Do Poker Players Have it Harder Today?

[Nathan]

From the PAP Newswire:

July 2, 2009 (PAP Newswire) -- An interesting article from the Associated Press explores the new reality of the professional poker world: It’s getting harder to win out there, online and offline.

Blame is partially due to the huge popularity of Internet poker, which has given many more people the chance to spend hours perfecting their game, alone, from the comfort of their own homes. In the past, that obviously was never a option.

And the glut of amateurs from a few years ago who offered easy pickings to the pros is apparently fading, too, as those players either improve their games through years of practice or shy away from playing at all, because the economy isn’t giving players as much discretionary income as before.

This change in the dynamics of the sport has apparently affected this year’s WSOP, according to the AP story.

"I've never worked this hard and then my results aren't what I want them to be," poker pro Phil Hellmuth was quoted. "I was hoping for something great to happen this trip but it just hasn't happened yet," he added. Hellmuth has cashed in four events this year for about $35,000. That’s relatively small pickings for someone who over the years has cashed 73 times for more than $6 million.

"It's all about playing to evolve your game," added Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. "Players are so much better now — that's for sure."

“If today's field faced players from five years ago, today's players would easily win because the games have grown more sophisticated,” the article paraphrased Grospellier.

Click here to read the original story from the Associated Press.

[kingcobra]

It is true that overall players do tend to be more skilled than they were 5 years ago. This does not necessarily mean though that it's harder to make money as a professional. If you haven't really worked on your game over this time then yeah, they have moved up in skill, you haven't, then yeah you've fallen behind. However it's reasonable to assume that pros are going to be even more dedicated to improving their game than casual players so we would expect that given due dliigence by the pros that the gap should have widened.

The amount of good resources out there has increased trememdously over this time, and for a reasonable fee, Joe Blow can actually become a pretty decent player. However someone who plays for a living can still eat their lunch, or should be able to. It's actually quite healthy for the poker business to have all this happen, because it's obviously better to have the grapes in sight then out of sight and more players are playing more regularly now in the hopes of getting that little bet better that they envision to become profitable, and spending money on both training and their bankrolls.

I actually study what's being taught out there in order to better exploit it and I can tell you that it's very exploitable. The so called enlightened TAG gurus and their followers actually make some big mistakes, in spite of their successes, and I'd rather play against a player like this who is very predictable and will throw all kinds of money in the pot without the best of it, as opposed to a newbie who doesn't know what he/she is doing and is thus much more difficult to read.

Given the nature of poker, I can't ever see it getting to the point where the fish are no longer fish and folks like Dr. Al will pine for the glory days again. Dr. Al might, but it should always be a matter of the rich getting richer should they be sufficiently inspired.

[pauljones]

bit of a fail in the original article not mentioning how poker training sites such as CR/ PXF / DC etc have changed the online poker landscape.

1 thing is for sure: gone are the days that live pros laugh at internet pro's skills

[pauljones]

oops, edited and posted x2 by accident. FAIL!

[kingcobra]

You can say that again Paul. Wait a minute you did

This might have been included in the "internet site" category but it's probably more likely that the author doesn't even know about poker training sites.

Internet pros still don't get the respect they deserve although things have gotten better in some circles since then.