The State of Online Poker and the Game in General Part I
Since the end of the Bayou Classic, I've been a bit strapped for time and have only been able to play a little Texas Hold em online. I played in a bloggers freeroll and got smoked being completely impatient. There is a major difference between live tournaments and online games. If I have to make the effort to drive to the casino and am locked in for the day I can wait for the proper moment as necessary, online if I lose I can get stuff done.
My baby is a room away, the chores that have piled up are just outside my window, and I have a hundred other things to do if my top pair with middle kicker is no good. So invariably, I’ll get it in bad and quickly X out the window when I bust—especially in the micro-stakes and freerolls—and move on to stuff I should have been doing anyway. A lot of times I won’t even feel guilty about it. I guess that makes me a fish. Fellow bloggers… exploit me! I'm the guy that looks like he didn't learn how to play poker.
Bare with me as I’m about to blog for four posts on Internet Poker and the state of the game in general. I started off going in one direction and discovered quite to my surprise I ended up somewhere else.
I'm so eager for U.S. government to pull their collective heads out of their asses and legalize poker on the Internet. I really hate only having a couple of options and I resent that I'm locked out from the “supposed” easy games of European and Asian sites. I’m surprised there haven’t been lawsuits made
by players stating that the Federal Government is repressing their right to make a living. Billy Baxter’s suit against the IRS was a landmark case for poker pros and it’s about time somebody steps up and makes a claim for online poker pros.
We need somebody like Tom “Durrrr” Dwan to hire a lawyer (and become even more loved by his minions at 2+2 (who posted that picture)) and sue for the right to play. Okay, since Dwan is now a sponsored pro he has no dog in this fight, it’ll have to be a free agent Internet name to get it done.
It's unbelievable there is only one activity that you can legally do anywhere in our country except on the Internet. Think about that. Poker is legal in every corner of our country in the live version--sure sometimes there are very specific boundaries or rules around it--but almost without exception you can't play it legally on the Internet.
What other hobby, activity, profession, or pasttime fits that criteria. When you boil it down to just that, it shows you just how backassward our country really is. Listening to the PokerBeat podcast somebody mentioned legislators ears perked up when they heard that they are potentially missing out on BILLIONS of revenue when talking about regulating online poker.
It’s news to them that gambling enterprises rake a ton of money? Wow. After watching the Celebrity Apprentice for a couple of episodes earlier in the year and seeing just how dunderheaded former Illinois governor Rod Blagovich is I can't say I'm surprise. It's fairly clear an inappropriate amount of our elected officials are social animals with little between the ears.
Rod could glad hand with anybody but he couldn't even send an email. “That's what his staff is for” seemed to be his embarrassed rebuttal for not being able to use a cell phone either. These guys are the ones making the decisions for us?
To be continued...
My baby is a room away, the chores that have piled up are just outside my window, and I have a hundred other things to do if my top pair with middle kicker is no good. So invariably, I’ll get it in bad and quickly X out the window when I bust—especially in the micro-stakes and freerolls—and move on to stuff I should have been doing anyway. A lot of times I won’t even feel guilty about it. I guess that makes me a fish. Fellow bloggers… exploit me! I'm the guy that looks like he didn't learn how to play poker.
Bare with me as I’m about to blog for four posts on Internet Poker and the state of the game in general. I started off going in one direction and discovered quite to my surprise I ended up somewhere else.
I'm so eager for U.S. government to pull their collective heads out of their asses and legalize poker on the Internet. I really hate only having a couple of options and I resent that I'm locked out from the “supposed” easy games of European and Asian sites. I’m surprised there haven’t been lawsuits made
by players stating that the Federal Government is repressing their right to make a living. Billy Baxter’s suit against the IRS was a landmark case for poker pros and it’s about time somebody steps up and makes a claim for online poker pros.We need somebody like Tom “Durrrr” Dwan to hire a lawyer (and become even more loved by his minions at 2+2 (who posted that picture)) and sue for the right to play. Okay, since Dwan is now a sponsored pro he has no dog in this fight, it’ll have to be a free agent Internet name to get it done.
It's unbelievable there is only one activity that you can legally do anywhere in our country except on the Internet. Think about that. Poker is legal in every corner of our country in the live version--sure sometimes there are very specific boundaries or rules around it--but almost without exception you can't play it legally on the Internet.
What other hobby, activity, profession, or pasttime fits that criteria. When you boil it down to just that, it shows you just how backassward our country really is. Listening to the PokerBeat podcast somebody mentioned legislators ears perked up when they heard that they are potentially missing out on BILLIONS of revenue when talking about regulating online poker.
It’s news to them that gambling enterprises rake a ton of money? Wow. After watching the Celebrity Apprentice for a couple of episodes earlier in the year and seeing just how dunderheaded former Illinois governor Rod Blagovich is I can't say I'm surprise. It's fairly clear an inappropriate amount of our elected officials are social animals with little between the ears.
Rod could glad hand with anybody but he couldn't even send an email. “That's what his staff is for” seemed to be his embarrassed rebuttal for not being able to use a cell phone either. These guys are the ones making the decisions for us?
To be continued...
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