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  To know what is going to be coming in the future for online poker I think a greater understanding of the state it is in right now has to be discussed first. Right now I would segregate online poker into a few areas. The types of players, the types of sites, and the types of games played. Online I feel there are dramatically more players that are just there for fun and to pass the time than any other type. These are followed by players wishing to improve, and players that have improved enough to make money at the game. You could even attach the limits that a player plays to them, the lower tourney players($5-10), the middle tourney player($11-100), and the upper level tournament player($100 and up). I would also say as you step up in the levels you will find less players that are just there for fun, and more of the improvement based players. From there you can go to the types of sites, you have the juggernauts like Poker Stars and Party Poker, the middle ground players like Full Tilt and Absolute Poker and then the up and coming sites like Titan or Full Contact Poker. Again a different type of player will play at any of these sites. In my experiences I have found better players at the lower limits at a site like Full Tilt or Absolute, and then worse players at Poker Stars or Party Poker, but when you change to the upper limits I have seen a lot better players at Poker Stars or Party Poker as the payouts tend to be higher thanks to the bigger fields. From there you have to think about the types of games being played online, I would bring these down to Hold'em and then everything else, and low limit and everything else. It is obvious to anyone out there that a $5-10 tournament in No Limit Hold'em is the most popular form of poker being played online. These tournaments attract the most players and are the core fields that you see on most sites. So I would say the question is which parts of these areas will grow in the future and what parts will decline?



  The future of online poker will surely see strong growth in the middle limit area. If you think about the average player online nowadays they have only been playing for 2-3 years, since the boom in poker due to televised poker with exposed hole cards. Logically these players are still considered somewhat novices mostly and are bound to improve their games. There will always be new players coming into the online arena and there will always be the high limit players that have been there for years but I would say the biggest increase in poker will be in the stage of $10-$100 tournaments as the majority of players improve their low limit skills. Also thanks to the boom in popularity everyone that has ever played well in a televised tournament seems to be putting out a book or some online method of helping players to improve. With all of the new tools to improve your game it would be assumed that more and more players would improve and take the jump up to the next level. I would also say that some of the hold em players would also advance to other games. The coverage of the WSOP last year and this year coming will undoubtedly show more of the "other" poker games that take place during the tournament, so of course the interest in them should increase as well.



  Another driving force in the world of online poker is the satellite. So many players will play $5-10 multi table tournaments for a chance to play in a larger tournament. This has increased the number of players in the bigger tournaments in huge quantities, both online and in live games. Most notably is the increase in the WSOP main event every year, which has about 70% of its entrants playing due to satellite wins. The other area that has seen growth in would be the larger online tournaments. Poker Stars used to only get about 1000 players for their big tournaments on Sundays and now every Sunday they have more than 4000 players with top prize being in the area of $150,000. I would say that over the next few years if some of the middle ground sites promote themselves properly there will be more and more of these types of tournaments with unheard of online payouts.



  The other big question about the future of online poker is will it continue to grow? This will totally depend on the ability of the sport to remain entertaining to the masses. Right now a lot of players are interested in playing primarily because they love watching it on television. The reality is they love to watch people play poker, they don't love to watch movies about poker unless they are unrealistic or unless they are done to a very high standard. Let's face it, poker itself is what people want to see, not the overly dramatic life of a poker player, we want to see the game itself. As long as production values stay strong and there are ways to keep the public interested, poker will increase the number of players moving to online games. Why wouldn't they keep coming, online no one will look at them like they are idiots if they fold out of turn, or if they don't know the amount of a bet they have to call or make, or mix up the value of chips. It is a very unimposing area to attack the learning curve of the game.



  In closing I would say the increase in new players, increase in players moving up in the stakes, increase in available materials to learn how to improve and above all the ability of televised poker to continue to keep us interested will be the key factors in the future of online poker. Hope to see you at the tables anywhere.