Why this Site Will Eventually Shut Down
Dear frequenters of the OTL,
I have not read your threads.
But your posts appear to be long, well thought out, and you appear to be passionate about the issues being discussed. Kudos.
Unfortunately the same passion and discussion does not, in my opinion, appear to be transferred into the primary focus of this forum.
You fail to chime in on the few and far between poker related posts on this forum. You fail to bring thoughts on hands and analysis to the table.
Failing to see this site for what it is (a poker related business, generating very small revenues for the site owner), will be the demise when the poker related traffic dies (new people come here for the game, not for the OTL).
I am obviously not pointing out everyone, but making a general blanket statement that most of the traffic on this site is not poker related, and thats not a good thing for our long term survival.
Discuss.
I have not read your threads.
But your posts appear to be long, well thought out, and you appear to be passionate about the issues being discussed. Kudos.
Unfortunately the same passion and discussion does not, in my opinion, appear to be transferred into the primary focus of this forum.
You fail to chime in on the few and far between poker related posts on this forum. You fail to bring thoughts on hands and analysis to the table.
Failing to see this site for what it is (a poker related business, generating very small revenues for the site owner), will be the demise when the poker related traffic dies (new people come here for the game, not for the OTL).
I am obviously not pointing out everyone, but making a general blanket statement that most of the traffic on this site is not poker related, and thats not a good thing for our long term survival.
Discuss.
Comments
Grinders will always be grinders. People who have limited time to devote to poker are realizing live poker has more benefits from a social standpoint and those who don't, prefer to rail/BAP those who do commit to the game.
This is the natural progression of the game. There are few new players and the regs don't need to discuss chips, cards, tables, dealing techniques, the mechanics of tourneys, blind levels, strategy etc.
As far as making a living off this site - that gravy train left the station many years ago. Nobody discusses rakeback or bonuses anymore. The free and easy money online is gone. You only have to look at sites like pokersource.com which made a huge amount of money for nevadajacks by giving away their chipsets as bonuses. pokersource was one of the busiest sites around with a very active forum and is now a shell of its former self. nevadajacks has been sold to another company and barely exists as a going concern now. homepokertourney is another site that is almost dead and they used to run a live chat every night in which many members participated. Their WSOP giveaways were legendary, a giveaway for every event, all paid for by sponsors - this year they didn't give away one thing.
Out of the dozens of forums poker related, how many have active posters anymore? 2+2, pocketfives, chiptalk, us, who else?
I think it is a credit to the regular members and the mods that keep this site going as it is. If people want to debate GOD or run dead pools or discuss Blue Jays or whatever, what difference does it make? How does it in any way take away from the poker content? This is a place where friends gather.
No, but I can predict the future.
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Gabbo
4 OTL
7 B&M
4 Home Games
3 Online Poker talk
1 strategy
1 introductions
Atheist thread in OTL, 42 posts, 390 views
CNE thread in B&M, 4 posts but 111 views, so the OTL thread has 10x the posts but <4x views but the CNE thread has generated >25x views from only 4 posts. It's pretty much a similar ratio for anything poker content related.
Pretty much sums up what I said, and hardly seems to indicate that most of the interest is in OTL
Yes, the regs are maintaining this place, but if you were classify this forum as dying, stagnant, thriving....where would you place it?
There have been 15 threads in the MTT strategy section, THIS YEAR!
The OTL is thriving, but new members dont join to post in the OTL, they wander there after hundreds of poker related posts. Failing that component the forum dies.
To think that the current model is part of a lifecycle is naive imo.
If only to (hopefully) validate Mooses theory that everything is kosher.
Link?
Proving the existence of the owner of this place would be akin to proving the existence of God, or the proper way of playing JJ. :-\
didn't you have a plan less than a month ago to make 100k/yr playing NL?
wat?
#thinkbeforeyouspew
Gabbo
PS -- this has never been a primarily poker based forum, but it used to have more poker players
Or perhaps too many pro couch movers....>:D
Oh... and bye!
+infinity^infinity
As far as other poker forums have gone boom/busto, the site has not seen near the same decline. More people on this site are interested in live vs online and the former casual players are more interested in staking/railing than playing themselves. This is where the poker content on this site is headed.
If you are interested in learning the optimal push/fold situations, how to grind heads up sngs and other strategies I think you can find that content argued endlessly over on 2+2. However I don't think you will find Blondefish's analysis of the best tournies to play in Ontario nor the opportunity to stake local players in the WSOP and other tournaments over there.
There is enough poker expertise here that if someone does post a strategy question, there are sufficient responses to satisfy the question. Pointing fingers at people who have no interest in discussing when to fold AA preflop, and how many years you should stay in school before turning pro, all over again and saying the problem is that they don't contribute to the poker content, when really they can add nothing that hasn't been said already, isn't suddenly going to add to the profitability of the site.
