Who is losing to the pros?

All the high stakes games seem to be filled with seasoned pros that are the same year after year with new internet sensations replacing the old guard, but who are they all beating in order to make their millions. Obviously there has to be losers to be winners. Is this money trickling up from lower stakes to higher stakes, are there pros that eventually have to go down in ranks and lower stakes when a new kid takes their place or do the pros just exchange promotional money they make from books, appearances, television, and internet poker rooms sponsorships? I know there is some tournament money circulating about that probably finally trickles up to the higher stake games and keeps the cash flow going. I know that poker is a huge business these days, but it always seems the same pros are playing the highest stakes, so who are their fish?

This is a great question one, i dont have the answer to, but would be very interested in hearing some opinions

all the new dopisits

money just goes up .

lets say 100 random guys deposit $50

90% of em loose to 10NL or 25NL regs

and the 25NL regs might win at 25NL

but they take shots at 50NL 100NL even

loose there to 100NL regs

same for the 100NL regs they have tilting or taking shots at 200NL or 400NL or even PLO games loose to regs at that limit.

and so on so some % of they money goes up that way .

and some ofc rich guy deposit 10k$ wanna play higher tabeles for fun loose it all .

but I would say most of they money come from the random 10-100$ deposits , plus players wann have fun , maybe there roll last 1 day maybe 1 year but the money goes up .( not all ofc because good regs don't take shots stay at 100NL for ever and cash out )

Yeahh maan , this is definietly a good thread . Well , small fish trying at big tables is crap because when a Player really wins at 25NL table , he will not keep all his money on the line , these people try to save what they got and keep playing in the same league in which they are going good .

So i think the high stakes players just exchange their cash with ech other
LOL this is true but most of them get from tournaments

Its as cardsking said, its the big name players just trading blows all day every day because no one else in their right minds would sit with them.

variance is key here........the pros are just trading money basically.....although there are wealthy fish online for sure

well if you read some poker news you can see big loses and wins from most pros that are active daily, gus is the best example, i think that blom too. Im not sure but i think that gus lost about 4m this year

I don't think the pros make their millions from high stakes cash games. I think most of them have made most of their money from big tourney wins, and those that do play cash for a living probably grind out lower stakes games where there are still weak players.

I once read a story in where a whole table of pros sat together because just 1 person was losing money like crazy. I guess its that kind of guy!

The really good pros hardly ever play each other if there's not a fish in the game. Some HU ego matches happen at the top but in general it takes a fish for those high stakes games to run.

most of the pros are just people who scored a huge 100k+ tourney win and then just continue to win money playing tourneys, cash, or sgo just by being better than most players in the long term simple as that

zEric7x said:

I once read a story in where a whole table of pros sat together because just 1 person was losing money like crazy. I guess its that kind of guy!

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Here is a link to the story on what I believe you are mentioning.

http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/news/features/505/poker_celebrities.html

Mr Sandbag said:

I don't think the pros make their millions from high stakes cash games. I think most of them have made most of their money from big tourney wins, and those that do play cash for a living probably grind out lower stakes games where there are still weak players.

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jcdagenius said:

variance is key here........the pros are just trading money basically.....although there are wealthy fish online for sure

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Blobweird123 said:

Its as cardsking said, its the big name players just trading blows all day every day because no one else in their right minds would sit with them.

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bernotas22 said:

most of the pros are just people who scored a huge 100k+ tourney win and then just continue to win money playing tourneys, cash, or sgo just by being better than most players in the long term simple as that

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None of these are true in the slightest. Seriously, please go online (or live actually just harder to verify) and find me a game 25/50 or higher that is running and full with all top pros. You won't be able to. Every game that runs at high stakes ALWAYS has at least one fish. Once in awhile it will be that a lower stakes reg that is shot-taking is considered a fish, once in awhile it'll be a live pro that's considered a fish, but there will pretty much always be one person at a 6m table that the other 5 players all think is worse than them.

hackmeplz said:

None of these are true in the slightest. Seriously, please go online (or live actually just harder to verify) and find me a game 25/50 or higher that is running and full with all top pros. You won't be able to. Every game that runs at high stakes ALWAYS has at least one fish. Once in awhile it will be that a lower stakes reg that is shot-taking is considered a fish, once in awhile it'll be a live pro that's considered a fish, but there will pretty much always be one person at a 6m table that the other 5 players all think is worse than them.

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how in the world is what i said not true lol please explain

bernotas22 said:

most of the pros are just people who scored a huge 100k+ tourney win and then just continue to win money playing tourneys, cash, or sgo just by being better than most players in the long term simple as that

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Most pros are not people who scored huge tourney wins and the guys who make a ton of money from cash don't make it by being better than most people they make it by beating up on fish.

hackmeplz said:

Most pros are not people who scored huge tourney wins and the guys who make a ton of money from cash don't make it by being better than most people they make it by beating up on fish.

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well actually your not correct most of the people who have big rolls got it from luckboxing a huge tourney, and yes sure if you are not a good player at cash you go around looking for fish aka bumhunting but the best players at the highest stake cash games find that there is not too many fish in those stakes, wrong and wrong again you are

bernotas22 said:

well actually your not correct most of the people who have big rolls got it from luckboxing a huge tourney, and yes sure if you are not a good player at cash you go around looking for fish aka bumhunting but the best players at the highest stake cash games find that there is not too many fish in those stakes, wrong and wrong again you are

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So your saying that high limit games consist of tourney winners right? thats just bizarre.

400/800 is running now on FTP. It only runs when a certain player is playing. Whenever he's playing as many tables as he wants will run but when he's not no one will play. Back in the day 500/1k only ran when a certain player was playing.

