Is It Over?

[omahahilo 0]

So with the death of online poker and shows like the NBC Head's Up Championship Cancelled ... is poker headed back to the days when a player had to go to downtown Vegas to get a real game unless they were able to put together a home game or travel the country looking for action?

[king_tanner 84]

it's all over baby!

[TwstdWrstr 10]

was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

[pauld22 0]

was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

HELL NO!!!

[pezeveng 207]

4 replies to get to this whats wrong with all of you.

[AmScray 355]

No, it will never go back to what it was before it was 'discovered', but the go-go days are definitely long gone and those won't be coming back, either. It's actually a very common thing. Happens all the time. Something really 'booms', attains a lot of popularity then eventually fades back to a sustainable level of hardcore enthusiasts. In the early 70's, when Bobby Fisher was making a run at the World Chess Championship, contending with the Soviets in the middle of the cold war, about to take away one of thieir most prized accomplishments, interest in Chess saw a boom, similar to the boom in poker. Suddenly, chess boards were on every kids Christmas list. Chess clubs were springing up everywhere. People got together to play chess, played at lunch. 'Everyone' was interested... and from this period, some amazing chess players were flushed out from the ranks of John Q Public, but, as was expected, eventually, people lost interest, moved on to other things. There are still Chess players, Chess is still a great game but it's not like it was, for that brief period of time.It seemed that every kid under the age of 15 decided to take up playing the guitar in the 80's. This gigantic mania gave us some of the most technically amazing players ever, it skewed production dynamics to the point that today, you can purchase an import guitar for $129 that is as good as the $999 (in 1983, about $2500 inflation adjusted) US Guitar from back when guitars were still a specialty product. Eventually, that too died down, today, only seriously interested kids pick up the guitar... but we're left with music store megamarts like Guitar Center, Musicians Friend, etc- all still doing a good business and a direct byproduct of that huge boom. A lot of people saw poker for the boom that it was and a lot realized that in time, that boom would come to an end. I have posts on this forum under my 'Scram' account from 3, 4 ago where I basically said just this and here we are (told ya so). Just like Guitar Center still exists, just like there are still Chess Clubs in the various cities, there will still be poker in Casinos but it's a certainty that in time, some of the floor space they had allocated to poker in 2007 will become slot machines again.

[daveharvey 0]

under a pale grey sky, we shall arise

[phlegm 6]

People finally realized that most people lose,and a good portion of the internet winners were actually cheaters.So yes, its over and you can go back to college.

[isap 0]

interest in Chess saw a boom, similar to the boom in poker..It seemed that every kid under the age of 15 decided to take up playing the guitar in the 80's.

um. rly?There are some pretty obvious differences here. An Amateur can't beat a great chess player - they can't even PLAY a great chess player. Amateurs can't get lucky at chess and win just enough to make them think they know what they're doing so they keep coming back for more.The feds didn't suddenly say "you can no longer play guitar in your bedroom, you can only play in a handful of licensed B&M guitar playing studios and you'll be expected to play much slower, perhaps 40 chords per hour".When the government works out how to cream its slice off the top, poker will be back.

[AmScray 355]

um. rly?There are some pretty obvious differences here. An Amateur can't beat a great chess player - they can't even PLAY a great chess player. Amateurs can't get lucky at chess and win just enough to make them think they know what they're doing so they keep coming back for more.The feds didn't suddenly say "you can no longer play guitar in your bedroom, you can only play in a handful of licensed B&M guitar playing studios and you'll be expected to play much slower, perhaps 40 chords per hour".When the government works out how to cream its slice off the top, poker will be back.

You blow ass at understanding logic.Poker is different from chess, poker is different from playing the guitar, however they all enjoyed cyclical interest. The entirety of human history tells us that this happens with many things, interest ebbs, flows, peaks, sometimes dies.While a shit player cannot play a chess grandmaster, a shit player will not survive in poker, either. Poker had five strong years, post Moneymaker boom, where the fish were unlimited. It took about that long for them to realize that beating poker over time was as likely as their beating Kasparov. I not only observed this developmental trajectory, I took part in it. I remember Party Poker. It bought my first brand new car. I also remember how ****ing miserable poker had become towards the end as the competition was immeasurably more efficient than they were early on. All this played a role in a decreasing interest in poker.You're basically asserting that poker 'died' on black friday. That tells me that you had your head buried in the sand- perhaps up your ass- for the past 3 years as interest in internet poker decreased and decreased, tracking pretty damn close with the skill levels increasing, the knowledge base expanding... but **** me, and **** you. Lets poll the entire world and see what they have to say.So yeah. "Rly", muppet. "Rly". Keep telling yourself it's all coming back, Pollyanna. Your insight is garbage.

