Make sure you guys check out my girlfriend's new blog out at: http://thepocketqueen.wordpress.com/ She tackles the uncertainties that this current poker fallout has caused in our lives and making the move to another country with me to go for it!

This year's WSOP was unlike any other I've ever witnessed. An air of uncertainty covered everything with a thick fog. It was such stark contrast to my first WSOP in 2006. In 2006, money not only was growing on trees, but forests of these money trees were sprouting up in the unlikely climate of an overly air-conditioned hallway in an off-the-strip convention area of the Rio All-Suites Hotel. Calvin Ayre was making it rain and suites for every poker site worldwide would give you more free shit than you could shake a stick at. Life was good and there was no reason for any of it to ever stop.

Fast forward on the old VCR to present day. Overflowing suites labeled "Full Tilt" and "Poker Stars" were now replaced with "Blue-optic glasses" endorsed by the likes of Humberto Brenes and Hoyt Corkins (This is fucking depressing just writing it down...more wine should do the trick.) With the Rio's walls barren and a cash-strapped industry refusing to go softly into the night (this quote ironically remained relevant over July 4th), an unexpected repercussion surfaced. The community as a whole, at possibly its lowest moment, banded together.

On a broad scale, people were showing sympathy to those with money stuck online. Narrowed down, the roommates I have stayed with for the last three summers grew even closer. Tiny differences in the past were quickly dismissed. Online poker, with its up and downs, was replaced by petty gambling between friends and bonding over Ice Hockey rivalries. The days of rejoicing after a huge win or dodging a wireless mouse being thrown across the room as someone was enduring a horrible session were gone, at least for the interim. Instead, pool basketball, an almost obsessive affection for Whole (Cole) Foods, and Nintendo's prodigal son - the Wii- took center stage. It was a different Vegas this summer than I had ever experienced, and though much less lucrative and secure from a financial sense, a different sense of fulfillment was found that could only be replicated in a college dorm.

From a results perspective, I had a successful WSOP. My live cash game was definitely rusty to start, but by the end of June I believe it really rounded itself out. I ran fairly terrible in larger pots and still was able to turn a decent profit. I definitely have spots where I always could play better, however, so as a whole, I would grade my live cash game a B+. Above where I expected it to be after the void online poker left, but not completely rocking out.

My tournament resume was looking rather meek until the main event. I was 0 for 14 I believe, with the toughest tournament field I faced being the 5k six-max. I played the hand that crippled me rather poorly for the situation and was kicking myself for several days after. My main event run dragged my summer from the bowels of defeat, however.

Day 1 - Soft table to start. I had gotten the best of a looser player when I had flopped a set multiway, checked the flop of J54 with 55, led with a bet into five people on the 4 turn that looked like a steal attempt which induced a bluff raise, and then check/raised a blank river forcing him to snap muck his hand. This allowed me to have control over his actions early on by initially catching him stealing. I was then moved to a much tougher table. Several players under the age of 25 all calling a different portion of the European continent "home." That's always recipe for at best a crazy table, and at worst a crazy tough one. It figured to lean toward the latter rather than the former. I arrived there with 50k (30k starting stack) and was playing well enough to stay even. After dipping to just under 40 after a few big hand losses, I started running hot.

One notable spot of running hot was when I raised KJ UTG. My image was a little out of line at this point and it was probably a thin open with how often people were playing back. I believe everyone at the table I was at, along with the table behind me, called. Thankfully, the flop fell KsJsJx. checked to me and I led for a little more than half the pot. Someone had to have something and no chance anyone was going to believe I did at this point. I ended up getting one caller from Russia. I'm not sure his name but he was a very good player. He flats and everyone else folds.

Turn To (Board Ks Js Jx To)

I lead huge. My bet here has two purposes. If he has a KQ type hand I think there is a good chance I can get the turn for value and he will fold the river. If he has AJ, QJ, or JT obviously he is never folding. He is probably going to check behind a draw because some of them have showdown value now and if he was going to bet any made hand he's for sure calling a bet. He thinks and flats.

River Qo (What an amazing run out)

Now AJ may decide to fold, but he so often has JT and QJ that I am for sure getting paid off on a large bet. He also may bluff raise that river thinking that I am betting just an Ace off for chop, though that's ambitious value to go after.

