Poker abides by a “trickle up” theory of wealth: the bottom 10 percent of players are losing money quickly enough to support a relatively large middle class of break-even players. But what happens when the fish—the sucker—busts out, as someone losing money at this rate is bound to do? Several of the marginally winning players turn into marginally losing ones (figure 10-8b). In fact, we now estimate that only the very best player at the table is still making money over the long run, and then less than he did before.