[wsox8 10]

4 replies to get to this whats wrong with all of you.

[nutzbuster 7]

Long from over. It will never go away completely. Tiger Woods blew up golf. Hell, so much so that at the peak they were even trying to get inner City kids playing, busing them miles out to the local courses in the suburbs! Nice idea on paper.But that boom ended and golf died way down. The sad reality is that golf looks fun but its hard as shit, takes a ton of time and practice to play well and it's expensive as hell. Once that sunk in and people learned this ... gg golf boom. But the residual result was that golf is still more popular than it ever was before Woods came around and there are still more golfers now than ever before that time. In similar ways poker will always be more popular than it ever was pre Moneymaker in this post boom era but at a larger pre boom level. The reality of how hard and expensive it is to play for a living is well know by all now (especially after black Friday) and obv. the game has cooled down to a post boom trickle. And many have felt the cruelty of post BF live play variance, which takes forever to get through compared to an online downswing, if your roll is big enough to take the hit. Im gonna guess that many people find they have not the time nor monetary and emotional tolerance for the swings. I feel horrible for my buddies who are seriously hurting from similar situations. Many others have busted and have had to leave the game, go back to school, join the military, move out of country, go back to jobs, etc. And even if they figure how to get everyone to agree to allow US online play back it may be in a way that has it so over regulated/fuked up (imagine that from Washington?) that many who have left may not want to deal with all the new rules/BS/Taxes etc. Just a guess. I hope for all my playing friends sake I am wrong about this.For sure the mid 2000's glory days are gone. I am grateful I get to play recreationally and have a job and pension to back up the bullshit variance. And even then I have quit many times due to the swings, I have no idea how anyone stomachs the ups and downs of this game as their sole vocation. And I'd hate to have to play for a living, especially in this climate. Hoping for the best and good luck to all of us.

[DiamondDixie 12]

Long from over. It will never go away completely. Tiger Woods blew up golf. Hell, so much so that at the peak they were even trying to get inner City kids playing, busing them miles out to the local courses in the suburbs! Nice idea on paper.But that boom ended and golf died way down. The sad reality is that golf looks fun but its hard as shit, takes a ton of time and practice to play well and it's expensive as hell. Once that sunk in and people learned this ... gg golf boom. But the residual result was that golf is still more popular than it ever was before Woods came around and there are still more golfers now than ever before that time. In similar ways poker will always be more popular than it ever was pre Moneymaker in this post boom era but at a larger pre boom level. The reality of how hard and expensive it is to play for a living is well know by all now (especially after black Friday) and obv. the game has cooled down to a post boom trickle. And many have felt the cruelty of post BF live play variance, which takes forever to get through compared to an online downswing, if your roll is big enough to take the hit. Im gonna guess that many people find they have not the time nor monetary and emotional tolerance for the swings. I feel horrible for my buddies who are seriously hurting from similar situations. Many others have busted and have had to leave the game, go back to school, join the military, move out of country, go back to jobs, etc. And even if they figure how to get everyone to agree to allow US online play back it may be in a way that has it so over regulated/fuked up (imagine that from Washington?) that many who have left may not want to deal with all the new rules/BS/Taxes etc. Just a guess. I hope for all my playing friends sake I am wrong about this.For sure the mid 2000's glory days are gone. I am grateful I get to play recreationally and have a job and pension to back up the bullshit variance. And even then I have quit many times due to the swings, I have no idea how anyone stomachs the ups and downs of this game as their sole vocation. And I'd hate to have to play for a living, especially in this climate. Hoping for the best and good luck to all of us.

You totally hit the nail right square on the head! I hate to say it but from watching the hearings on HR2366, if and when legislation on online poker comes out of Washington I'm really scared to see what it's going to look like but legislation good or bad will create a new boom and thousands of news fish flocking to the game. Unfortunately it may be too f'd up for any serious players to make any decent money but lets hope not. There will also be many new TV shows and other things to increase interest. I doubt we'll get back to a 2006 boom level but traffic and interest will definitely increase. My hopes for legislation are pretty meh right now since the idiots in Washington can't even accomplish the most necessary legislation but who knows, weirder stuff certainly happens.

[David_Sklansky 1,903]

I find it fitting that the only remaining posters who understand relationship between poker and the real world are pathological liars.