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Texas Holdem / Poker Strategy Author
Co-Author of the recently published, 'Poker Mindset' poker Psychology book,, Ian 'Piemaster' Taylor is from London UK and has been playing poker seriously for two years and socially for a number of years before that. Mainly a limit specialist who has enjoyed success at levels up to and including 5/10 and has also dabbled in No-Limit and tournament hold'em as well as Omaha. He is especially well versed in the psychological aspects of the game, and so will often write about the more human elements of the game rather than middle-of-the-road strategy. |
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| Times Are Changing |
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To what extent is certainly up for debate. Some players have their head in the sand and don’t want to accept that the online poker landscape is changing. On the other hand, some players are over-hyping the situation and predicting the end of online poker within a year. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between. Online poker will be around, and almost certainly profitable for many, for a good few years yet. However, in order to succeed in 2007 and beyond, we need to adapt to the changing landscape or become victims of it. Catalysts of Change Most people point to the UIGEA as a major catalyst of change for online poker. The law, that was passed last year, made it illegal for banks to process financial transactions with online poker rooms. I am not a legal expert, so I won’t go into any more detail than that for fear of looking foolish, but effectively this law made it very difficult for US players to finance their online poker accounts. Additionally several sites responded to the law by banning US players from playing at their site, closing the accounts of existing players. The long-term results of this legislation may not yet have been fully realised, but some changes are certainly evident. Firstly, there are less players around overall that there once were. Many US players have been cut-off from online poker (or at least have the impression that they have been). Others realise that they are still able to play, but have decided to quit or cut down on their play either through a desire to be law abiding or because they see it as the beginning of the end and now might be a good time to get out. Obviously this causes knock-on effects even for non-US players. Some sites are now ghost towns since such a large proportion of their players were US based, while others are still alive but more sparsely populated. If you enjoyed playing an unusual game or limit, then you may now find that this game now struggles to get going due to the decreased pool of players. A more worrying problem is that the players more likely to leave are inevitably the weaker players while the sharks who make good money from poker are less likely to allow their gravy train to slip away from them. This makes games harder as there are more sharks per fish. However, it is unfair to blame the UIGEA for all the changes to online poker. In fact, there is a good argument to say the games getting harder was inevitable and all the UIGEA did was speed up the process. Online poker got very big very quickly between 2003 and 2005. Huge numbers of weak players or ‘fish’ took up the game during this time, leading to ridiculously easy games for a while. Many players optimistically thought that these good times would last forever. That the bad players would stick around indefinitely without getting better, or that there was a limitless supply of weak players willing to take their place if they did quit. Of course, this was never a realistic expectation. The difference between online poker and the live games in Las Vegas (where the play hasn’t improved so much) is that in Las Vegas there is always another plane full of tourists turning up the next day who will want to try out poker. Maybe even some whales that have thousands to burn at high limits. On the other hand any players who want to try online poker can do so very easily. Rather than a steady trickle of new players, there was an enormous one-off flood. Eventually most people who are inclined to try poker online will have done so, leaving a limited scope for new fish entering the economy. It is difficult to tell definitively, but it is my opinion that we are already reaching this stage. There were definite signs of games getting harder even before the UIGEA. The process continued, rather than began, at that point. As well as this natural ‘survival of the fittest’ process that is slowly weeding out the weak players and making games harder, there is also an information revolution. In the old days, poker was a game more or less about trial and error, with the true secrets of winning closely guarded by poker’s elite. But these days there are enough books, forums, magazines, coaches, software and websites to give poker players with the desire to improve a very steep learning curve. If you are serious about poker and have a little mathematical aptitude, then you can move beyond the stage of being a major donator very quickly indeed. That’s not to say you will necessarily become a winning player immediately, but you can certainly get good enough to avoid being a live one. Obviously this is good news for the player in question, but bad news for the existing winning players who have less fish to prey on. In fact, players of all levels can improve their game easier than ever before. As a result all players need to improve merely to stay in the same place, because they can be sure that their opponents are taking advantage of the tools available even if they aren’t. This is okay while there are plenty of new players coming in, but as soon as the supply dries up, the games get progressively harder. You will have to get better and better at the game just to maintain an edge. More likely, you will eventually either reach a limit to either your learning ability or your motivation. The Verdict Combined we have three major forces contributing to make winning at poker much harder: Legislation making it difficult for new money to enter the economy and encouraging bad players to quit. Evolution of games slowly causing bad players to either go bust or lose interest. Learning materials and tools allowing players to get better quickly and with less effort and experience than in previous eras. It looks a very bleak picture, but evidence suggests that the speed of these changes are somewhat slow. 9 months after the UIGEA and several years after the poker boom started, online poker is still very much beatable. And what’s more, it still seems to have plenty of momentum behind it with the mass exodus of players not materialising. Nevertheless, you need to adapt to the changing game state to ensure you stay competitive. Complacency is one of your worst enemies in an environment where it is slowly but surely getting harder to win. If you ever stop learning then you will gradually get dragged back into mediocrity, losing your winning edge completely. Part 7 of the Poker Mindset – dedicate yourself to a continual cycle of analysis and improvement. Not just so you can improve your win rate (which hopefully you can) but so you can avoid going backwards. The reality is that not everybody will survive the shake-up. As the pool of losers shrinks, naturally some former winners will become losers. The number of predators is strictly controlled by the amount of prey. A year from now some of us will think we are winning players will find we can no longer win. Obviously the most vulnerable are those who are only marginal winners and those who are not prepared to continually improve. If that describes you then you will either have to change your approach radically or accept that the gravy train might be coming to an end for you. Maybe it’s even time to think about getting out of poker altogether. However, if you are committed to poker and are prepared to put in the effort to be the best you can be, then there will always be money out there to win. Stay one step ahead of your opponent and practice good game selection and (barring new oppressive rakes) you will continue to bring home the money. Poker is not dying, it’s merely changing. Can you adapt? _________________ I refuse to torment my soul over things I can't control. - Afroman |
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