But always enjoy the posts on strategy. I do not play regularly and am embarrassed to post about my hands, as I am sure it would show tremendous bad judgment or a chemical imbalance that made me do it.
I love Mark's Omaha discussions, Wetts, Pokerjah, djgolfcan's Hold'em posts
(only named a few, there are many more of you)
Opinions and discussion I find most helpful, with rebuttals to view all angles
are great, when the post suddenly gets de-railed by a personal attack, I think the Moderators should just immediately lock the post. far too many people hide behind their keyboards.
Just my opinion, and with all this typing (2 finger) I should be exempted from the non-post comment until the new year
Milton Slim, Snowflake, etal
I joined this site 3 yrs ago because I had a question about a hand I played in a tourney at Brantford. I got the answers I wanted and nobody filleted me. Since then I have barely played poker. I've played 2 tournies at Aj's and that was 2 yrs ago. I went to Vegas in may armed with some info off of Moose, GTA etc but I didn't bother with a tr as I only played maybe 6 hrs of cards in 3 days.
I'm not even a wknd hack anymore. I read strat on here and I think to myself, I have no interest in learning the game if this is now the bare minimum. 10 yrs ago I was probably a decent player compared to the field. Now I'm a fish, so I play for kicks once in a blue moon. I haven't played online in a yr and even when I did it was a 40$ deposit every month or so.
This site is friendly enough, if not a bit incestuous.
As for AJ game the first one I went to I finished 2nd. Totally luck boxed my way hitting everything. I had Steve Kerr tilted so bad he was starting to berate me and even tweeted during the game that I was the worst player and hitting everything. At a casino I would have expected this, but for a 40$ home game he should have just gone and f***** himself. I didn't say anything then as it was the first time I had met anyone from the site. If it were at a casino I probably would have been kicked out because I wouldn't have just remained quiet or ignored him.
Anyway, I know Steve is a demigod around here and most of this is probably blasphemy. Under other circumstances I might have had another opinion but that kind of turned me off from home games from this site and posting any legit questions.
As it turned out, my interest and funds available for poker dried up pretty fast with the birth if our son 2 yrs ago
Any grammar errors - wrote this on my iPhone.
Nah, not a demi god, that's my role.
Not sure if I've ever played with you but would be glad to anytime... In short, give the game, and us another chance..
I don't understand why people keep associating the OTL with the amount of poker related discussion on this site. I also don't understand why people keep comparing the traffic of one subforum to others. It's not like we have a finite amount of space or bandwidth or something that's being usurped by the OTL.
If people want more poker related discussion on here, they should generate more, discuss more, etc. If more poker related discussion happens on here, more people interested in poker related discussion will frequent the site for it. They may engage in the OTL as well, but I don't see how that impacts the amount of poker related traffic.
I do read a lot of the poker related discussion on here. I don't offer much in terms of strategy, but that's because I'm generally not what I would consider a great player. I am an ok player and an enthusiast. I love to read about it though. We have some great players on this site. We've lost some great players as well, and I believe they incorrectly blamed the lack of poker related discussion. It doesn't generate itself, so discuss it if you want to read more about it.
Every forum I've ever been involved with has an OTL/general discussion subforum, some even have two or more. I don't see it stealing anything from the primary theme of the forum as a whole.
There are many ways to view this forum. If people don't want to have to sift through threads in the OTL, there are various ways you never even have to know they exist.
Just my thoughts.
I still visit the forum on a daily basis and read all the new posts and as long as the new posts keep rolling in, I don't see why this forum is going anywhere. Whether it's poker related or not, this forum still has, and I think it will continue to have, enough traffic to keep it relevant and keep members posting. As long as the forum owner isn't bleeding money to keep the site up, I don't see it going into the tank.
At no point did I say I had any issue with the amount of volume in the OTL.
My theory is that the lack of poker content, on a poker forum, will eventually cause it to fail.
Combined with the fact that we are losing the strong poker related posters (Richard, Jules, BTP - did you guys even notice they were gone?), I was just asking that the OTL posters engage the poker discussion a little more. That way, new poker related posters wont feel intimidated and those who left will be replaced.
Its so frustrating that there are people who have played this game for years on this forum and have absolutely no drive or desire to learn more or improve.
or to share their knowledge with those eager to learn. i think there might be a few of those left here.
I definitely noticed when BTP stopped posting and JulesDAA and Richard, etc. I'm seriously glad that Blondefish has cranked up his posting and read each and every thread he creates. I'm also quite interested in a lot of the posts that yourself and the other great players on here say in them.
A lot of the posters in the OTL (DISCLAIMER: I could be wrong and I'm not saying everyone so don't shit on me OT people) don't post much in the strategy threads simply because we're not that good. Myself included. I love playing poker as a social activity, I just don't have the time in my life to spend studying it. I do enjoy reading the threads you guys involve yourselves in though.
I guess all I can say is that I hope you keep posting strategy and other better players than I do so as well. Some of us just enjoy reading it.