is poker still beatable in 2034?

[LukeSilver]

So that is not a mistype I do mean in 2034 not 2024.

its been a while since I posted here, work has been stressful abusive and exploitative. My girlfriend keeps pushing me to just give up all work and go full time poker professional.

I make no claims to be a great player I am sure many on here if they had my screen names and saw me play would have a lot of criticisms and may even say I am a bad player.
However the fact remains I can see I can make more money playing poker then I could realistically hope to make from work not just now but for the next decade if I work my way up a career ladder. A large part of that is that in the UK you do not pay tax on poker winnings, but obviously do from work. If I made £39000 a year in the UK my take home pay would be £29000 this does not include the cost of travel getting ready for work commuting and realistically any meals I might buy whilst at work. To achieve the same result from online poker I would need to make roughly £125 a day.
I see job adverts asking for five years experience and a degree offering £25000 a year, which is more then I have ever been paid from a non poker job. to achieve the same result I would need to make approx £90 a day from poker again 25000k works out at 20900 roughly after tax and deductions etc. again not factoring in transport and time traveling.

for context my spread sheet works out hourly not exact figures so these are rough figures and I do factor in tax but also holiday pay which I would not get for poker. I should also factor in cost of transport but did not do so because that will obviously be variable depending on whatever the job is.

So on the face of it if a magic genie could absolute guarantee that nothing changes in the landscape from where it is today in online poker my girlfriend would be right the rational decision would be to just play poker full time for a living.

However with constant governments looking at changing legislation with sites looking at changing games and rake structure and bonuses etc and with the most serious issue the rise of bots, it becomes questionable whether making a living from poker will be viable in the long term future.

My fear from playing poker for a full time living is that in a few years or 10 years etc I suddenly find I can no longer do it I am kind of screwed career wise. I dont need to know if online poker is beatable in 2024 I know for a fact it is. what concerns me is will it be beatable in 2034 or 2044?

 

[Luvepoker]

I do believe poker will be beatable in 2034 and even 20540. The issue will be as time goes on and players playing styles change and grow you must keep up.
As for going Pro I would and would not do that. Your points of all the site changes and possible bots etc. is something you should think and worry about to some degree but if you did decide to go this route poker is going to become your work.

AT one point in my career when i became a winning player i stopped studying. The game changed and I started to lose. I was smart enough to start studying again and got my game on track again. Then black Friday came. Today I play for the enjoyment of the game. I do study a lot as well but i enjoy learning. If I were in your area of the world I would not play as a pro but make it my side job. If you can make good money on the side and not pay taxes its a great option.

 

[BelFish]

Maybe in future they insert Neuralink technologies in the brains and people start play like solvers )))

 

[edle]

Like in everything you need to be up to date with everything to compete. Never stop studying and you should be able to beat

 

[pentazepam]

We will play in the matrix/virtual reality if our AI-boss allows it.

 

[pentazepam]

Maybe in future they insert Neuralink technologies in the brains and people start play like solvers )))

We are already very close to this.

 

[pentazepam]

So that is not a mistype I do mean in 2034 not 2024.

its been a while since I posted here, work has been stressful abusive and exploitative. My girlfriend keeps pushing me to just give up all work and go full time poker professional.

I make no claims to be a great player I am sure many on here if they had my screen names and saw me play would have a lot of criticisms and may even say I am a bad player.
However the fact remains I can see I can make more money playing poker then I could realistically hope to make from work not just now but for the next decade if I work my way up a career ladder. A large part of that is that in the UK you do not pay tax on poker winnings, but obviously do from work. If I made £39000 a year in the UK my take home pay would be £29000 this does not include the cost of travel getting ready for work commuting and realistically any meals I might buy whilst at work. To achieve the same result from online poker I would need to make roughly £125 a day.
I see job adverts asking for five years experience and a degree offering £25000 a year, which is more then I have ever been paid from a non poker job. to achieve the same result I would need to make approx £90 a day from poker again 25000k works out at 20900 roughly after tax and deductions etc. again not factoring in transport and time traveling.

for context my spread sheet works out hourly not exact figures so these are rough figures and I do factor in tax but also holiday pay which I would not get for poker. I should also factor in cost of transport but did not do so because that will obviously be variable depending on whatever the job is.

