Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Weighing In

OK, after reading, reading, reading and more reading I will now weigh in on the state of affairs.

First off, I have not quit playing poker; although maybe I should with me latest results. Yesterday ending up about even. More on that later.

I'll start off with some interesting links.

ABC News Poll asking whether or not an online ban of gambling is necessary. The results are NOT surprising at all.

Sen Frist's campaign contributors. Look who weighs in at #13. I may be wrong; but that might be related to the industry that you are banning. Do as I say, not as I do, eh?

Latest tally of who's in and out. I haven't heard about Prima yet. Are we missing any other big ones? Titan shows as undecided; but I can speak from personal experience that they recently would not let me start up an account with them.

As you already know, there is way more information out there. It ain't hard to find.

OK, my take.

First let me say that I am more than saddened or sickened by the declining morality in the US / World. We've come a long with from Leave it to Beaver and Any Griffith and for the most part, this is good. As an American, I believe we should have the right to speak out and do what we choose (within the law, of course). I don't drink, smoke, cuss, etc etc.... but guess what. I don't have anything against people that do (again within reason). It is my simple choice to not do so and I just avoid that environment. I have my reasons for not doing so as I'm sure that people have their reasons. Let's just all get along.

Having two small children, I am worried... check that... concerned (I don't really worry about anything) with how things are now and will be in the future. I am up for the challenge and will do everything in my power to bring up my girls in a sound, moral way.

Having said that, one of my biggest pet peeves are people that hypocrites. I try to keep an open book. For example, I like the taste of beer and would personally have no trouble drinking non-alcoholic beer such as ODouls (sp?) or whatever; but I fear that it may be perceived as hypocritical for someone seeing me drink that and not knowing that is non alcoholic. Again, my choice not to say that I don't have an occasional O'Douls. On the other hand, when I hear that someone is drafting and passing legislation to ban online gambling but takes money from a Huge Gambling institution, he loses all credibility.

Secondly, I consider myself to be a conservative (obviously). This doesn't mean that I am a devout Republican. I just tend to agree with most things that they stand for. Having said that, you are always going to have your extreme rights and extreme lefts as far as politics go. I am not into politics. I don't follow it. Maybe it is because of the hypocritical stereotype that transcends it. So a republican drafted this bill. OK, take your pot shots at them, if you choose. But as far as I know, this thing passed almost unanimously from both Parties so don't just toss your stones at the extreme rights.

Where do I go from here? I will be on the fence. I have taken my money out of Stars and will do so on Party (and Empire) in the next few days and will continue to play on Absolute and Full Tilt. These two (among others) have the potential to get a lot more traffic which could be good or it could be bad. As long as they have the bandwidth and technology to handle this, it will good; but I lose connection to Full Tilt at least once a night and as we all know, Absolute is not the slickest software in town.

I have also started using a different rakeback provider which is not based in the US. I have emailed my previous rakeback provider; but have not heard back from them. Anyway, RakeTheRake is one of the biggest out there and have lots of good promotions. For example, the have monthly $7,500 Freerolls for their Absolute customers and another $7,500 for their Full Tilt customers. All together, they have about $100K in tourney freerolls according to their site. They have over 14,000 members so they must be doing something right. They also have a decent referral program. The referral program is not automated just yet; but they are working on it. Feel free to let them know that willwonka sent you. As with any rakeback site, this won't take away from your rakeback. You can check your account anytime.

OK, enough of that. One more thing to weigh in on before I move onto last nights action. The whole topic of Poker Blogs dying out. I was more than amused when I read BGs take on it. As usual, he has some good stuff. I would like to quote one thing from him from his post from Friday regarding what a poker blog is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but much like how there hasn't been variation in sitcom plotlines for years, there really are only a small number of poker blog post types on which the poker blogger relies:

-- How I did last night at the tables
-- Playing with bloggers
-- Home game/casino trip report
-- Strategy and hand analysis
-- The bad beat story
-- Venting about losing
-- Poker truths and the grand scheme of life

It's really just variations on a theme from there.

He is absolute right.... But.....

When I go to a poker blog, I want to see stuff about poker. While other stuff thrown in there is nice, it is not why I go there. There are notable exceptions, but that is my general rule.

When I go to a football game, I don't expect a baseball game to start or people to stop and break into some kind of Oprah show.

When I go to church, I expect to hear a sermon, I don't expect to break out in politics.

You get the idea. In my mind, poker blogs aren't dyeing. There is a continual changing of the guard so to speak. Some of the first blogs that I stared reading (poker nerd) are no longer posting. It is what it is. There are plenty of new ones to pick from that are posting just as good of stuff. Personally, it has been hard for me to post as much as I once did. I could use the crutch of having two kids; but that isn't really it. Truth be told. I really just want to play poker and not so much write about it as much. I do enjoy writing about; but I just don't have the zeal I once did.

OK, moving on very briefly to last night. Only briefly, because it is the same thing. Down early and came back. See chart below.


