I’m going to climb my soap-box, and shout the virtues of recreational poker players today. It is about time that someone did. I have nothing against ‘grinders and pros’ (or of course beginners). It is just that the ‘recreationals’ make up a big chunk of players online, and contribute a lot to the poker economy without ever being heard – and, well, I’m in a shouting mood.Just to be clear once again, I’m not anti-grinder… not at all. If someone is disciplined enough to multi-table their way to a decent living then more power to them, I wish them every success. What bugs me is the disproportionate noise and opinion which comes from this group… again, free speech is fine. My point is that there is a larger group out there who collectively generate more in fees for poker sites, deposits and liquidity for the tables – yet are not heard. They are not heard because these players are not living and breathing poker, they are not blogging (well, most of them!), they can not be bothered to fight geeky pedants on unfriendly forums… poker is just a small and entertaining part of life for many people, people like these: -The working people who night enjoy the occasional week night poker session. -The Mum who likes to fit in a turbo SNG when the kids are in bed. -Students who spend the time when they should be studying (haha) building a bankroll. -The married man who escapes from the TV soaps now and again and enjoys some MTTs. You got it, average people who enjoy the game but do not feel like 16 tabling. Workers who count poker as part of their entertainment, who want to win (some do) though will reload if necessary. People who do not aspire to be pros or full-time grinders. Those who would like to grasp a couple of strategy fundamentals and improve their game, but do not have the time or inclination to work on the math or minute detail of thin value (for one example).
Recreational Players Are The Silent Majority – My 6-Month Rule
I work with a ‘half –life’ of 6 months for my business planning… that is that half of the players who deposit today will no longer play online poker 6 months from now, and half of those who stay will be gone in 12 months time, half again in 18 – and so on. After about a year, when the novelty and excitement of the game has usually worn off, we are left with 2 broad categories of player; Those who want to take the game seriously (who generally last another year or two playing far higher volume before they drop out, with a smaller percentage keeping on as the proper pro grinders), and the recreational players… who last longer, often 3+ years and play proportionally less.
An Observation - Pros And Beginners Get All The Websites!
Here is some insight into my thinking with several of my websites. Grinders and pros often start websites which are designed to speak to people just like them… they are often cool sites with solid strategy articles. Whether they make much money varies, since this crowd are often already settled with their deals. Communities like 2+2 and training sites like Cardrunners also offer value to this crowd. Beginners have a huge amount of sites to get info from, these are the main target of the poker business worldwide. If they are yet to deposit these players are worth big $$$ to those who can get the click, and there are proportionally a lot more of them. It is much easier to teach people the basics and send them to a site than to extract a grinder from their steady setup! So, what about recreational players… those who know the strategy basics, have played on 1 or 2 sites? These players might flip between different games or sites as the mood takes them and really do not find the detailed and often hostile world of certain message boards much fun at all. Now, it’s not the ‘cool kids’ part of the market…I understand this completely. Beginners, improvers and recreational players rarely have pretty graphs to show people, stars on their sharkscope entry or triple crowns to talk about! However there are a hell of a lot of people in this category, and these people make a very big contribution to the poker economy. I am proud to be giving recreational players a resource they can use to improve their game. At the same time this site gives those beginners who will eventually become the grinders a solid foundation on which to build the details that success in 2012 requires you to learn! A Call To Rooms - Look After The Recreational Players So, come on rooms – it is time to stop incentivizing only your high volume players with your VIP deals, leaderboards and races. How about stepping back and looking at those players who are your real bread-and-butter for a change… This year I’m going to stand on my soap-box more often. When I speak to the managers at different poker sites my new question will be ‘what are you doing for your recreational player base?’ – when I hear a good reply, that room will get some space here at SNG Planet. Comments and feedback for this or any other article at SNG Planet is now via our facebook group http://www.facebook.com/sngplanet GL at those tables! Mark PS: One quick plug to end the article – OnGame have always felt like the friendliest place for casual play for me, and my favorite site there (Red Kings Poker) have a cool promo which will appeal to many recreational poker fans. This is a free entry (valued at $11) into their ‘Fishmarket’ tournament on Feb 16th for all new depositors – since so many get a free entry, this tournament is extremely soft and has a $10k gtd prize pool. This is on top of this you get to choose from 6 different welcome bonuses, and get another $300 bonus the first time you get dealt the 2 red kings! Check out this recreational player friendly site for yourself by clicking this link now – I’ll see you in the Fishmarket tournament!
Submitted by Planet Mark on Wed, 01/25/2012 - 15:30