Most poker pros who who luckbox huge tourneys are already deep in makeup and part of a staking deal so the amount they keep is wayyyyy less than you think it is. The guys with the most money that have made it as poker pros are all cash game players.

Sorry dude but you're wrong about this. I don't know any nosebleed players but I regularly talk to people who play as high as 100/200 when a fish sits. The games just don't run without fish. Seriously just start looking at the high-stakes lobbies of any site you want and I guarantee you there is at least one mark in any game running. Lately there's been a few high stakes HU battles that go among poker pros (usually it's isildur playing someone good and isildur doesn't gaf and the other player thinks he has an edge on him) but that is by far the exception to the rule and if you look at the HU lobbies at those stakes you'll see that there are a ton of regulars sitting waiting for fish and if a single game is going it's because one of the two is a fish.

vinylspiros said:

So your saying that high limit games consist of tourney winners right? thats just bizarre.

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yeah for tourney players they do, for cash its a mix of players who moved up stakes in cash, but overall lots of top players i know atleast from lithuania all got started bey becoming a big tourney luckbox champion

bernotas22 said:

well actually your not correct most of the people who have big rolls got it from luckboxing a huge tourney, and yes sure if you are not a good player at cash you go around looking for fish aka bumhunting but the best players at the highest stake cash games find that there is not too many fish in those stakes, wrong and wrong again you are

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so is it 'most of the people who have big rolls' or is it some that you know from Lithuania?

It's kinda weird here that you're calling a guy who probably has a better clue than 99.9% of the members on this site 'not correct' & 'wrong and wrong again you are'.

I don't have a clue about who is losing all the money in higher stakes cashgames (online or live).... aside from stuff you hear in the news ie. Gus being down a bunch in 2013. But for tournament play 'online', occassionally you'll see players in the $100 & $200 buyins who are down over $100k (some -$300k). Deep in any of those tourneys you generally see all winning players.

Poker Orifice said:

so is it 'most of the people who have big rolls' or is it some that you know from Lithuania?

It's kinda weird here that you're calling a guy who probably has a better clue than 99.9% of the members on this site 'not correct' & 'wrong and wrong again you are'.

I don't have a clue about who is losing all the money in higher stakes cashgames (online or live).... aside from stuff you hear in the news ie. Gus being down a bunch in 2013. But for tournament play 'online', occassionally you'll see players in the $100 & $200 buyins who are down over $100k (some -$300k). Deep in any of those tourneys you generally see all winning players.

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don't understand the point your trying to make, i for one see for a fact most of the top players in my country aren't really staked they just luckbox a tourney are good tourney players and can win in the long term, now for cash i don't care who loses but all i know is to win you can do it in various ways by bumhunting or by being better than other good players or a combo, i don't know any good player in my country who is down 100k in tourneys otherwise they would just not make it, obviously lithuania is not a rich country and those who do have money that did not come from poker would not play poker at high stakes, small population so low likelyhood people want to blow there money away, so only the good players survive from this pool, in other larger markets you see more money coming in and people losing lots of money, anyways i disagree that you have to bumhunt in cash games but he may be right doesn't matter to me all i know is that i am right about it in my country that most top players are ones who started off by getting rolled with a big tourney score

Poker Orifice said:

so is it 'most of the people who have big rolls' or is it some that you know from Lithuania?

It's kinda weird here that you're calling a guy who probably has a better clue than 99.9% of the members on this site 'not correct' & 'wrong and wrong again you are'.

I don't have a clue about who is losing all the money in higher stakes cashgames (online or live).... aside from stuff you hear in the news ie. Gus being down a bunch in 2013. But for tournament play 'online', occassionally you'll see players in the $100 & $200 buyins who are down over $100k (some -$300k). Deep in any of those tourneys you generally see all winning players.

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Am I in the 0.01%? =)

bernotas22 said:

don't understand the point your trying to make, i for one see for a fact most of the top players in my country aren't really staked they just luckbox a tourney are good tourney players and can win in the long term, now for cash i don't care who loses but all i know is to win you can do it in various ways by bumhunting or by being better than other good players or a combo, i don't know any good player in my country who is down 100k in tourneys otherwise they would just not make it, obviously lithuania is not a rich country and those who do have money that did not come from poker would not play poker at high stakes, small population so low likelyhood people want to blow there money away, so only the good players survive from this pool, in other larger markets you see more money coming in and people losing lots of money, anyways i disagree that you have to bumhunt in cash games but he may be right doesn't matter to me all i know is that i am right about it in my country that most top players are ones who started off by getting rolled with a big tourney score

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puppy feet said:

All the high stakes games seem to be filled with seasoned pros that are the same year after year with new internet sensations replacing the old guard, but who are they all beating in order to make their millions. Obviously there has to be losers to be winners. Is this money trickling up from lower stakes to higher stakes, are there pros that eventually have to go down in ranks and lower stakes when a new kid takes their place or do the pros just exchange promotional money they make from books, appearances, television, and internet poker rooms sponsorships? I know there is some tournament money circulating about that probably finally trickles up to the higher stake games and keeps the cash flow going. I know that poker is a huge business these days, but it always seems the same pros are playing the highest stakes, so who are their fish?

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I wonder if you could qualify who you mean by "High stakes pros". When I first read this I thought of the "TV pros" who, I had always read and believed," made their money from business people who want to take shots at them (ex. The Andy Biel story) If you mean internet pros than I'd think it would depend a lot on which site. I do know a live pro, with over 10 years tenure now, who makes a damn good living playing 10/20 NLHE 2000k BI. I know this is probably not what you mean by high stakes but he claims his monthly nut is 25k. (I'd be real good with that.. thank you very much) He travels the country playing rather anonymously.

Thanks, interesting thread. It would be interesting to have some statistical data that could answer this question. I assume the theory of "at least one fish" is the main factor