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Why did poker explode in 2004? (2 Viewers)

What about demographics? Did that come into play at all? Any commonalities among the people playing (30-50s etc, baby boomers?). Or was it across board?
 
mummel said:
Yes downfall. Check Google Trends. It shows how many people are searching for poker chips online. You can see this slow bleed over many years, looking like near death. I'm very surprised to see poker isn't more popular.

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You're able to use a search engine?!

Of course I don't disagree with the general trend, I was sharing my experience. jbutler answered effectively in post #4.

Many things have declined or grown in popularity with cultural change. Poker is no different.
 
I've been playing poker off and on since around 1959. Depending on the locale, sometimes it was easy to get a home game together, other times not so much. Finding a game in Wisconsin was never a problem.

IMO, there is a huge difference between poker players and people who play poker. A poker player will always be a poker player. As for the people who play poker, I think they play because they think it's cool -- for them poker is definitely a fad, and we all know that fads come and go.

Feeding the most recent poker fad: Rounders, Moneymaker, hole cams, mega-advertising by Stars and Full Tilt, and televised poker. One could buy poker chips at Walmart and Target. Even the Desperate Housewives played poker!
 
I am very sad to report the apparent downfall of big breasts. :eek:

Unlike refrigerators, I am almost certain I spelled this one right. Makes sense, the ratio of the number of times I've searched for breasts to the number of times I've searched for refrigerators is quite high. :whistle: :whistling:

big breasts.png
 
bentax1978 said:
I am very sad to report the apparent downfall of big breasts. :eek:

Unlike refrigerators, I am almost certain I spelled this one right. Makes sense, the ratio of the number of times I've searched for breasts to the number of times I've searched for refrigerators is quite high. :whistle: :whistling:

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Where have you been? Big breasts have been sagging for years.
 
I played weekly home poker from 1996 to current (although the weekly is far less due to NH having legalized NL/PL games but thats a unique situation). I hosted weekly from 1998 to about 2013.

Rise:
  • No doubt Moneymaker effect is the kickoff. Common home game players were scared to death of casino play and Moneymaker showed that any shmo can win.
  • P* but then FullTilt. I'll never forgot the come out party of FullTilt at the WSOP with those hockey jerseys. It sent a feel that there was Hollywood in poker and it excited casual and pro players alike.
  • People didn't know (or accept) variance yet and just expected to be the next yahoo to make millions.
  • People who didn't play cards prior were now hooked on weekly home game tournaments with cheap buyins.
  • Every day you could see hours of poker shows on TV. High Stakes Poker was the pr0n of the eva. It was everywhere. Remember that stupid filming of a single table playing cards off a mountain, being suspended up and tagged "HIGH HIGH Stakes"? Celebrity Poker Showdown, Hip Hop Holdem. Surprised there wasn't a Granny Cards show.
  • Poker, once regarded as strictly seedy was becoming socially acceptable among everyone who didn't play.
Fall:
  • A lot of casual players who jumped in were now jumping out. "It was fun for awhile".
  • Skill development. Some players got better, others didn't, the home game field got uneven.
  • BUSTO's. People get sick of losing, they quit the fad of dumping $ every Friday. They didn't dump when everyone was new with them.
  • Online goes dark friday. Online players get hella better. Online cheating exposed.
  • Less cheap games for a casual beer with friends and more money getting tossed around. The $50 player passes on games (My home game affected by this).
  • Less media/TV shows on Poker.

The above is from my experience and not based on online analysis of this topic. To go from 10 to 50 to 10 players was awesome but currently if I throw a home game its still way better outcome than pre-2003.
 
I encourage anyone to read "The Moneymaker Effect". Good read, and it does a great job of chronicling that time frame. A lot of conditions were right, for poker to have it's big boom. Chris winning the ME was spark that caused the explosion. Like others have pointed out, "Black Friday", was the extinguisher of that fire.
Now only us hardcore players are left. Those that were playing before the "boom". And I agree with others, that the lack of online poker, has been good for home games.
 
The Rise and Fall of Zombie Poker

Chapter 1: The Game Awakens
When I was buying my house in 2004, as I was walking through the place for the first time, the homeowner was sitting in the livingroom playing on Party Poker. I was intrigued. I played some free games and had a blast. During down-time at work I would load it up and play on one of the work computers. Soon everyone was playing free online poker.

I suspect a lot of this same contagion spread poker nationwide. I bought cheap custom chips and built a table. My games filled. All was good and right in the world. Poker, once believed to be a game hosted by hustlers and swindlers is now viewed as a fun and enjoyable party game.

Chapter 2: The Self-Righteous Strike Back
UGEIA is passed by the Government. Full Tilt Scandal. Poker, once believed to be a fun and enjoyable party game is splashed all over the news (and in a full-length movie) as being hosted by hustlers and swindlers. As online poker tried to get back in, "Bad Actor" clauses just villify poker even more. My co-workers (proud southern men) became notably upset that I (a Yankee) or worse women were beating them on a regular basis. I heard musings about the department that my game was not safe. The game ground to a halt. Without TV blasting noob-friendly shows like Celebrity Poker Showdown poker appeared boring. Add the WSOP live coverage of players sitting around "tanking" and I couldn't disagree.

Chapter 3: A New Hope (The last time that A New Hope will be considered as the best chapter)
My wife mentioned the game in a Toastmaster's speech. One person asked her about it afterwards because they've always been interested in learning poker. In the way that I guess all home games go, people overheard other people talking about how much fun they had. The game grew, and grew and grew. I cut off invites after 18 players, but routinely set up a 3rd table because of friend-of-friend invites.
 