So on the face of it if a magic genie could absolute guarantee that nothing changes in the landscape from where it is today in online poker my girlfriend would be right the rational decision would be to just play poker full time for a living.

However with constant governments looking at changing legislation with sites looking at changing games and rake structure and bonuses etc and with the most serious issue the rise of bots, it becomes questionable whether making a living from poker will be viable in the long term future.

My fear from playing poker for a full time living is that in a few years or 10 years etc I suddenly find I can no longer do it I am kind of screwed career wise. I dont need to know if online poker is beatable in 2024 I know for a fact it is. what concerns me is will it be beatable in 2034 or 2044?

Online Poker as a job in the Western world is deader than a Dodo.

 

[Cooking]

Yes, of course it will be. I started to play poker around 17 years ago and I saw you joined here in 2009, so, you also play poker for many years. At that time the big names of poker were Negreanu, Hellmuth, Ivey, Tom Dwan...and they still are big names in 2024 and still are winning players. They definitely work hard and never stop studying the game. I don't want to be a professional player, but my biggest worry would not be if the game would still be beatable in 10 years, but it would be the legislation and how unpredictable poker rooms are, like they can decide to stop to offer games to any country at any time. For example, last year party poker left several countries and if I was a professional player and had PP as my main room, this would be a disaster.

 

[puzzlefish]

Maybe in future they insert Neuralink technologies in the brains and people start play like solvers )))

We are already very close to this.

Are we talking about the anal beads again?

 

[LukeSilver]

so one or two responses seem to mis what I am getting at but I think overall people get it. Poker will always evolve and change over time that much is a given. Poker arguably is solved now with GTO and what not very few if any humans will ever reach the point where they can play perfect GTO.

I seriously doubt we will reach a point where in $10/£10 sit and goes mtts spin and goes or NL cash you will have tables of human players who are all playing near perfect GTO. I specifically say Human players because I could see that scenario been reached with bots but not human players.

Even if that did become the norm for humans then someone could just throw out random stuff people are not ready for which is non GTO but people are unadapted for this has already happened in higher stake spin and goes. Where when games are 3 handed and 15 blinds deep the game tree is much smaller then say six handed 100 blind deep cash. Some players have really learned this format to a point where they are very close and then suddenly you see strong pros at the top adopting 3 handed button limping ranges and 3.5x raising ranges.

This is completely non GTO and in theory would not beat a perfect bot but their opponents are not perfect bots and have studied how to play against GTO like plays so they dont adapt adequately. this goes beyond what I am qualified to talk about but yes it shows poker always evolves. despite so many solid players I regularly see people doing stupid things and playing bad assuming we dont hit a financial crash so bad that it puts near everyone in financial destitution their will always be dead money (terrible play) and so the games should still in theory always be beatable if your always playing human beings and your always playing beatable formats.

I am not asking if human players will be beatable in ten years time of course they will my concerns are the following 3
1. sites change games/rakeback to formats that are not realistically beatable
2. legislation kills the games
3. botting becomes so prevalent that humans can no longer recently compete.

I would literally say its most in order of threats there from point 1 been the smallest threat to point 3 been the biggest threat.

 

[hilary antonik filho]

I don't know if I'll be alive until 2034, but I believe that with the evolution that takes place each year, poker will also have a significant change

 

[Iryna Stryzheuskaya]

I think that no one can answer the question of what poker will be like in 10 years. Maybe we'll play with paper cards in the caves if we don't use them to keep the fire going.

