Does Poker Need to Get Younger?

Does Poker Need to Get Younger?
Up until the early 2000's poker was a game played by mostly older, regulars who all knew each other. There a small group of elite and outsiders were considered to be unworthy of playing. Evidence of this can be seen in past videos of the WSOP. Now when we say older, were talking 40's and up. There were some young players, but many called them “Young Guns” and poker brats since they weren't the norm in the game. After Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP Main Event, and online poker took hold, we saw a mass influx of young internet pros taking to the felt. The game got younger and we were seeing the youngest players ever winning tournaments. If you were 30 or older, you were ancient in the game. This lasted for almost a decade, and now we are getting back to where we once were. Most experts are calling poker an old man's game that needs a new influx of younger players. It's not quite as old as it was, the average age of professionals is around the age of 30, but still not as young as many feel it needs to be. Perhaps they have a legitimate concern as it is a sign that new players aren't showing an interest anymore. Some blame this on card games like Magic and Hearthstone “stealing” the younger players away from poker due to its similarity in strategy. E-sports and competitive events that pay out large winnings are taking a chink of the younger players away from poker. In the past, you could not win $100,000 playing Magic the Gathering. Now, you can win millions for playing League of Legends and Counterstrike. The main incentive – (Money!) to play poker is gone. When kids can play a video game and make almost the same amount of money, it's an obvious choice to most of them. In an attempt to attract a younger crowd, poker is going to same venues that has taken them away. Twitch.tv is the primary spot where potential, young poker players hang out. They live stream their video game play and it's become a popular outlet to not only play video games but also make money from live streaming. Poker is putting its stamp on Twitch.tv with many professionals live streaming their play. The WSOP is live streaming, the Global Poker League calls Twitch their home as they aired all of their matches on Twitch. Even Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth use the service. Whether or not poker needs to get younger is up for debate. Business analysts will say yes, purists of the game will likely disagree. Without turning this into an opinionated story, I would argue that we have reached the perfect balance. We went from small fields of players that definitely needed a fresh pool of players in the 90's and early 2000's. To overwhelming fields that made the game a disaster and made many of the big names who brought poker to the forefront speak out about the problems these large fields had. Now, we have a nice balance of young and older players with a sustainable player pool that isn't too small, and not too big. New players will always come along, just not pouring out of the woodwork like they once were. Poker rooms may lose the revenue from lower turnouts than what they saw after the poker boom, but they need to understand that this was an anomaly that should have never been expected to last.
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