Cash Is King

2014 is going to be a year of change. Not because of bullshit new years resolutions, because actually enforced changed. My life as a poker player has lead a pretty familiar pattern over the past three years. This year however I won't be living in Nottingham, and I may not be in the UK for much of it.

The main reason I'm leaving Nottingham is because of the cash games - which have been my bread and butter for the past 3 years. I'll write a bit about what has happened in this blog.

Ecosystem

Nottingham is not a good place for a natural ecosystem of cash games to exist. This is mainly down to its poor location geographically and population. Cities like London and Paris have a natural ecosystem already inbuilt - huge population, huge tourist scene. DTD opening has artificially boosted the poker scene in Nottingham for the past few years and given the nature of tournaments (recs winning them all the time!) and particularly DTDs focus on tournaments, this will last for tournaments for many many more years than it will for cash games.

No limit - No chance

No limit hold'em cash games are brutal for the recreational player. In my opinion the most brutal form of the game. In omaha, you're always at least 40%! In tournaments anyone can win a few flips! In No limit cash games, especially the deepstacked, high octane games that Nottingham has produced over the years, to be frank, the recs don't stand a chance.

And in an already artificially created habitat, that just isn't going to last unless things are done to make it last (ie incentives, bonuses for players or regs working together (v different to colluding) to make the games more friendly and appealing).

DTD have realised this decline and have introduced several schemes to protect the games in the long term. For example, capping the games, one straddle max, even creating a weekly VIP game where professionals are banned!

Whilst this last measure is pretty extreme, I think generally the ideas are good and their heart is in the right place and maybe they'll be a recovery over the next few years. Right now though, there's rarely a game worth playing.

League of Regs

A few years back somebody coined the hilarious phrase "championship regs" to label those regs that didn't play the 1/2 or 2/5 games but were there every night playing 1/1 and occasionally 1/2.

DTD is such a sick club that it has attracted so many young guys to make it their home and grind there everyday. So in the cash game ecosystem, for every recreational playing driving from X to play, there's 3 young guys in the car right behind them.

These championship and league one regs win the money in the 1/1 games, preventing the recs from ever moving up to 1/2, and then instead of moving up themselves (which would be the natural order of things as they get wealtheir and more skilled), they are staying where they are and sooner or later that player pool will be drained too. I can't really blame them though. The 1/2 and 2/5 games aren't worth playing anymore even for us. It's 4/5 regs who all can play, all competing for 1 or 2 recreational players' stacks. The rake ain't cheap either.

So there's little or no fresh blood of recs or regs in the 1/2 player pool, so the 1/2 players are forced to either go elsewhere (London, more trips abroad etc) or often, move down to 1/1 in search of action. This was fine for a bit, since the 1/1 regs sat deep and weren't as experienced or skilled, but then they stopped giving us action. Quitting games whenever a "premiership reg" sat down. They have this illusion that whenever they fold to us we've bluffed them, and whenever they pay us off they've made a bad call etc. They think they're getting owned every hand when they're not, and they think that a game that was very profitable for them has suddenly turned into a massively -EV game when 1 or 2 better players sit down.

Two years ago whenever this happened I was quite flattered and happy that somebody thought I was a good player, but now it's seriously annoying. Again, I can't justify being annoyed at them. They're just game selecting sensibly. Yes they won't ever improve or move up if they never play better players or take shots in bigger games, but I can't force them to want to do that.

When recs and regs don't want to play with you, and the club doesn't really want you there - there's something wrong! Time to move on.

Thankfully I'm blessed with no real ties to anywhere and just about enough money so that I can move anywhere in the world. It's going to be an exciting year.