The harsh reality of online poker

Cardrunners released its new site layout today, and CTS/Muckemsayuhh is the newest Cardrunners pro. He is a very respected high stakes NL and PLO player. He's also only 20 years old, but you would never peg him as being so young because of the amount of respect he has in the online poker community.

Lots of the online winners, most of which are in my 20-25 age range, say that they aren't worried about the future of online poker. I am trying to be a realist. The main problem lies in the fact that poker (unlike the real economy) is a negative sum game. Rake takes tens of millions of dollars out of the online poker economy every year, and the winners obviously take money out of the economy when they cash out. Thus, the only way for the online poker economy to maintain itself requires a LOT of new blood and new money to continually enter it.

The amount of information at anyone's disposal is amazing. The learning curve is so quick that one could go from novice, to winning HS player in less than a year if they push themselves. The amount of people in my age range who are rapidly becoming stronger and stronger NL players is insane. With CTS's new video, that much more information is being consumed by thousands of players.


It has gotten to the point that the shark-to-fish ratio is getting very sour. So many people are excellent players, while fish are more reluctant to part with money now (in comparison to the golden PartyPoker days). In the high stakes games, “fish” don’t really exist anymore. The high stakes games online are so incredibly dry that it’s a bunch of excellent regulars battling it out with little edge over each other.

What all this means, I don’t know. Online poker may just be a complete niche in a few years, where the games are so tough that there is little money to be won. In the mean time, I need to do everything I can to stay with the pack as games keep getting tougher. I’ll start right now by taking notes on CTS’s video, which is extremely insightful.