 

[SpanRmonka]

Hey there Luke. As you're from the UK and seem to be beating online poker, would you not want to play live. MY experience, as someone from the UK, who wouldn't be able to make the claim that you can make regarding online poker, I am more convinced I can beat live poker.

My point is, if you think you can make a living, around £25k online, then I think you can make major inroads playing live too. This would, I believe, negate your concerns about online poker being beatable in 10 years time!?!

Of course depending on where you live in the UK, it may be trickier to find the volume of games without significant travel. However, given your theoretical 10 year timescale, my thoughts would be go for it, but incorporate as much live play as you can. The results can be way more impressive..
Do you play on Grosvenor poker? They have some great online satties starting at £1, and are a great way to get into some low/medium live buy ins.

 

[Gallarado777]

Of course, it will be possible to win in 2034 every year players get stronger just need to keep up with poker players and learn to train, the most important thing is not lazy and you will go to success in poker and in any business in life the main thing is to start doing it as the time goes by we only get stronger even in poker it's the same

 

[10gerka]

it is possible to win as long as you put your mind to it and you can always keep studying, anything is possible.

 

[Nafor]

2034? Your guess is as good as anyone else's. None of us can truly say how things look in ten years time.

If there is a chance that your actual work career is going places then I don't see a reason to give that up. You probably have many many years ahead of you before retirement becomes even a question. On the other hand you might get sacked once you are in your fifties, just because your employer thinks that you are too old/expensive for your job.

Life is full of risks. The trick is to pick the smart ones. The good thing is that you are giving this some thought before jumping into anything.

 

[Station_Master]

I the one bit of crucial information you have omitted is how much you make per day on average playing online poker. Making £90 a day on average is not easy and requires alot of skill. Why not play evenings and weekends and keep a track of your hourly rate , which probably needs to be at least £15 an hour ($20).
I imagine this is easier to do live than online.

 

[NootNoot]

Here's my hot takes for what they're worth - precisely zero but that's never stopped me weighing in before.

1. sites change games/rakeback to formats that are not realistically beatable

I don't think the sites would want to do this normally. Would think they would lose a chunk of their player base/customers. Misjudged attempts at being greedy on their part could be one reason, don't ever rule that out completely. Another could be a dwindling player base that's happening anyway and that's the only way they think they can survive at all to pay overheads, which in turn could result in an even smaller player base. It's the panic option if the industry is dying. Smaller player base could be natural if fewer people simply get interested in poker as certain things go in and out of fashion with no rhyme or reason. Other factors could be the latter mentioned legislation, bots or even the global economy.

2. legislation kills the games

Impossible to predict.

3. botting becomes so prevalent that humans can no longer recently compete.

Very possible, or at least there's so few who can that most normal players give up so that all that remained is elite players and bots for a while. If recs and decent but not great regs give up after taking too many beatings from bots then games become even harder than it would be with regs, recs and bots. Eventually even the elite players find they can't beat the bots as the bots become more sophisticated, leaving bots vs bots only.

 

[jose_saleh]

Lol Poker will live forever

 

[luckyfish98]

Friend, poker is tricky, but you can't rely on it! Because today you win handsomely, but tomorrow you already lose everything
The advice is good or the risk is worth it, because I say this from experience!

 

[NootNoot]

In general, I don't know what sort of hours you work or what kind of jobs you've had, but I'd think very very carefully before doing this.

I'd be wanting my projected poker earnings to be double or triple what I could earn from a regular job before thinking about this, maybe even more. Not just down to whether it will still be beatable then or not, but variance too.

If I was dead set on this I'd still look to work at least part time too, or just make poker a part-time thing while working full time. Or there's the option of further education (if you're not already well qualified) and playing poker on the side. The pay for graduate jobs can be shocking at first but at least they can go somewhere.

 

[LukeSilver]

So the exact jist of my situation is this, I have never had a job which pays well ever period. I am nearing my forties. I have a degree in accounting and finance which led nowhere and I am in the final year of an open university degree in maths and statistics.