I think I have a few choices for sizing: check, bet small to get a call from an Ace or induce a bluff, or overbet assuming QJ and JT make up a huge part of his range and he is never folding. I think its close between all three. I thought a c/raise would often illicit a small bet from him trying to get a crying call from the weaker parts of my range and I would look incredibly strong to raise. A smaller bet means that I am trying to get calls out of AK, AQss and AJ exactly. I think AK in his spot with how active I had been will squeeze pre, so now I have to weigh AJ combos + AQss combo vs the overbet calling combos of QJ and JT. Since there are almost double the combos of QJ and JT compared to the former subset, I went for the overbet. He tanked for a while and called with QJ.

Everything was going smoothly until literally the last hand of the night.

I wake up with KK UTG.

Raise to 900 (200-400)

I am called by a good young player to my left. He was flatting me often so hard to define any range of his at this point. A guy who was probably a little older, maybe 28, squeezes from MP to 4000. He is sitting with 45k. I have a little under 80.

As he squeezes, the tightest player at the table with 25k effective flats on the button. In my mind this is AK or QQ 100%. I'm not sure if I was going to flat or 4bet the original squeeze, but with kings here I think its the easiest 4bet ever. I want to make it amount that if it goes reraise, flat, shove, I can reshove, so I make it 15k total. Fold and original squeezer instantly shoves for 45k total. Obviously I'm not folding no matter how long he took at this point, but him instantly shoving made me way more confident about the hand. I thought if he had AA he's going to Hollywood a little for the recreational player behind him.

The button tanks a while and folds. I call. The button flipped QQ after I call to show his restraint, and my opponent flipped AKo. I think with 150bb and how the action played out that he played this hand very poorly. AKo is way behind my getting it in range there, and with the tight player flatting the 4k I am obviously going with my hand against his 25k stack. 150bb in the main event is just way to much to risk against my range there.

The flop came Q53 rainbow. Thank god the other guy folded...

Turn 4o River 2o and my opponent scoops 100k pot to finish day 1. Deflated, I move on to day 2 with somewhere around 32k...

Regrettably, my blog has taken a backseat over the last month due to some more pressing issues regarding my personal life. I simultaneously was moving out of my apartment and moving in with my girlfriend while trying to stay abreast to the stream of poker information and coming out to Vegas for the WSOP, all the while putting together some CR videos. Some things had to be pushed to the back burner, and unfortunately this blog fell into that group. Thankfully, I have had an opportunity to finally take a breathe so I'll be blogging much more often.

Moving is always tough, and I might go into the whole ordeal in a future blog. I would like to take a minute to plug Erin's, my girlfriend, blog:

http://www.thepocketqueen.wordpress.com/

It takes the effects of Black Friday and personalizes it from a perspective of someone in a relationship with someone affected. She's a great writer and very excited about it, so let her know what you think!

My favorite part of any trip is the plane taking off. It's not so much that I am marveled by the fact that I am sitting in a metal cylinder in a chair that places me among the myths of Mt. Olympus (though that fact does still drop my jaw from time to time), but rather that all the stressors of the airport are behind me.

To be fair, a lot of the stress I encounter is completely self-created. I have a term for this: Up against it. After so many years of having a free-form schedule, my mind has made it so that whenever there is a deadline, I have to make it a close-call. Even if I am sitting around doing nothing, I will subconsciously find time-fillers until I have passed over the threshold where a reasonable person would start the process of meeting said deadline. Ironically, this process of meticulous procrastination has taken years off the back end of my girlfriend's life. She is a planner. She now plans me to arrive 15 minutes late. She's a good planner.

There is nowhere I am more "up against it" than my battles with the TSA. I have such a disdain for the TSA (the organization that handles airport security in the US) that I like to keep score. I like to get to the airport as late as possible for my flight, bull my way through security by whatever means necessary, and promptly give the TSA the finger from the window of my plane as I find the last seat unoccupied. Currently, I am undefeated with an asterisk (Technically I missed one flight, but it was due to swapping the departure and landing time while changing time zones so I showed up three hours passed my flight's time. If you are familiar with the NHL - GO PENS - it's officially recorded in my book as a loss in overtime.)

