Poker my pokah

Where to begin? Well for one, I suppose I have all kinds of free time now. Playing online poker did take time a toll on my time, although I tried to play mostly in the evenings. But it was my hobby, and so convenient too. I was and always consider myself a 'casual' poker player. The money I dumped into my hobby, was truly a cost of entertainment. Luckily, I had success, and had some nice scores. The real fun was always in the challenge, and the competition. Whether it was against 3000 other fellow donks, or against my fellow poker bloggers, it was always good times.

On the other hand, I really feel for all those cyber friends and acquaintances that I've made over the years, who were making their living from poker. That extends out to many in the poker media, who I've had the pleasure of reading over the past years, and who's livelihood's are now in jeopardy. Alot of good folks are going to be impacted, and are collateral victims of this mess.

There is plenty of analysis on the current and future state of online poker. I've listed many links in past posts, and I don't think it's hard to keep up to date. But here are some additional thoughts I have, for what it's worth.

As those of you who read my blog know, I had already started to sour on Fulltilt, after being wrongly dinged by a payment processor, which obviously had in some way, been passed my personal banking information by Fulltilt. They never took any accountability and made it my problem to fix. I suppose it was an appropo prelude to Black Friday.

I think we were all in a classic case of denial We all knew 'something' was up, but we just never owned up to it. If we had, we would have stop playing a long time ago. I'm just as guilty as everyone else in this respect.

The allegations against Fulltilt and Pokerstars are grave. Make no mistake, if you've read the indictments, it's obvious that the issue goes far beyond the UIGEA The DOJ has been building their case since way back in 2006, and the proverbial hammer has come down.

Some may argue that the UIGEA 'forced' these sites to undertake the actions that has now led to these indictments. But as we all know, 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Greed is a powerful motivator.....no wonder it's one of the deadly sins.

So for now, it will be occasional play money games and trips to Winstar or Choctaw to play this game I truly love.

As for real money online poker, I'm sure it will be back.

Might be a few years, but it will be back.

2BA