WillisNYC

I am encouraged by many of the changes that I am seeing in poker during the last half of 2007.   Observing the progress of many different bills passing through Congress to regulate or officially legalize online poker is especially exciting.  I doubt any of them get passed during an election year, but I feel that 2009 after the election will see some progress on this front.  US regulation would send the fish back to the online poker sites in droves. 

I played a LOT of live poker in 2007 and I can attest that the average live player is far worse than online players.  The comparison is not even close.  I think this is because if an online player sits at a 5/10 NL game, he made enough money playing poker to sit at that game.  Making $20,000 that would be a recommended bankroll for this game is no small feat.  Few online players deposit this kind of money in order to play poker.  Thus, the average 5/10 or better player online has made a fair amount of money playing poker.  Contrast this with your average 5/10 NL player at the Borgata in Atlantic City.  The max buy in is $2000, but rarely are the players properly bankrolled for this game.  Half the players in your average 5/10 game are casual players with a fair amount of disposable income.  There are plenty of doctors, lawyers, business owners and retirees.  These casual players are not good players.  They don’t know pot odds, outs or even how to properly figure them in many cases.  (See my earlier story ‘about the math’.)  They tend to chase draws, call you down with 2nd pair or top pair lousy kicker.  And they call you down for big bets on the river!  Barring unlucky disaster, the 5/10 and 10/20 NL games at the Borgata are a goldmine.  A goldmine that I have been working in for some time now and am happy to report success. 

The other half of your average 5/10 game consists of ‘local pros’ who just are not that good.  They could not win consistently playing on the tougher 5/10 tables that exist online.  Their games are full of holes that are readily exploitable.  On average, one or two of them ‘might’ make it playing online.  In AC they do fairly well because they are feasting on the truly terrible casual players who frequently play there.  Currently there are few of those casual players at the higher online levels and the pros who win there MUST be far better in order to profit.   

I am guardedly hopeful that the US will regulate online play in the near future and bring back the fish that are the lifeblood of poker.  When those fish come back, online poker will once again be a feeding frenzy of joy not seen for over a year.  In the meantime, the popularity of poker on TV and elsewhere has brought the fish to the casinos in droves.  There I will continue to feast on them and eagerly await their return online.