Times change, get used to it. Like boy bands and jean styles. Some people might be Menudo fans still, but not as many as there once were. I would think this community is more of the die hard fan of poker, it takes a lot to change our views on the game. The rest, fair weather pussies.

One other factor to consider, around 2003, the job market and stock market had recovered from the 9/11/01 caused recession, so people had more disposable income at the time poker sites and technology were growing. Add the Moneymaker, WPT tv factor, and it caused a boom. Pretty sure there is a movie or two about it, recall watching one about a year ago. Anyway, seems like a troll topic to a degree and been answered well.

LOL IRL on this, too funny Tom
Mr Tree said:
Where have you been? Big breasts have been sagging for years.
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The social acceptance of poker and the online craze both contributed to the rise of poker popularity. However, both are part of the reason why I got out of the game in 2005. I enjoyed the seediness of the grind, bouncing around to underground games in the basement of Armenian pizza places and backrooms of mob-affiliated restaurants. Maybe I was just trying to be cool, but I enjoyed developing a reputation in the underground circuit, then hitting AC on the weekends. Online poker may have given rise to more hands per hour, new metrics, and fancy poker terms, but it also allowed for corruption that is associated with most digital mediums. In my mind, it's hard to compare an online experience to taking the long escalator ride down to the Taj poker room on a Friday night.

Fast-forward to 2015 and I decided to pick up poker again. Though I still don't like the online poker platform, I have come to respect the social acceptance and sharp young talent that entered the game. I'm 34 and I play with a few accomplished 21-22 year old poker players, but the mindset has changed. These are suburban white kids who bink $100k tournaments and play $5/$10 NL and still live at home with their parents. I can certainly appreciate the strategy and intelligence that this new crop of player brings, but sometimes I look around and imagine that if shit went down, these little bitches would be useless.

Then again, I'm now a domesticated suburbanite who is more worried about what food I'll buy for my players than actually playing in the game. And while I shrugged off all risk when I was younger, many times with my back to the door as I walked/ran out, now I worry about players double parking and blocking the sidewalk. That's some sad ass shit.
 
MegaTon44 said:
The social acceptance of poker and the online craze both contributed to the rise of poker popularity. However, both are part of the reason why I got out of the game in 2005. I enjoyed the seediness of the grind, bouncing around to underground games in the basement of Armenian pizza places and backrooms of mob-affiliated restaurants. Maybe I was just trying to be cool, but I enjoyed developing a reputation in the underground circuit, then hitting AC on the weekends. Online poker may have given rise to more hands per hour, new metrics, and fancy poker terms, but it also allowed for corruption that is associated with most digital mediums. In my mind, it's hard to compare an online experience to taking the long escalator ride down to the Taj poker room on a Friday night.

Fast-forward to 2015 and I decided to pick up poker again. Though I still don't like the online poker platform, I have come to respect the social acceptance and sharp young talent that entered the game. I'm 34 and I play with a few accomplished 21-22 year old poker players, but the mindset has changed. These are suburban white kids who bink $100k tournaments and play $5/$10 NL and still live at home with their parents. I can certainly appreciate the strategy and intelligence that this new crop of player brings, but sometimes I look around and imagine that if shit went down, these little bitches would be useless.

Then again, I'm now a domesticated suburbanite who is more worried about what food I'll buy for my players than actually playing in the game. And while I shrugged off all risk when I was younger, many times with my back to the door as I walked/ran out, now I worry about players double parking and blocking the sidewalk. That's some sad ass shit.
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Brilliant!
 
I just wanted to point out that I was single-handedly responsible for the search spikes in both 2006 and 2007.

upload_2016-5-18_11-47-49-png.41857
 
And I was not responsible for the 2011 spike.....
 
Late to the party but didn't see it mentioned...

Plenty of money was flowing into the game from newbies who got hooked and had access to eaaaasy, easy cash quickly for their new hobby. HELOCs! Refi'd HELOCs with bigger cash outs because why not! In the 4th quarter of 2005 ALONE, $130B in HELOCs were handed out. Let that simmer.

The bubble didn't happen fer' nuffin.
 
The downfall was mainly the govt shutting it down which caused the less serious/skilled players to leave as well as people getting smarter and better and then there was less of an edge for even an above average player to be profitable. It became more about winning a ton of flips so it was mainly luck. The rise was because people were introduced gradually to a game thru espn and hole card cameras, rounders which spread from friend to friend where they could win money rather than working or earning money
 
Don't forget the economic crash of 2008. Poker relies on folks having disposable income to continue feeding it. When peoples budgets tightened up many couldn't afford to continue to be the fish to be chewed on.

Add in the government crackdown and the decline in quality televised poker (which now seems to feature either completely socially awkward and boring to watch young math whiz's or over-the-top camera-hogging d-bags) and you just have the perfect storm.

This years Colossus still drew over 21,000 players to enter it!
 
MegaTon44 said:
Then again, I'm now a domesticated suburbanite who is more worried about what food I'll buy for my players than actually playing in the game. And while I shrugged off all risk when I was younger, many times with my back to the door as I walked/ran out, now I worry about players double parking and blocking the sidewalk. That's some sad ass shit.
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" get off my lawn !! "

:coffee:
 
BNM said:
I've been LOL-ing at this post for about 2 straight minutes. Thank you, I needed that.
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The question is, have people become better spellers (myself excluded), or have the built in auto-correct/sleep-check in browsers decreased the number of searches in misspelled works decade?

I'm guessing it's the latter (not to be confused with the ladder) :)
 

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