Jens Kyllönen Pessimistic Over Online Poker's Future

At the start of 2017, Finnish pro Jens Kyllönen announced his intention to quit playing full-time poker, and instead turn his attention towards other challenges, such as studying for a MBA in finance or entrepreneurship. While the game has been good for Kyllönen, who has won $5,222,818 at PokerStars‘ cash tables, as well as 2 WSOP bracelets and $2,822,256 competing in live tournaments, the 27 year-old pro believes the waning poker market has meant his efforts would now be best directed elsewhere.
In a revealing interview with pokernews recently, Kyllönen expressed his opinion that the long-term decline experienced by the poker market was likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Elaborating further, Kyllönen stated that while his max EV decision might be to grind out his edge in the game for a few more years, ultimately he was no longer concerned with pure EV anymore as he had now reached a point in his life where he was financially secure.
Laying out his vision of the game’s short term future, Kyllönen’s explained that opportunities were still available for smart, hard working players to “make a lot of money,” and that any positive movement on the legislation front would also contribute to the markets overall prospects. Looking further forward, however, Kyllönen painted an overall bleaker picture of the game’s future, stating:
“Long term I’m worried about the improving software help, poker solvers for example, making edges smaller until the site itself will be the only winner. Obviously, as long as the site can attract enough recreational players, it will be fine, but that is getting more difficult. Also, as the pros keep getting better, the recreational players just get killed so fast.”
When asked about his poker career highlights, Kyllönen stated that while winning EPT and WSOP titles was “nice”, his long-term success playing high-stakes online cash games was without doubt his biggest accomplishment in the game.