Why have the high stakes games dried up?
Are the online nosebleed games dead, or just taking a break?
One of the big noticeable changes this year in the landscape of online poker is how quiet it has been at the nosebleed cash games. We used to frequently run a feature called the 'High Stakes Round-up' which I always enjoyed producing, which focussed on the latest winners and losers at the high stakes online cash games. We haven't really done that (yet) this year, because it has been so quiet compared to previous years.
Normally by this stage somebody has broken the seven-figures in earnings mark, and at least one person has managed the same in losses. That hasn't happened yet, to our knowledge. We also have the fundamental issue with these stakes that more and more players are opting out of results tracking, so we were always at a disadvantage to report on the action anyway.
The biggest winner and loser are both on around $600,000 at the time of writing, and we are rarely seeing six-figure sessions for anyone.
A change in the ecology?
Lots of changes came in recently which one would assumed changed the high stakes scene, but I'd argue they didn't have quite as big an impact as they have at other levels of the game for the low, mid and regular (non-nosebleed) high stakes.
Full Tilt moved all the nosebleed games over to PokerStars, which was more of a symbolic change rather than an ecological one. There were major changes to the VIP benefits and what software was allowed, which I'm sure wasn't welcome news, but would imagine that given nosebleed players play few tables and smaller volume, didn't really affect them anyway.
This year PokerStars replaced heads-up tables with heads-up Zoom, which again possibly didn't have as huge an effect on the nosebleeds, because the heads-up lobbies had so many problems with regulars refusing to play each other.
The fish have dried up
The real reason why the games have been so quiet is probably more the absence of anyone worth playing against. The nosebleed players are so good these days that the edges between them are marginal. The only time anyone makes any real money is when there is a big fish giving action.
Online that would be Guy Laliberte before Black Friday, Gus Hansen after it and last year it was surprisingly Phil Ivey who was bleeding money to the high stakes community. None of these players have been spotted online this year, with no obvious new mark to take their place, so the games have been quiet.
It's not like the players have retired or that high stakes as we know it is dead, it just migrates to where the action is. Right now that would be the SCOOP High events, and elsewhere the thriving High Roller tournament scene, Macau cash games and maybe more experimental formats like the Global Poker League.
It seems ridiculous that we once had table stakes as big as $500/$1,000. Rather than a sign of a healthy poker economy, it just seems that this is a case of being how big the losing players are prepared to go. It's not that the elite players no longer have the money, they probably were never appropriately bankrolled for the nosebleeds, they just took shots and sold action when the games were good. Put a whale back at the online felt and we will see big money swings once again.
Biggest winners and losers in 2016 so far
All these results are, as always, based on the players who have chosen to remain tracked by HighStakesDB.com.
TOP WINNERS
TOP LOSERS
