Joined: Oct '11
Location: Argentina
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 24
There is a lot of talk about the number of recreational players outnumbering professional players on online poker platforms. What group do you consider yourself in?
Joined: Dec '16
Location: Germany
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 32
"Exceed" is putting it mildly, I'd say there are 10 hobby players for every 1 semi-pro and 200 hobby players for every 1 pro. Because it's a cool hobby, but a very difficult profession, involving huge instability of earnings through variance. Plus, if you're a tournament player, you have to be prepared to literally living in hotels, traveling around the globe (unless you live in poker meccas like Las Vegas or Mocoa).
I started playing and learning poker back in 2008, for a hobby player I learned to play pretty well. But it took me a few million hands, reading several books about poker, many articles, as well as communicating with many good players and pros. Plus I was also trained on poker simulators. All in all, I was pretty successful for a hobby, but I quickly realized that it wasn't enough to make this game my profession. You have to go to much higher limits, where the players are much more serious and the game is much more difficult.
Eventually I gave up the idea of becoming a professional poker player and concentrated on my main profession. But poker will always remain my passion, and among all my friends and acquaintances, I have no equal. And this is not an exaggeration, even though now I play much less often, but I remain a very dangerous opponent for hobby players and beginners)).
Joined: Feb '23
Location: Poland
Age: 41 (F)
Posts: 430
He definitely feels like a recreational player, a beginner, a learner. Basically, it's not as simple as it may seem. I think I will never get a better grade in this game because it takes a lot of time, a lot of learning, knowledge, methods, etc. I admire you, alienat3d, for learning so much yourself. But as you wrote, it's also your hobby, so it's probably easier to learn what we really like and like to do.
Joined: Jan '14
Location: Romania
Age: 45 (M)
Posts: 13850
to make money from poker you have to learn better and lose a lot of time to have a profit every month. I mean, this is what a modest player should do, not a professional.
Joined: Feb '23
Location: Poland
Age: 41 (F)
Posts: 430
Each discipline/occupation should motivate us to develop and further learn in a given field, including poker. You have to remember that everything changes and transforms, so it is worth learning all the time, getting to know the tactics of the game and striving for certain goals. There are people for whom being a basic player is enough, and there are those who want to go further and strive to be the best.
Joined: Aug '08
Location: Poland
Age: 41 (M)
Posts: 856
It all depends on which poker room we play, what games and what stakes. The higher the stakes, the more regular players there are. When it comes to cash, more and more regular players start from Nl10, and when it comes to tournaments, I think that entry fees start from $11-22. Generally, after these legal regulations, there is currently a small number of players in poker rooms compared to what it used to be, when there were golden times of online poker around the world.
Joined: Oct '11
Location: Argentina
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 24
Currently in cash play with micro blinds, to obtain tickets and in daily GG Poker Freebie.
------------ I think that freerolls take a lot of time and it is difficult to get to paid positions and when you get there the prizes are low, that's why I don't play that style.
Edited by lucianojerez (14 March 2024 @ 22:51 GMT)
