No money in poker, everyone's solid?
Since 2005 poker players have been saying poker was dead, but people continue to make a living from the game. Did poker really die in 2005?
Poker died in 2005!
The earliest case of someone uttering the words 'poker is dead' was indexed, by Google, in 2005.
Back then someone wrote: "You might have heard that that Texas Hold'em Poker is dead". In retrospect this seems very funny, that an opinion like this was uttered during the biggest poker boom of all time. However, it was a sentiment that was going around at the time. We are curious what skill level the players who said this were at, to think that there was no money to be made in the golden age of poker.
Everyone is so solid!
The more well known meme about poker being dead is the infamous phrase - "no money in poker everyone's solid" - which was surprisingly uttered before Black Friday.
The phrase first appeared on February 6, 2010, at one of the USA poker forums. Forumite 'crazychips' made a thread called "No Money Heads Up Everyone's Solid", which became an anthem for a bad beat whiners and Phil Hellmuth wannabes thereafter.
Here is the full original post in all its glory:
Crazychips
I think Im quitting the game. All the ring tables are just full of TAGS. Now as of recently all the heads up tables are full of decently solid players. I cannot get hands anymore. When I move in ahead and get called I get sucked out, but when I'm behind I never dog. It's so depressing. 4 years and I can't get off the small tables. I tried every approach. My winnings are marginal...not enough to justify playing. I have no question or whatever. I know this thread will probably get deleted. I'm just really depressed the government screwed over internet poker to the point where it's all good players with about 1 in 10 players being donks.
Now it's just a few really good players trading games HU. Are the really good players the ones who just dive bomb and win? I can't beat those kind of maniacs. Raise every button?? That doesn't work the opponent just slowplays you after awhile. I'm so ****ing depressed to work this hard to be a good player and all of a sudden I realize I'm not that good. I have no shot. All the hard work down the drain.
Once again - this post was written in 2010! crazychips's fears became iconic afterwards and readers of the thread looked up his other posts. No evidence was found that he participated in any hand discussions or other ways to learn the game. So you work hard to improve your game, you say?
Even today we can find forum topics about dying MTT's, reggish $2 NLHE, $1.5 Sit & Go's full of GTO players and $10 PLO tables full of Phil Galfond's apprentices.
Really, no money in poker? Let's have a look what happened this year and bring in some voices from our community...
Our coach sirrybob commented: Poker will still be beatable. Sure, nobody said it is going to become easier. But if you had to quote me I would say "Poker in 2016 is so beatable it's silly". It will definitely be beatable because it is a very complicated game, and even with a ton of knowledge out there, implementing it all at the same time while playing is very very hard.
Next in line is our new & aspiring coach asimos who recently made his coaching debut & showed off his graph of 100,000 hands at NL50 & NL100 with a combined 6BB/100 winrate: "Definitively Poker will be beatable and I plan to grind more than ever in 2016. It is a game of skill; whoever loves the game more, whoever works more, wins."
It is not only our coaches who continue to show good results, it is also members who continuously keep showing good results, just check out our Bankroll Challenge. They did it by cutting down on the tables played & adding more lines to their repertoire (bonecore) or by "letting others spew & outplaying them" (damlqv). It turns out well for many, i.e. husky333 who turned poker into a nice secondary income and suggests "Don't be afraid to join, no matter where your Bankroll begins".
| Bankroll Challenge Winners 2015 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| User | Bankroll Start | Bankroll Goal | Challenge finished | |||
 |
damlqv | $300 | $2,000 | 06.03.2015 | Interview | Blog |
|
nmilan84 | $400 | $2,500 | 06.04.2015 | Blog | |
|
bonecore | $137 | $1,000 | 05.08.2015 | Interview | Blog |
|
husky333 | $500 | $2,500 | 21.09.2015 | Interview | Blog |
|
thazar | $50 | $1,000 | 07.12.2015 | Interview | Blog |
And what is your opinion about 2016? Do you think we all will be able to crush - or is there really no money in Poker?
Join the Challenge
Our challenge continues and you have the opportunity to join at any given time. Being late in is not a problem at all.
Simply register, create your blog and share your results with our other participants on a weekly basis. We want to give you a regular update once a week - this requires that all participants give us their updates once a week. Failed? No Biggie! We'll remind you with the 
, but a second one would mean you're out until you re-join. Feel free to request holidays in the reporting thread - so we know you're 
off!
Get rich or Die Tryin' - The Bankroll Challenge
