5 Things About Poker That Future Players Will Not Understand

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There is a thread being passed around Facebook presently asking people to mention something from the past that young people today will not understand. There are a lot of interesting answers ranging from UHF TV to candy cigarettes and more.

That got me to thinking about the evolution of poker. In the last 15 years, things have changed drastically in a lot of ways and there are a few things that are going the way of Five Card Stud. Today, we will take a look at five things that in 20 years, new poker players will not understand.

Pot-Limit Hold’em

Pot-Limit Hold’em is a game you rarely see played anymore, even at the World Series of Poker. The WSOP removed the game from its primary offerings and the only way you’ll see it now is in Dealer’s Choice.

NL Hold’em is the Cadillac of poker and the main game people want to play. There’s still plenty of interest in Limit Hold’em, but PL Hold’em has simply fallen by the wayside. People just don’t have enough interest in the format to make it viable. If you’re going to play Pot-Limit, you might as well play No-Limit is the common argument.

Antes in Hold’em

The standard ante in Texas Hold’em is already becoming obsolete, and it will not be long before the Big Blind Ante replaced it everywhere, including cash games. The BB Ante makes perfect sense for tournaments as it keeps the action going and speeds up the game.

Antes in Hold’em will soon be obsolete.

While there are some games out there still using an ante format, casinos are increasingly moving over to BB Ante. Within the next five years, expect almost all games to be BB Ante around the world and even with online poker.

Double Bet on Fourth in Stud

The Tournament Directors Association has decided that in the Double Bet on an open pair on Fourth Street in Seven Card Stud is no longer valid. While many Stud players view this as a silly new rule, unfortunately, it will be the standard now that most major tournaments use TDA rules.

Give it a few years and the only place you will see a double bet is in cash games. Once the old guard passes away, expect the double bet to vanish from cash games as well. I predict about 10 years before the complete extinction in cash games.

Tournaments Paying 10% of the Field or Less

Major events like the World Series of Poker have been moving to a flatter pay structure where you see more than 10 percent of the field paid. You will see anywhere from 15 to 20 percent of fields receiving a payday.

The good news is that more people get to cash in poker tournaments. The bad news is that the top spots are getting less money. Originally viewed as a novelty, recreational players like this well enough that we could see other venues make this move in the future.

This change will probably take another 10 to 20 years to become a universal truth, but in the future players will look back on modern-day tournaments like we used to look at events that used to only pay the top three players.

Freezeouts

There has been a recent move by the WSOP and other organizations to introduce more freezeout tournaments into a tournament series rotation. This is due to complaints about reentry poker tournaments. However, these events are increasingly becoming a novelty rather than a norm.

Poker rooms and online poker sites are taking advantage of the reentry craze to try and maximize profits. The more players keep playing reentry events, the more you will see them. Each year, their numbers increase, and within 5 to 10 years, the freezeout will be like Limit Hold’em – something you see in one or two places each year, but nowhere else.