My overall gripe with the TSA is how the paying customers are treated like such shit. Anytime there is a question, they look at you like you are a retarded version of the Riddler and dismiss you with a bark. I have only ever encountered one person out of probably a thousand who ever went out of her way to help me with a problem. That was in McCarran and I wish I remembered her name to give her the credit she is due.

This last flight out to Vegas yielded what some might call an MVP-in-the-finals performance. My flight was to leave at 5:55pm out of Midway. I live about a 30 minute drive away from Midway, though at that time it can take easily an hour. Erin kindly offered to take me and we planned to leave promptly at 4:00pm.

4:18 and we are out the door.

Traffic was miserable. Every lane leading to Michigan from Lake Shore was under construction. It took us an hour and ten minutes to traverse the 12 miles to Midway.

5:28pm She drops me off.

For anyone who is a seasoned veteran of the airport run around, you already know that curbside check-in ends 45 minutes prior to take off. Oh yeah, did I mentioned I had two huge bags to check and had to print a boarding pass? In this WWF showdown, the TSA's manager, Fathertime, hits me with a chair to the face behind the ref's back. I'm not phased. The crowd is chanting. I grab the ropes and stumble to my feet.

5:29pm I kindly ask for advice from the woman at the Southwest line. A blank stare and then she tells me to read the signs. Illiteracy is no laughing matter, but it's always funny when someone implies you are.

5:30pm I print my boarding pass. There's no line. I clothesline the TSA and go for the cover. Fathertime breaks the cover at the last second. The crowd boos.

I turn around. I have two options and both suck. On one side is the line for just checking bags. It looks to be about 50 people long. Even if each person takes 30 seconds (very optimistic) I'll be watching my plane take off from the security line. My second option is somehow worse. It's a shorter line, maybe 25 people, but it's full service and a lot of families. Families take forever. It looks like the TSA will finally get the belt.

5:32pm A light-bulb appears over my head that the Grinch would envy. I have three bags: An overstuffed garment bag, a huge suitcase, and a laptop bag. I carefully ponder...what if there was no Christmas? No presents? No stockings on the mantle? Then Christmas wouldn't come at all! I hurriedly open up my garment bag. There is absolutely no room. I try to unzip the middle portion and stuff in my hard laptop case. It looks like I'm smuggling a panda. That won't do.

5:35pm I've lost. The crowd is trying its hardest, but the TSA has a good grip and all is lost. "1...2.." I kick out. The crowd erupts. Fathertime goes pale. I open up the top compartment of the garment bag which is also black. I attach my laptop case to pseudo-blend-in. I undo the hooks on the tri-fold garment. Then I unzip the bottom zipper and let the flap hang as if it's connected to the upper portion. It's not, but no one knows that with how I'm carrying it.

5:39pm I go for my finishing move, the Rock-Bottom. The TSA lies motionless. I confidently stroll down the ramp to security. My suitcase, which is double the size of the overhead bin, obstructed behind me. My garment bag "attached" to my laptop case over my shoulder like a cape. I have my boarding pass and ID ready while I make idle conversation with the guard. I'm still an underdog to make it passed security with possession that wouldn't fit in a Conestoga wagon. He waves me by. I strut around the ring confidently as the crowd urges me to go for the cover.

5:41pm I carefully pick my security line. I look for people slumping in their chairs disinterested. I look for the unfocused. I find him. He is overweight, about 45, and if I slapped him in the face he wouldn't notice. I act quickly. I remove any items from my suitcases that are over 4oz to avoid unwanted attention. I take my laptop case and push it in a bucket very close to the girl in front of me. She is traveling with just a backpack and one might have thought this was her laptop. Then I buckle up the garment to look as small as possible and have it slightly cover the big suitcase. I push it through and hold my breathe.

5:43pm "1..." The crowd is on the edge of their seats. "..2..." No one is sitting anymore. "...3!" Its all over! The mascot for the TSA waves me through. All my bags are cleared. Now just the formality of pretending to be befuddled at the end of the jet-way, gate checking my bags, grabbing the last seat and its done. I even have time to grab a sandwich for the flight.

But wait, how good do I run? The last seat on the plane is in the middle of a couple from the west coast who were separated in the row of three to try to not have anyone sit with them. The man in the aisle moves to the center, and I enjoy my aisle seat and my Turkey and Swiss in the 4th row of the plane. The TSA and Fathertime slink off towards the dressing room. The belt stays with its true champion.

