Poker world farce
Some facts that might correct the hype image of poker
Stewart Reuben writes in his book Starting out in Poker …
“Here is one sad but sobering statistic: A majority of the players who have won the World Series final have later gone bankrupt.”
Famous poker advocate Nolan Dalla also has some interesting points:
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Lesson One: “The pros are not really that good.” Dalla states that it is a widely held perception that many of the top names in Poker are unbeatable. He believes that this is simply not true and that many tournament pros, maybe even the majority, can’t beat cash games and are “big contributors” when they sit down in live games. Moreover, every day in every single major tournament, well-know pros make bad decisions and bust out, and he could fill a book with some of the terrible plays he has witnesses by these so-called “great” players.
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Lesson Two: “Tournaments are a very tough way to make a living.” Dalla believes that playing tournament poker is even tougher than playing cash poker, and in addition, tournament players must play their own travel, hotel and entry fee expenses, which can be considerable. He mentions that local cash game and online pros have enormous advantages over their tournament counterparts.
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Lesson Three: “Some tournament ‘professionals’ are just rich people who have enough cash reserves to sustain the appearance of being successful.” Further, according to Dalla, the numbers of players who earn a living playing tournament poker is very small and although many of these players seem to be winners, at the end of each year have actually lost money.
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Lesson Four: “Online poker is not rigged.” Although he agrees there is some dispute that the online poker industry is not doing enough to pursue cheaters and colluders, the games themselves are not rigged. The majority of online card rooms distribute cards randomly and have no inherent objectives to cheat players. Further, the perception of ‘bad beats’ is exaggerated because the games run so much faster, and so many more hands are played in a relatively shorter period of time. This gives the appearance of encountering more ‘bad beats’ than one would experience in ‘brick and mortar’ establishments.
