Iggy, Dutch, God, Gary Carson, and UIGEA

Well, Iggy is nonplussed and that’s an event. Dutch seems a continuing saga that just won’t die. I’ve seen blogs where Dutch Boyd was at a table and offering money to those sitting if they’d just say they were had by his site. We all agreed he screwed up royally. Is he really contrite? I haven’t the foggiest. But, the statute of limitation has to run out at some point.

The brother is bitter. He see that London IPO prospectus and thinks: There but for the grace of God. Online sites made huge profits and all he got was the proverbial lousy t-shirt. Nobody’s fault but his own.

It is called greed with a nice dose of envy thrown in. Gordon Gekko tells us that greed is good. It is human to lust after the success of others. Hell, I’d like to have Iggy’s page hits; but, fate, writing skills, and sloth have decreed otherwise.

Little brother open sourced the year’s old code. It will make interesting reading. People seem to think that the code is something special for online sites. It is a massive bit of code with financial overtones. We’ve all seen it crash and burn at various sites. I have watched sites prove that they will not invest in Quality Control to provide the best possible experience.

So, we then get the almost obligatory Gary Carson quote. He the man with an opinion on everything coupled to Brahma bull size balls. A poker author of some repute. (He’s remaindered and you can get the book for $1.95 from online vendors or buy it in electronic form for $3.95 on his site. Talk about merchandising genius!) It is a hard sell being the last angry man … too much competition. Linda mentioned him in a blog and got one of his truly nasty nasty-grams. They are almost badges of honor to acknowledge you have arrived.

If you like playing games online, there are many around besides poker. For a few dollars a month you can swing your Paladin’s Fire Sword +4 for hours on end. In the poker world, you can sit at a table and give 5 to 10 percent of your money to the site. Those folks that were had seven years ago by the Boyd brothers have undoubtedly given more to the sites they’ve played on in the intervening years. The whole thing smacks of that old poker joke about playing for years in the crooked game in town with the punch line that it was the only game available.

There are sites that will rebate a major portion of the rake to serious players. By and large we ignore them. We’re too used to rationalizing away our bad beats it seems to pay attention to the rest. The fact is flaws run in all directions from the source.

So, lets wrap it up with the last item in the title: UIGEA. It is another page from the same book. The cash cow of online poker didn’t send any of its milk to the movers and shakers. Yeah, it is our money we’re talking about again. No commingled funds or belly up business involved. Just everybody from the NFL to LV casinos and Washington PAC being green with envy. It is every bit the American (and worldwide) way. Things don’t always work out according to plan. That is the real plan. We get a mix of success and failure. Nothing out of the ordinary. We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog.

ADDENDUM:

Well, I’ve pretty much resolved the Neteller problem for myself. I am going to go back to my old method of using a debit card to fund and requesting a check when I’ve either gotten lucky or managed to display reasonable skill. Opinions on which is the operative reason differ.

It would be nice to have the money available in an EFT that doesn’t take the couple of weeks a check does. We all have little unexpected things come up where we’d like to get to the cash quicker. But a check works for me and I imagine 90%+ of the rest. If you have more money online than you should and need it back in a hurry, you’ve other problems.

Neteller’s withdrawl, at this point, is an inconvenience and nothing more.