(Disclaimer: I have no inside knowledge of the indicted companies' finances and the sum of my opinion is based solely off the public information released and the speculation drawn from poker forums and twitter)

I am going to discredit some fallacies I see and hear over and over again across the forums and the various "news" outlets that are reporting "hooray stars...boooo full tilt"

Fallacy 1: "Pokerstars segregated their funds. Therefore they care about the customer more and are a more forward-thinking company"

Pokerstars segregated their player funds (from operating funds and equity stakes) because they were legally obligated to segregate their player funds. No other reason. It costs them a lot of money to segregate funds. That's why there is a law to make them do so!

Everything in finance can be boiled down to an equation. This is a simple EV (Expected Value) equation everyone should be familiar with.

(EV gained from goodwill with customers to assure them of their segregated accounts)

+

(The EV of being first to release funds in the event of a DoJ action discounted by the probability of the DoJ actually moving to indict...basically future goodwill)

Compared to (<,>,=)

(The liquidity of having all company funds available)

+

(The interest gained on even low interest-bearing investments on the funds from the pool of player balances)

========================================

I can tell you with almost certainty that the second side of this equation far outweighs the first side. How do I know this? Because Full Tilt had the choice to bet on one side of this equation, and they picked the second. Stars had no choice. They had to pick the first due to their license.

Full Tilt worked out this equation. The only way they could have made a mistake in looking at this is if they severely underestimated the chances of a DoJ indictment. While possible, I think if they thought it was by any means close they would bet on the first side as it would put them in the same side with their rival and protect their future reputation.

Full Tilt, I believe correctly so, just doesn't think goodwill with the player pool is all that important. Who can blame them? UB cheated its players out of 10's of millions of dollars and still had meaningful market share years later. If UB had defaulted due to the scandal, I wonder if it would have shifted Full Tilt to the first side of the previous equation. Unfortunately for speculation's sake it's an impossible situation to assess without more information.

(The next two fallacies are based on a podcast I grabbed off @Kevmath and can be found here:

http://www.quadjacks.com/audio/33/the-next-round-of-poker-pink-slips-full-tilt-pok )

Fallacy 2: "Hopefully not just one, but many of them [FTP Red Pros] will stand up against being silenced. I've always felt when you are silenced that you are hiding something and that you are guilty of something..." (~2m25s into the link)

First of all, as anyone who has a girlfriend obsessed with Law and Order knows, speaking without an attorney present during any legal situation can only go poorly. If everyone brought in for questioning in L&O asked for a lawyer immediately, there would be no show. You could accidentally incriminate yourself of something you aren't even guilty of, creating leverage for the DoJ or at the very least cost yourself and others a lot of money in extra legal fees. This is just one of many things that can go wrong by "not being silenced."

The next point to denounce is that red pros have responsibility to play watchdog of Full Tilt's operations. Last I checked they had a contract to play poker on the site and be paid money for it. They advertise for them using their well-known image in live poker tournaments. That is the extent of their involvement. Eunjong Byun et al do not fly out to every board meeting.

Lastly, a standard clause in contracts of the type red pros would sign would be to not disseminate trade secrets. They are also most likely not allowed to defame Full Tilt in a public setting. There would be an exemption if the signee sought whistle-blower status, like what happened with UB, but otherwise Full Tilt could most likely sue any red pro speaking publicly against them right now.

Fallacy 3: "Not long ago, the DoJ did allow for the Full Tilt Poker players' funds in the United States to come out and be paid, yet I have heard nothing of anyone getting paid, and its now starting to seem obvious they don't have enough money to make payments..." (~2m40s in the link below)

As I stated above, Full Tilt obviously took the second side of the bet, pooling all of their money and using it in passive investments rather than segregating player funds. This is just smart business. I'd be more nervous about the money I have on FTP if they DID segregate their funds voluntarily, as it would give cause to believe Full Tilt would make poor business decisions in the future.

Unless they have a specific reason, large companies do not keep a large percent of their worth in cash. Cash tomorrow is worth less than cash today. You need to make cash today work for you to at least cover that depreciation to "break-even." This might sound like a funny concept to some people, but if you have $100 in your checking account today, its worth a small bit less tomorrow. This depreciation, coupled with the money you could have made by investing it elsewhere, creates an opportunity cost. When we are talking about the players' collective money, this opportunity cost is way too high to ignore.

