Poker Perambulation

Well, my personal list could turn this blog into something rivaling Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in length. (It is 6 large volumes.) I think I’ve made them all over my poker career. But one stands head and shoulders above all others.

The UIGEA hasn’t really kicked in yet. All of the current prosecution and pressure is arising from indictments under the Federal Wire Act of 1961. It has driven Neteller to the sidelines earlier than we thought would happen. Other site management are on the docket in the courts and we all know the impact.

Every day some blogger or news outlet is talking about the reduction in players. It is small incentive to fund on a site where there is no current method for withdrawal. There is one class of player that this doesn’t impact – the losing player. He can throw a few bucks on the site and play for the enjoyment of the contest. There are fewer of those folks around though.

So, let’s define the worst play: It is taping on the glass where you berate the total idiot that just hit his one outer or whatever to ’steal’ the pot from you. It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. However you take it, don’t comment. Keep the invectives in the air around the computer. Throw the keyboard against the wall or whatever you need to do to avoid popping a blood vessel – you’re better off without out a working keyboard at this point, anyway.

Rational thought has just told you that you have a fish swimming in your aquarium. Cherish his every scale. He’s obviously there for fun instead of profit. He is entitled to the occasional suckout. Fun! for him is something you are placing yourself on a course to destroy. Your comments take away his fun and he’s unlikely to give you future action.

You’ve just pulled off the most -EV possible and he still has the chips from that damn suck-out when you drive him from the table. The fish to shark ratio is dropping profitability as it is. We don’t have as great a table selection. Things are rougher than in the past.

Tell him Nice Hand and move on without further comment. And, just maybe, he’ll keep depositing and you’ll have helped maintain the declining player count on your favorite site.

OK, if you read my blogs and your short term memory wasn’t taken out by a Bellagio cocktail waitress, you’ll note that I did tap the glass recently. Sometimes, a man’s gotta do what… But, it is the first one in a good year or two.

Now, I have done some trash talking of late. I do that fairly well. I use humor or what I can make pass for it. It happened two days running at Ultimate Bet’s cheap seat HORSE table. The first was one of those aggros that’d embarrass a New Yawker. He was totally exercised that we weren’t respecting his genius. Seeing that his genius consisted of raising and pushing with anything, he was getting what he deserved.

The second was based on an occurrence that is happening a second time at the same site. A guy with trip ducks on a Stud hand kept betting and I kept calling. I’d made a raggedy flush on the first five cards. I wasn’t going to fold but I wasn’t looking to raise against a possible boat. UB sorts the cards. You don’t see them in the order they were dealt. So the display made it look like I’d rivered the flush. With three of us still in the hand, it wouldn’t have been wrong if I had. But, he hated being beat by what he perceived was a river suckout. He tapped the glass and made an ass of himself in the process. If you do have to tap the glass, try to also be right! (I did get off some great lines on that one with a lot of LOL typed in by the others at the table.)

I’m not sure what it is that’s causing it. But, the courtesy at the UB .05-.10 HORSE tables is worse than a Helmuth blowup. These people seem to ante their masculinity along with the $5 buy-in. I don’t get it when I play higher elsewhere. I’m sure it isn’t UB – other than they are one of the few providing such low cost tables. It is hilarious to think about. You’d think we were all playing the final table at the $50K HORSE event.

ADDENDUM:

The Wire Act starts:

Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

The Fifth Circuit has ruled that this act applies only to sports betting. It appears that all the prosecutions are happening because either the site participated in sports betting or transfer companies made transfers to those sites. It has been the sports books and not the poker sites that are responsible for the current situation. Not that it does us a lot of good.

Betters have never been subject to the act. We are supposedly not ‘in the business’ of betting. The individual has not been successfully prosecuted under the act to date and the body of law seems to support that in a positive manner.

The UIGEA is still on the horizon and untested. Its long list of exemptions will make it a mess for the courts to rule on. There is no telling how it will play out. If it has any impact at this point it is in the ruling expected shortly from the World Trade Organization’s implementation of its preliminary finding for Antigua-Barbuda that is due this month.

The above is a layman’s view of the situation and should not be construed as legal advise. Etc., etc.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 4:42 am and is filed under Journal, Poker Philosophy. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.