The best work in terms of pay that I ever had was an accounts payroll administrator position which once tax is factored in paid 3.5% more a month then the minimum wage they would legally be allowed to pay me. I literally spent more in transport to the job then I would have needed to if I had a local min wage job. I lost a lot of motivation and confidence for the working world through this job. It was a 2 hour commute each way and transport cost was £85 a month if I went the cheapest option which would make it 2 and a half hours commute each way or £220 if I went the more convenient trains which meant just two hours each way. The extra money after tax and deductions was £55 hence why I say having a local min wage job was a better choice.

I put everything on hold for this job I put my degree as a lower priority my health and poker all behind this job in terms of priority. Why? few reasons one was I was told I could go hybride (work from home 3 days a week) after two months. this seemed viable I could write two days a week of when i went into the office but the other three days I could work from home and wake up later and be done with work and commuting earlier having 3 evenings I otherwise would not of. This was removed when i had completed my two months. I thought that this was a real career opportunity with real chance of progression I later found out that my colleague who had been there five years longer then me was on the same wage as me.

Someone not so bright or who did not think this through properly would be like well they doing the same job so they should be on the same wage or good as should be. They may in fact get mad to find they were on higher wages. But the fact remains then if they didnt get a raise in all that time other then the inflation raise everyone got then that did not look good for me. When I asked the manager about this I got a very aggressive nasty response almost felt like I was been bollocked like a naughty school child, I wasn't asking for a raise there and then I was enquiring about future opportunities I could work towards I did not initiate the conversation they were calling each person in the team to discuss their moral and goals etc. I heard that only exceptional people get a raise or promotion etc and you have to be truly exceptional.

that was the most promising and best job I had if it wasnt for the long commute eg it was local I would still be working there till this day.

I cant navigate work place politics and spin maybe its due to my autism but my wage has always been either min wage or very close to. with very high pressure and lots of stress.

some people most people say you need to earn twice the amount of what you can make from working the regular job in order to justify going full time pro in poker min wage in the UK is currently £10.42 this increases to £11.44 per hour in april. So by this logic I would need to make £20.84 an hour from online poker right now or £22.88 per hour from april from online poker. which would be $26.56 an hour or $29.16 an hour from april and that gets worse because in order to be realistic and fair I would need to also include poker study time as that hourly which means my playing time hourly would need to be even higher.

I think though that a lot of people stick to generic rules because it avoids complicating the matter in shades of gray and deeper thought. I have worked for several temping agencies before and if you go to their websites they will tell you that they deeply vet and take on the best workers this is utter nonsense. They take whatever they can sell, if you have a cv with some experience and have not worked for five years they will get you temp work.

Hence if I can make as good or better wages from online poker as min wage and the best work I can get is min wage without any career prospects then I see every reason why I should go for poker. If I can get a starting position as an actuary which would give me a guaranteed wage of what I think I can make from poker right now and a progression opportunity which could put me on a wage that I would have to work my ass of for and may never be able to achieve from online poker then online poker has to take a back seat for that.

However these are the two extremes there is a lot of murky area in between these two extremes which is where the debate comes from.
my last exam for the open university is sometime from end of may to mid june. My last assighment is end of may.

My plan at the moment is to focus on my degree primarily until June. When that is done I can break down various different scenarios but I think it really depends what career opportunities I can get some it is clear cut put poker first others it is clear cut put the career first, but between the clear cuts there are shades of gray and debate I guess Will just have to see what happens.

 

[ATL2000]

I just don't know. Think about how evolved AI and solvers will be in another ten years.

 

[vnnby]

Over time, everyone will play so perfectly that everything will come down to chance of heads or tails. In fact, I want to play poker as fair as possible, without additional funds, AI and the like.

 

[kogam20590]

Only PRO earn money in online poker.
There will be no online poker in 2034, because the T-800 will eliminate the savior of mankind