Full Tilt is making an announcement May 15th. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that U.S. cashouts will soon commence. Again, this is not based on any first-hand knowledge, just speculation. This day is exactly one month from the DoJ seizure. I am guessing Full Tilt did have a contingency plan. Perhaps it just was set to cover funds a month after the seizures, which would have been way ahead of schedule according to the Neteller precedence from 2007. Or maybe the DoJ froze the transient processing accounts at their highest water-mark, obviously waiting for players to be cashing out for taxes from both 2010 and the 1st quarter of 2011. Whatever the case, Full Tilt isn't going to process one U.S. Cashout until they can cover every dollar of every U.S. player balance. Perhaps the investments give a penalty if they withdrew before now. This is one of just many ways that could legitimately delay our cash outs.

People need to step back and think about what I have just written. Does this mean that I am 100% guaranteeing FTP pays everyone back soon? Absolutely not, although I hope it is the case since I have a good amount stuck on there. People just need opinions of people who have a background in how business and contracts work to ease their minds. That is why I wrote this blog. You don't need the ignorant rants of two guys grabbing ratings on some joke podcast. Read everything, absorb all the information you can, and think for yourself in this tumultuous time.

Pokerstars and Full Tilt are both well run companies. You don't get to the top of the online poker food chain by making bad business decisions. Pokerstars also didn't get there by being charitable. They are just making another good business decision. They are returning U.S. funds faster than anyone because they were forced to lose money on those funds since their inception. They have turned this previous loss into a jab at Full Tilt by beating them to the punch. I have confidence Full Tilt will now make their good business decision, which is to pay back U.S. players soon to continue operating as a major player in the international market. It just makes sense, though everything you will read or hear might say otherwise.

(Warning: This blog is long. Its very, very long. Its my first one and I spent a lot of time putting thought into what I want to say. But if you are in the US, with online poker wearing a "temporarily out of order" sign, let's be honest...what the fuck else do you have to do?)

"Sometimes you just get beat."

This is one of my favorite sayings. I actually don't know if it's a saying I created or not, as college was a bit hazy. I certainly championed it though. I would use it to describe the often-times when my best laid plans, whether it be going to some great party that sucked or taking shots at soft higher-limit games online and dropping 5 buy-ins, would fall through in monumental fashion. Three Fridays ago, the poker industry, and all of those related and dependent on it, just got beat.

Before I get into the reasons for starting a blog, now of all times, let me preface this with some selfish announcements. Feel free to skip down to the "WELCOME BACK!" section if you are better at poker than I am.

COACHING

I am going to start back up coaching. Over the last few months I had been scaling my coaching back from very active to almost non-existent in lieu of playing. Feel free to contact me through here, or 2+2 (irockhoess) if you don't have an account here, to discuss further details. I usually get back to people within a day, though this weekend (Apr 29th) will be an exception as I am away for a wedding.

VIDEOS

I am going to continue to make videos here and have 2 new ones almost done as of this entry. I have about 5 or 6 sessions of 5/10 and one of 10/20 that I had recorded previous to the blackout. Some of these were meant to be released for CR, and some were for my personal use. I will spend the next couple of weeks vetting the personal ones to make sure the quality is up to the standards CR members have come to expect from me. As a side note, I suggest everyone that is looking to improve record as many of your sessions as possible to review. This will allow you to track your progress and gives you a library in case you seek out personal coaching.

LEAKFINDERS

As one could guess, until I am able to play online again, the back-footage I have will not last forever. For those of you outside of the US who are looking to improve, a leakfinder can be invaluable. I believe I have done three of said series so far. The first two I thought went great. The third, which was with D.Redstone, had technical problems when it was posted. Those will be resolved in future leakfinders. Even with the video turning out to be technically inadequate, D.Redstone still got a free coaching session, so even if that series can't be saved due to file corruption there is really no downside to submitting leakfinders.

