I see how it's mathematically inevitable, over a long enough period of time, that an advantage player with a sufficiently large bankroll (like the "house" in a casino) will win often enough to provide a reliable income.
The math clearly works in a closed system, where the players you've got are all that there ever will be, and nobody will ever join or leave, and nobody will ever improve. But it doesn't seem to me that the poker-playing community at large is all that closed. People start playing, or retire, all the time. Also, people's skill levels change as they get more experience and learn more about the game. Not everyone progresses equally.
What I don't see is exactly how a person determines that *they* are the advantage player at a given table or series of tables, unless it's a group of people they've consistently and soundly defeated in the past. A winning track record is a good and convincing description of past performance, but nobody controls who sits down at the table *next* time. Best case scenario, it's a complete beginner who has no clue. Worst case scenario, it's a bigger shark than me, with an equally sufficient bankroll, and if that happens often enough I'm dinner.
How does a person determine whether a given loss is the result of ordinary chance, or a result of an encounter with a superior player?
I've got a hefty ego, so it seems to me that, if I were to play poker, I would repeatedly think that I'm the advantage player in situations when I'm actually not. This happened to a guy I met, who ended up losing $150k in retirement savings and his house, plus ending up about $75k in debt. He started out with a very nice winning record in online poker, and he was a very skilled and disciplined player, but there were bigger sharks. Admittedly he wasn't wise in terms of managing his losses. But it makes me wonder, how can a person believe they're that good, if they really aren't? Are they just out of their league?
If there are five people at a poker table, only one of them is the advantage player. Of the other four, are they *all* there with the intention of most likely losing? Or are 80% of them confused about who the advantage player is?
Maybe those of you who play poker as a form of income can enlighten me on this. Would you actually sit down and play with a table full of finalists from a recent ESPN televised poker tournament? I mean, besides for fun just to say you'd done it.
Hey there, basically my short answer is this comes with years of experience. It is very easy at times at the lower levels to within a first few orbits of play in a live poker game to have remarkably accurate reads on which player fits into which categories of player types. Whether they are a solid recreational player, someone who plays for a living, someone who is just there to have fun, someone who has a gambling problem, someone who thinks they are good but they aren't, and so on. I think the reason i am a successful live poker actually stems from my observation abilities being better than the standard person, which has helped me tremendously.
You would also be surprised to learn that the mental game of poker, and ego itself are a HUGE part of the game. Your emotional control, and spotting the leaks in the ego's and emotional control of other players is important.
I would say sitting at a decent 2-5 table anywhere in America based on MANY factors i would quickly realize who is good and who isn't in less than 20-30 minutes for sure. How the bet, how they act during hands, the poker lingo they use, the way they pitch their cards, what they are wearing, how they act when they win or lose a hand, if they pay off a bet when it was clear they weren't good, or if they check on the end when its clear they should have value bet, if they do things they have "seen on tv" like checking in the dark and so on. I mean I could rant endlessly on things that will tip you off to a skill level of a character, but just trust me, if you are a good player you can spot the other good players and more importantly the bad ones.
What you said about your friend is something that happens to tons of players. Not for as much money in the games I play, but yes when bad players go on heaters, they often don't think logically and come to expect their run to continue. And many times their run happened in the first place not because of solid disciplined play but because they ran above EV (expected value) and didnt realize it. Then all of a sudden ego comes into play when you start leveling off or losing but instead of reevaluating your results and going over hands and studying and discussing strategy with friends and so on and dropping down in stakes if needed they blow through all their winnings instead. These players don't have discipline or strong mental games, and probably aren't winners overall.
The final thing you mentioned about bad players being confused is very true. I've been playing for years in one area with people who are losers year after year but keep coming back. Most of these guys are well off and its recreation to them. They are playing for fun, and don't see a huge difference between poker and black jack, they never study, their games never improve. They understand who some of the better players are, but they often times will talk about how the better players are luckier and so on, when they don't see that the better players just find better spots then they do. As a winning player, it certainly boggles my mind that people can play as long term losers, but the HUGE majority of players in live poker rooms are losers. I would estimate over a year span, the people who play more than once a week at their local casino, i would say 90% are losing money over time.
This thread is very funny to me. And poker is a much much deeper beast of a game then most people give it credit for. You need to have quite the stomach for it, and I don't even play the biggest stakes, I mostly stick to 2-5NL.
Anyway, it's a great game, and a great source of income, but its like anything else, you have to be obsessed with it and put in the work. I have a friend/coach who I talk to everyday about poker. I have a subscription to a live poker site, Crushlivepoker.com that is specific to improve your live poker game and so on.
April was my best month of the year so far! +9.5k. This calendar year I'm up about 35k so far. Its just like a normal job for me, i put in real job hours. My hourly is about 63/hour.
But again its not easy, the emotional roller-coaster can be brutal on the bad days. I wouldn't recommend it unless you love it.