It is safe to say that online poker has brought poker into an entirely new field of recognition, with it becoming not only one of the most popular hobbies in the world but is now becoming a serious career choice for a huge amount of young, old and everything in between players. Even people who you might expect to be sitting behind a desk filing accounts take the plunge realizing that they can make 1) better money playing online poker and 2) have a lot more fun.
Online poker was already cresting the waves of a minor boom at the start of the century, and a comparably small community of online players were making a good living by profiting from the regular part timers and casino players looking for something new. But then in 2002 when Chris Moneymaker so publicly took down the world’s biggest poker tournament, the World Series of Poker, people started paying attention and considered that they also may have the mettle to earn themselves $2m over a weekend by beating the world’s greatest poker players, how hard can it be?
But nobody fully appreciated the impact online poker would have, and steadily it has become more popular and much more played than in live events, and online players such as Tom Dwan and Tony Dunst have often commented that the experience they have gained playing multiple hands online in such a short period of time makes them better, seasoned pros than the traditional brick and mortar player we are used to seeing like Doyle Brunson or Johnny Chan.
That, of course, is debatable – but what is not is that the number of online players, both professional poker players and amateurs, far exceeds the live player.
There are some obvious reasons for the huge increase in online poker players, the main one being accessibility. Guaranteed Tournaments run daily, with 100s of millions of GTD prizes given every month with the sites combined, there is no ‘extra rake’ such as flights, car travel or accommodation and players even get extra benefits, such as sign up bonuses, Player Loyalty schemes and more.
Bonuses online are much more valuable than the odd free drink and snack, and many players are skilled at hunting out the best deals and making consistent profits simply by looking in the right places. And although the poker environment is largely dominated now by a handful of sites and networks, many of the smaller sites offer players the sort of +EV value that they would not be able to find at larger sites or land based casinos.
It is not hard to see how with the combination of ambition offset by Moneymaker’s big score and the growing accessibility and security of online poker rooms, to see that online poker has becomes the world’s number one hobby, and many people’s second profession.
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