Poker's Black Friday - Another Setback?

It's barely even been in the news here in the UK, but Friday 15th April 2011 will forever be known as 'Black Friday' in the short history of online poker. For those who aren't in the know, last Friday the US Department of Justice and the FBI released a press statement indicting the executives at 3 of the biggest online sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker/UB, for illegal gambling, bank fraud and money laundering.

Along with many of my poker friends that I've talked to over the past few days, my initial thoughts were that this was some kind of practical joke. But then I saw the twitter feeds from top pros and respected names in the poker world, alongside the many many threads on twoplustwo forum, and reports from Reuters confirming the news, but it still didn't feel real, and I'll explain why.

Since December of last year, lobbyists in the US have been trying to get online poker legalised and regulated. As recent as last month, the announcements of Wynn Resorts partnership with PokerStars, and Station Casinos partnership with Full Tilt were viewed as significant positive steps towards legalisation. Now both Wynn and Station Casinos have terminated these agreements. US players are now banned from playing at PS, FT and Absolute. So you can see why I was so optimistic that the poker economy would improve over the next few years. There was no forewarning of this event. It just happened.

Even just the day before, I met up with many of my former work colleagues, and was telling them that I was doing well this year, after getting Supernova Elite last year. My focus this year was getting SNE again, and improving my game so I can crush the tables. Now all of that is doubt - I don't even know if I'm gonna be able to continue playing on PokerStars in the weeks to come, nevermind getting Elite again, or going to play in the WSOP Main Event in Vegas in July. Funny how one day things can be going good, and then the next day everything is thrown into doubt.

So what now? Well, as of Friday I started trying to cashout my bankroll from Stars - there was no official response from their reps until Saturday, so I assumed the worst and acted how most people would - cashing out my bankroll. So far I've had one withdrawal approved, and one is pending, leaving me with a small amount to continue to grind in the meantime. Whilst I don't keep a massive amount online, I certainly can't afford to lose that amount. Such is the trust that I placed in PokerStars, I'd have said pre-Friday that the money was safer there than in any UK high street bank account.

I'm also so close to releasing 6.6k of bonuses so for the time being I'm continuing to play poker whilst I can, and I need to get a minimum of 50k vpps this month to keep my current SNE status. Whether I'll be able to continue on as a poker pro for the remainder of this year in light of recent events, its out of my control for now. All I do know is that the immediate future for online poker is at best, uncertain.

Back In The Driver's Seat

Even though I already have a full UK driver's license, it has been over 2 years since I last sat behind the steering wheel, which incidentally was when I actually passed. So I've had to don the L plates on whilst I'm driving, and getting used to navigate my way on the roads. I'm not afraid to admit that my current driving ability is poor, and that I need to improve. Also, the same could be said of my current poker ability.

Last post I talked about running breakeven on the tables, but I didn't go into much depth, besides mentioning the fact that left unchecked for an extended period of time, it can negatively affect your mindset. Infact, I'll dare go as far as saying that being longterm breakeven on the tables is actually costing you money, and the need for self realisation that you suck, and have huge leaks in your game.

The reasoning for this is actually, quite simple. When you're playing poker to win money, you choose to sit in games with weaker players, i.e. the fish. Thats because you're expected to be at a positive expectation (+ev) when you play against the fish, zero ev vs regs of a similar skill level, and -ev vs sharks. In most cases, even with 1 big fish and 2 sharks at the table, your overall expectation should still be positive. That's because the mistakes the fish is going to make vastly outweigh the mistakes that you'll make when you're in pots vs the sharks.

And lest we not forget, Poker is a game of decisions. Those who can make the best decisions and the least mistakes, will be the top winners. Everyone makes mistakes, even those regs like Nanonoko who crush the games, but the mistakes they make are usually small and big mistakes are infrequent. If you find yourself breakeven and you are a reasonable table selector, chances are you have making many mistakes and have big leaks, even when it comes down to exploiting the weakest of players for maximum value. Simply just sitting on a table with many fish isn't enough. You need to know how to exploit the mistakes that the fish will make in order to profit.

For the past week and a half, I've been working a tonne on my game, especially the basics. In the past, I've underestimated how important the foundations are to success later on, and this has hindered my progress thus so far. So I'm back to playing ABC poker, and learning the reasons behind the decisions we make on the tables. I've also dropped to playing far fewer tables for now (5-6) so I can focus more and implement my decision making process at the tables.

For so long I've been mass multi-tabling upto 24 tables on autopilot, without really consciously thinking about my decisions. The best decision I've made so far this year was that as of the end of last month, I no longer wanted to be a non-thinking mass multitabling breakeven rakeback monkey. Thus my poker journey begins (again)...