totally think doing poker part time would also be a fun and possibly profitable hobby.
I play on bovada. It seems like you could get the volume in the 50-20 dollar turbo levels to keep 4 tables running, maybe 15 games per hour with a 30 dollar average buy in. If a person could do this volume for 50 hours a week (not at all abnormal hours compared to most jobs), for 50 weeks a year, and pull an 8% roi it would be 2.4*15*50*50=90,000 dollars a year.
I know that is hypothetical but it isn't unrealistic especially when you consider you could mix in 100 husngs at times, take shots with your player points into the big sunday tourny, play hypers on merge/WPN, ect. ect.
For a stars example, 8 table (those freaks can 8 table high stakes hypers so surely it is possible to do at low stakes) the 15 hypers with a 4% roi and do that 50 hours a week for 50 weeks. I don't know anything about hypers but I think the average time is 5 mins less, so that ends up being a 50+ dollar hourly.
I understand this isn't enough money to live in Manhattan, and there are good reasons for having a more traditional career. But, the overwhelming majority of the world would kill to make 90k a year sitting in their undies. I live in Austin and this would provide a pretty enjoyable standard of living. So why is everyone throwing up their hands at this kind of money?
I truly think that I could study/build my bankroll during 2015 and then make 100k in 2016 while cashing out all but 1000 dollars every month.
noone is. the fact of the matter is that making 100k a year is not just a matter of wanting to.
again: you´re not the only one who truly thinks he can do it. you are competing with players from all around the world who are just as dedicated and talented as you are. wanting to achieve something is not enough. it´s an important first step, but it´s not even close to achieving it.
trying to become a pro is also a matter of where you are in life right now. are you still at school/ college/ university and have the time to start in the micros and work your way up? are you still living with your parents and have no monthly costs whatsoever? and if you graduate and it still didn´t work out, you can just get on with your life and pursue a "normal" career. in other words: if failing at the attempt does not seriously interfere with your current or future life, that´s the optimal situation for trying it out. but if you have financial obligations or you may have some in the near future, if you have child, or if you have a chance of getting a good job that you actually would like, or if you have doubts like the OP, that´s something entirely different.
cheers
s.
I agree totally with what you are saying. I made my post more so to point out the pretty decent money that can still be made from poker, not to say I was going to do it. There are legitimate reasons not to do poker, especially if you are wanting to do corporate type stuff with the resume gaps.
It just seems like people treat poker as a linear videogame where there is no point in playing unless you progress towards the end-game bosses. That is fine if that is what poker is for the person, but as a business poker is reasonably attractive.
- High & increasing competition
- Low & decreasing margins
- High & increasing risk (variance of margins + increasing pressure from regulatory environment)
- Upstream supply chain has monopolistic pricing power
- Requires active management (huge time sink to play & study enough to stay ahead of the games)
I disagree with you - poker as a business is pretty unattractive.
The only really attractive factor is it requires a pretty low capital outlay compared to starting other businesses (probs $1-2k for base learning materials, software and starting roll requirements). Despite the above negative qualities of poker as a business, if you become a winning player, the return on your capital invested can be extremely high.
Highly competitive markets typically result in a few large established players who retain market leadership via economies of scale and increasing their productivity over time. Unfortunately for most aspiring poker players, these markets are extremely unforgiving on new start up businesses.
For hard working dedicated people, there are still so many baseline metrics that compare favorably over a 5-10 year horizon versus so many traditional fields (that require a ton of startup costs, IE tens of thousands per year in learning costs).
My rule of thumb is that if you can't get yourself to go to school the traditional way, poker is not likely the solution. Some of the most successful people in life that played poker that I know did not drop out of school or choose poker. They played, made good money, treated it like a job, and eventually made it their sole focus. At the same time, they kept their options open, and eventually moved on to other fields.
Some of those people I describe are still playing poker and haven't "moved on." But getting 3-6 years of great profits in poker is very attainable and attractive given the low startup costs and relative low barrier to "heavy profit."
I don't want to be all roses or anything, so I'll say, over 90% of poker players are losing players, and the ones that do win, most of them do not win a ton of money.
Do keep in mind that if the same effort that many of the 90% displayed went into anything else, they likely wouldn't be successful at that either (IE. it's often a personal choice to be a hobbyist or not be dedicated or not care so much about being a moderate losing player).
Ok, I guess I should clarify what I mean by attractive.
I am mainly talking about making money with a small amount of resources in a short amount of time (assuming you have access to online poker or a casino). No, going into it wanting to pull 1.5 million out of pokerstars or your local casino is crazy. And for an 18 year old they shouldn't forgo college to play 15 hypers. But if you look at poker as a way to begin generating cash that you could then funnel into other, more steady and long term, endeavors, then I don't see many things that could compare.
I mean, look on 2+2 at ButterflySymmerty's 1/2 challenge thread. Dude made like 30k or something in a year playing 1/2 nl LIVE and averaged out something like 23 hours a week playing. Yes, that is not huge money for some, but for the lady who dropped out of school and is working part time at walmart, it is huge. If the girl worked hard, invested a year to learn/beat the game/get a roll, it could mean a 75k a year income on the second year playing 50 to 60 hours a week in the 1/2 (and 2/5 when juicy) live games. Once at this point, the lady could begin exploring investments and such to generate cash or start going back to school part time.
Does that make sense? I am just talking about situations where you are making 0 to 30k and want to transition into making more money but you do not have the time/finances to go to school or start a traditional business.
There are certainly far more people that make a better "modest" living from poker (say 20-50k a year) than what they were doing before or what they can likely do in their country (likely meaning if you take the avg person) compared to people that have huge success in the six figures.
The main thing to stay away from is "nothing is working out, I hate school/it's not for me, but poker seems easier/more lucrative."
Basically, avoiding shortcut thinking (in poker and in life) and you're increasing your chances of succeeding at anything.
I appreciate all your contributions to this topic.
Rypac, and other guys who grind daily... I don't know any guys like you in person, only as online identities. But behind every screen name there is a personal story and I never read about those online.
My story is pretty fucked up, and with the history that I have, I'm worried and anxious about giving online poker another try. I was very motivated to improve in the 2nd year of uni, grinding $7 husngs most of the day and making a very good ROI. My parents got upset about me playing so much and my first $1000 cashout made no impression on them.
When I failed for 1 subject in uni (I graduated after all) my parents sent me to group therapy sessions for degenerate gamblers. 6 unemployed guys with gambling debts ranging between $70 000 and $400 000, mostly on slot machines. They were also heavy drinkers, and lied to their relatives about their debts. My parents, and most people in my environment, stigmatized me as being one of them regardless of my winnings.
Any rational explanation I gave about poker players working hard to have an edge, was translated as "the addict doesn't see his own problem".
I have OCD- ish tendencies and got obsessed about improving. But it's not like I enjoyed playing 8 hours per day. It interfered with my social life and online poker was kind of a hideout to avoid facing other problems, for example internships that didn't go well.
I'm worried about history repeating itself. It led me to not talk about poker with ANYONE, under any circumstance. Realistically I can't imagine any adult relationship, with friends and family + with a girlfriend, with poker in it. It's simply not socially accepted where I live and no winning players are believed.
What percentage of the guys who made it in poker (as a full time job) have succesful social lives?
Viktor Blom and Tom Dwan (not that I'm anywhere near as good as they are) aren't really examples of amazing social skills. That's not the kind of guy I strive to be
I think that online poker reinforces my OCD-ish tendencies, which is something I should have out of my life rather than inducing it. And the rake increases don't make it easier
"Realistically I can't imagine any adult relationship, with friends and family + with a girlfriend, with poker in it. It's simply not socially accepted where I live and no winning players are believed."
I honestly can't imagine why you would want to make poker a large part of your life then. If you just love the game and want to play, then play as a hobbyist on the side. But why on earth would you want to do something that your friends, family, gf do not want you to do? If you are obsessive about improving, try to push that part of you towards something more accepting in your life.
You should want to do something for a living that compliments a healthy social life full of happiness, not that goes against it. If you were already making 500k a year in poker, sure, we could talk about ways to really cope with the issues that those around you have with poker, but I think you need to look at all sides here and just accept that poker should be a smaller part of your life, if any part of your life at all.