I'm sure that many people will enjoy this one. I don't have the hand history; but my opponent was seeing a little over half the flops. I have pocket Aces and do all that raising and re-raising stuff only to lose to none other than the hand the everybody loves.... 72o (it may have been suited); but the flop of 2x7 sealed my doom and of course I didn't believe him. Woe is me. So the end of the day saw me playing over 400 hands for a nice $3.50 profit. I'll try not to spend it all in one place.

At one point, I was winning $ at showdown at a impressive 39%. That will more or less tell how my session was going at the beginning. That number ended up a nearly 52% which is more like it.

13 comments:

L'artiste said...

What the hell were the Democrats supposed to do? Stand up a as a bloc and vote against the port security bill? This was basically a vote to either ban online gambling or appear as a terrorist sympathizer. Yes, the democrats are also morally corrupt individuals (just like every other politician) but this whole thing rests entirely on the shoulders of the Republicans.

geoff said...

Be careful with making money through referals, affiliate programs, etc. after the Act becomes law. Make sure you know what the law says.

Anonymous said...

Like many people have said before both party's have used this tatic to get a weak bill through. Especially in an election year, nobody wants to vote down a security act.

cmitch said...

Very good idea on the raketherake.com rakeback. I was planning on doing the same thing (foreign rakeback site).

The more I think about and discuss this bill, the more I think things will be pretty much the same. The monthly % increase of new players will probably decline. Sites will probably no longer pay insta-cash fees. Tilted players that you just stacked may have a harder time making quick reloads to "get their money back from you."

I have a question on the rakeback - Did you close your old accounts with the Poker sites (FTP, Absolute) and then open new accounts through raketherake.com?

(If you don't want to answer on your blog, can you email me at Mitch at cfl dot rr dot com?)

Thanks,

Haley said...

"But as far as I know, this thing passed almost unanimously from both Parties so don't just toss your stones at the extreme rights.
"

Indefensible rationalization. This was attached to a must-pass port security bill, not allowed to stand or fall on its own. I call bullshit.

WillWonka said...

For the record, I realize how the bill was pushed through at the last minute on a bill that was going to pass.

To me, this is not how government should work. Flat out, it feels like we were cheated. But also, this isn't the first line item to sneak its way through to a law.

It's not right and a bill should never be able to "sneak" it's way in at the last moment without proper debate/discussion from both sides.

This is why a stay away from politics (which isn't right either); but it is what it is.

The worst thing about this whole this is how it is somehow still OK to bet on horses, buy lottery tickets and have indian casinos.

As with everyone (well almost everyone), I want to choose what to do with my money. Period.

Anonymous said...

With regard to Sen Frist's campaign contributors and # 13 on his list. I think this might lead more credence that this bill is a way to open the US Internet gambling market to US based Casino's.

Read this: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15118962/

easyE said...

Enjoy your blog, first time commentor. I also am the father of two small girls and definately have a hard time fitting poker in. So it's always interesting to me to read from someone who's in the same "place" in life right now.

Anyway, I did have to comment on the point you made about this bill being passed almost unanimously by both parties. True, but as you well know, it was attached to a bill at the last minute on the last day of the session to a bill that was a "must pass". There was really no discussion or much chance to change anything. They did it this way because they knew they didn't have the votes for it to pass on it's own. If you look at it from a purely strategic point of view, they did this brilliantly. But, they certainly were not doing the "will of the people".

Also, my biggest problem with the Republicans in power now is the extreme hypocrisy of what they do. They preach, ad nauseum, about individual rights, personal responsibility and having the government not be a "nanny state". But, they are the group that have been much worse as far as taking away civil liberties and legislating morality. Also, they are always talking about "activist" judges making decisions for the people. But to me what they did was as "activist" as can be.

I know you say you don't get involved in politics too much. But thought this might be something to think about.

Semi-Pro Poker Player said...

Hey, Will.

FYI, Titan and the other i-Poker sites are now out.

Poker blogs will not be the same for a little while. There is a lot of bitterness and uncertainty right now about where our beloved pasttime is headed. I have been guilty myself of mostly political talk the past few days and little actual poker content. The almost daily furthering of the govt's intrusion upon our civil liberties and rights is becoming very worrisome to me.

I don't think things will ever be the same with the current poker sites. Once the sites that are still in (Stars, Tilt, Paradise, etc.) get all of their legal advice and the bill gets passed into law, I expect them to also ban US players. If you want to play at those sites, you are going to have to use a proxy server. They will be able to see that you are in the US from your IP address and the proxy server is the only around that.

Eventually, we will see US based sites start up. The new law has left gaps in it that a trick could drive through and the language would allow for it to happen. Someday, probably not that far in the future, we'll be playing at harrahspoker.com or northdakotapoker.com.

I also echo the sentiment that making money via affiliate programs and referral will be risky. the language of the bill would make it very easy for the Feds to prosecute us because we would be aiding and abetting.

Oh the humanity, uncertainty and hypocrisy of it all...

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