Res Ipsa Poker

Somehow five plus years and a thousand posts have come and gone in this space. I’ll give you that there have been substantially less than a thousand quality posts, but in the internet age quantity alone usually is considered meaningful. So w00t and all that.

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while, trying to think what I should write. I’ve kept my expectations in check – I have neither the inclination nor the ability (nor the time for that matter) to write artful prose. There will be no incredible insights into the game. All I have, I think, is a few random thoughts on various subjects. So it true Res Ipsa Poker (boom self-linkage) fashion I’m gonna just throw them against the wall and see what sticks.

Read on … or not.

Poker

Has it really been more than six years since a fat accountant from Tennessee won the World Series of Poker and launched the great boom? It hardly seems possible, but it's true.

I don't have the level of infatuation with the game I once did. I no longer play multiple times per week. I doubt that I've played more than a dozen tournaments this year. I haven't gone and played live in months. I don't blog. Take all that and add a big BUT: But, I still enjoy the game. I even still enjoy throwing up the occasional post when I have something quasi poker-related to say. Five years on and I'm still paying at least some attention, which is more than you can say for most of my other dalliances. Okay, make that "any" instead of "most". Long term commitment is not a strong suit.

This week has actually been pretty pokeriffic. I moved my computer around the other day and have been getting a bit better signal. I've been haunting the 100NL (play chip of course) tables at Full Tilt instead of playing PLO and I've even had a couple small wins since the monkey tilt incident...

Speaking of which, there are a couple of things that I have noticed about my play. For one, I’m more prone than ever to immediate and completely insane monkey tilt when I take a bad beat. The last time I played prior to this week produced the most recent post on this blog – a standard rant after I trapped a guy overplaying AKo on an ace-high flop and he went runner-runner Kings for the bigger full house. Your standard 3.5% dog coming through. The beat itself didn’t cause all that much damage – the villain had less than a half stack. But it was enough to set me off and I dumped a full buy in before I came to my senses.

There is also one more thing I've noticed: I pretty now always expect to get screwed by the RNG. I got it in good the night before last with an over pair against TPTK and was shocked – shocked! – that it held. There was some serious anticipatory cringing going on.

Still, I play.

I also read when I get the chance. The local library recently acquired Doyle Brunson’s autobiography and waiting to be read is a copy of Jim McManus’ book on the history of poker, Cowboys Full. The Brunson book was an easy breezy read. I was kind of amused that quite a few of the stories have been borrowed and retold in various Las Vegas-themed fiction that I've read. Stories about prop bets are just too interesting, I guess.

The Future

I would love to know what the poker world would be like right now if the UIGEA had never happened. Would there still be bonus whores? Would the player pool be bigger than it is? Would everybody have moved on to something else?

Regardless, the future of poker will be interesting. It seems like politicians are finally starting to wise up and recognize that regulating and taxing online gaming, especially poker, is one of the great untapped revenue sources available to them in these difficult economic times – and it might not be the kiss of political death to support doing so.

I think we’ll see regulated and taxed online poker within the next five years, and – here’s the rub – this will kill a lot of the interest in the game. It’s hard enough to beat the rake as it is for most players, and once the government gets its fingers into the pies it will only be harder. There will probably be absurd compliance requirements added to the mix (“everybody gets a 1099”?) which will layer on costs and hassles. For quite a few players, it won't be worth it and they'll move on to other things. There isn’t much of an untapped market left waiting to discover poker, either -- at least in the United States -- so any growth is going to have to come from elsewhere.

One thing we won’t see is a lot of liberalization in the online payment area. It’s possible that some providers like paypal might get the ok to deal with poker sites, but the allowed amounts will be laughably small. Too much fear of money laundering, financing terrorism, whatever.

The WPBT

The end of next week is the annual winter gathering of bloggers in Las Vegas. I won’t be there (one of many reasons why 2009 has sucked donkey balls), but I will be looking forward to reading about the festivities. Just reading the pre-gathering posts is enough to get jacked up and some of the links to old posts have been a great trip down memory lane.

Okay, remembering things like the nine-high Paigow I got at the end of a brutal run at the IP last winter isn't so pleasant, but 99% of the memories are positive. If you go it's almost impossible not to have fun.

And what a great move by PokerStars to throw in some additional cash to fund a team side bet prize pool. Stars (and Full Tilt and Bodog) is a true friend to the bloggers and I hope they've gotten a fair return for their support.

Have fun everybody!


On a WPBT-related note, IIRC Bam Bam has organized an online “warm up” tournament, this Friday night on Full Tilt. I think it’s at 10:00 pm eastern and is HORSE, but you can check his blog for details. It's been a while since I've played a bloggament and I'm going to try and make it out for this one.

Well, I just checked (yes, I admit it) and I've gone over the 1,000 word mark, which makes this the equivalent of like four or ten or something of my usual blog posts. All I don't have to wrap this up is a cartoon, but that muse has been on vacation since way back.

Hmm.

Anyway.

One last thought.

I'm pretty sure at this point that I'll never play in the World Series of Poker, but I have this idea which might get me out to Las Vegas about that time of year and which might even pay for the trip. Here's the concept drawing: