Of course, we're mainly talking about the shocking way poker was cut off from the US players with no warning from Black Friday. A blatant "attack" from conservative groups to fight against not just online poker, but online gambling in general. From that, followed the fall of Victory, UB, Cake... and eventually Full Tilt, who's lack of organisation has damaged their reputation to no end, and it seems I for one am probably never gonna play on that site if it survives. Americans are still not paid back to this day... and its almost 3 months since Black Friday...
But its not all doom and gloom (still pretty bad tho). Pokerstars is the one main hope that things can be done right. They managed to let American players cash out within 2 weeks, and had everyone's money in credit. Something which all the online poker sites should have done, but didn't. Their expanding of the site to players around the world, has allowed it to survive without the Americans, and although traffic is still lower, it still reaches around 200k players during peak times which is still good.
Whatever America decides to do within its slow regulation of online gambling, it seems that despite all other sites falling, Pokerstars is gonna be here to stay. And it looks like its gonna survive and wait to see what happens. I really do hope that USA does not follow Italy and France in making their players only play against each other within their own country. I don't buy the argument that the U.S player's economies are losing out to the foreigners and therefore leaving the country. Yes, that can be true to a certain extent, but on the flipside they are also forgetting that money is coming into U.S from the outside as well... there are tons of great U.S players. Anyways... we trade stocks worldwide, couldn't one use the same argument for that as well??
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| "Gimmie 1000 shares of that guy's nose!!" |
Half Year Life Report!
Personally it has been an eventful half year for myself as well.
- I spent a great month in Hong Kong in January, hanging out with one of my best friends from Australia and had a blast in my favourite country!
- I then proceeded to spend 3 weeks in Bangkok, which I promised my friend I'd check out and that was sick. A great contrast to Hong Kong.
- Moved from 9 man Single Table Tournament SNGs to 180 man Multi Table Tournaments. A big thing for me, after specialising in 25k of those games! (Still sucked lol)
- Got addicted to Starcraft 2. Thanks Day 9 geez U_U''
- Moooooved out!! After moving home with 2k debts, finally I'm able to sustain my own income and be independent again! Manchester has been great so far, but I like the feeling of needing to push myself to work otherwise I cant pay my rent. Not the typical path I had imagined for myself, but for now, its good to save for whatever I could choose to do in the future!
And wow, still 6 months to go! I'm still deciding if I'm gonna do a megatrip again really... I probably will but not for such an epic length of time this time... mainly coz I've run out of friends' free places to stay LOL!! :D (<--- cheeeeep). Methinkings New York/Vancouver sounding cool. But I will try and save some dosh...erm... apart from that Macbook Air I have my eye on ;)
1/2 Yearly Pokerz Results
So despite my random ranting on here, I do actually write this blog mainly for myself to look back on. So here's my results so far...
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| My *Awesome* 9 Man Single Table Tournament Run. Goodbye red line! |
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| Multi Table Tournament Results - Mainly 180 man tournaments with a dash of 45 mans. Note I started by playing $2 MTTs in the beginning and moved up. |
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| Total Results including STTs and MTTs. |
And FYI, I also took out $3k in 2 bonuses on April 15th so add that to the total as well.
Profit - $5472
Rakeback - $3000
Games - 8359
Hours - 483.6
Total - $8472
June/July has really slowed me down as internet is taking foreveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer (that many e's). In fact, as we speak, I STILL DONT HAVE PROPER INTERNET fml lol. Its coming on Thursday *apparently* but I'm not holding my breath. Its been slower then a snail trying to outrun a treadmill... literally going backwards at some points.
Honestly I cant complain about my results so far. As far as I'm concerned, I literally made most of my money in May and June... June I was really lucky coz my volume is terrible... great timing as that's when I moved. But considering that I had switched games in April, left myself $400 roll to play $2 180 mans, my progress from that original roll is pretty awesome. If we count that this month I've hardly played, and 2 months of STT stupidness, you can pretty much null out 3 months.
But I plan to crush the next few months with a lot of dedication, hard work, and focus. I always try to have a process orientated mindset in everything I do now, and ever since then I've been more emotionally cool about things as everything is always a learning experience.
*Note - Sharkscope has been pretty inaccurate ever since BF, so HEM is better, although it has some inaccuratecies over some rebuy tournaments.
WSOP November 9
The one thing one everyone's minds this year was, unfortunately, how Black Friday was gonna effect the most prestigious live poker event. As for sure, it was probably had the least number of online qualifiers (at least from USA), and therefore patched advertisings, for a long time. However, as if nothing had changed, 6800 still entered, so it seems that Black Friday hadn't effect it at all in terms of numbers.
I didn't really follow it as closely this year, but the major notable thing about the final 9 is how internationally mixed it is. A few years ago, the final table would be mainly Americans, but now it has a great mix, which is good imo for poker.
Martin Staszko (Czech Republic) 40,175,000
Eoghan O'Dea (Ireland) 33,925,000
Matt Giannetti (USA) 24,750,000
Phil Collins (USA) 23,875,000
Ben Lamb (USA)20,875,000
Badih Bounahra (Belize) 19,700,000
Pius Heinz (Germany) 16,425,000
Anton Makiievskyi (Ukraine) 13,825,000
Samuel Holden (UK) 12,375,000
Another thing to note is that the stack sizes are not as heavily skewed top/bottom heavy compared to the previous years. With 3 players in the 20 mils, and 4 in the teens, its just not as clear cut as who is favourite to win.
Of course all eyes will be on Ben Lamb, who is the current WSOP Player of the Year with an amazing 6 final tables out of 8 cashes including a bracelet. Over shadowing Phil Hellmuth's amazing WSOP run where he was top of the list if Lamb didn't make a deep run in the main event. Wow.
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| All best of chums but come November will they still be friends with all that money on the line? lol |
MADE ME LOL USERNAME OF THE WEEK
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| I wonder if its number 4 coz there's 3 other ones?? |
Btw Rotterdam breakdancing event was pretty dope man, gotta love the Dutch! So chilled out! Enjoy one of my fave battles of the event!!
Sorry for the lack of posts but honestly I just haven't been playing all that much at all so that's the main reason. But its all about quality, not quantity surely... although that being said I do write posts that are like the length of the bible lolz...Peace!!