I am actually surprised more people don't submit the higher-stakes leakfinders. If that option was available to me when I was coming up I would have jumped at the chance. I guess the embarrassment of someone combing over any flaws in your game in a public setting may be a deterrent, but frankly that's bullshit. The only way to get better is to make a ton of mistakes. The worst thing possible for development is to think you are above the skill you are at. I watch pretty much every video across the major training sites, from .5/1 to very high stakes. I am trying to pluck pieces of information that are useful. If I disagree with something a player is saying, no matter their relative skill-level, it forces me to think about their view and to critically break down my own thoughts.

(WELCOME BACK!)

So with those quick announcements out of the way, why I am I starting a blog now?

Well, first off I love to write. I was reading the blog that Wiggins' linked:

http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/keeping-your-sanity-long/

about coping with the stress and uncertainty of what is going on. One of the suggestions is to write about it. I knew I would start a blog right as I read that. I have taken a week to collect my thoughts before posting something for the world to see. I think we often forget how permanent the things we say on the internet are. I want to make sure everything I write here is exactly what I want to say. This doesn't mean things I write here won't upset or offend some people, but I don't want to give the internet less respect than it deserves.

Another reason to start a blog now is that I have more to say than I ever have before and have been granted an unexpectedly high amount of free time to do so. So "Black Friday" eh? Is that what the kids are talking about these days? Alright let's do it.

When I took off from Chicago destined for Pittsburgh (aka the city that God would live in if he had a choice) the morning of April 15th, all my ducks were in a row. I was playing better than ever, with great results since Vegas. My gf and I were doing really well, having just came back from a week-long cruise (I may write up something on that in a future blog with a recap and suggestions for people thinking of cruising soon.) On the heels of a great cruise followed my cousin's bachelor party in Vegas, starring my brother, my two cousins who are basically brothers, myself and all of his friends during March Madness. Needless to say, life was good.

God 8am flights are brutal. I am not one of those poker players that wakes up just in time for after school cartoons (do those even still exist? TMNT-4-EVER), usually awaking by 9am, but 530am wake-up calls are early for almost anyone. My gf was attending a conference for work in Pittsburgh so I hopped on her flight that she had obtained through her employer. Apparently her boss is a rooster.

Coupled with the early flight times, I just hate airports in general. I was destined to be in a shitty mood. To quote Role Models, which was a surprisingly badass comedy, "I like the idea of it, more than I actually like it." On the surface, airports are exciting. They are a remarkable gateway we have built to almost anywhere in the world. In reality, airports are fucking terrible. I actually take that back. American airports post 9/11 are fucking terrible. Double actually, this blog is already going to be too long. I'll tackle airport security in a later entry probably entitled "You can't spell 'Stasi' without TSA." (No one steal that title...that's mine now)

We flew out of Midway. If you ever fly out of Midway and have the idea that the Taylor Street Market is an establishment worthy of your business, take a pass. My breakfast sandwich was scrambled eggs, boiled ham, and a cheeze-whiz-like cheddar.

My airport mood always brightens once I am on the plane. It gives me time away from almost all distraction to pursue whatever I have been wanting to; usually this manifests itself in a non-fiction book on the world around us or a documentary I have downloaded for the trip...sometimes Skymall Magazine.

Once we landed, we took the shuttle to the hotel my gf's convention was at. A bit of advice for anyone that visits Pittsburgh. Public transportation in Pittsburgh is abysmal. For all the biased pride I have from growing up there, even I can't deny that if you don't have a car in Pittsburgh, you ain't goin' nowhere. For first-time visitors, I equate the chance of finding a cab with spotting a unicorn.

Once we settled into the room, the news reached me. I knew from the Neteller fiasco that this could be bad. I knew that my only chance was to get ahead of this. That's what I did with Neteller. I was able to get almost all of my money out then before it was frozen for seven months. I did so by staying on top of any and all information possible. This was much more difficult in 2006, as there was no twitter and I knew far less people in the industry. This time I was refreshing 2+2 every minute. I created twitter (@mr_hoes) a few months back for fantasy football drafting and was now glued to any update from @kevmath. I had my phone ready texting people also affected who might have more insight. If there was going to be a way out of this rough water, I was going to go Odysseus all up in this bitch.

Within 10 minutes of reading I knew I was fucked. This was different from Neteller. When Neteller went out, there was a window to get out. Partypoker was pulling out faster than the speed of love, but if you were active you could make some moves and be okay. This window was closed, locked, and bolted shut before I even looked outside. I estimated it was a much worse idea to try and force through any transactions while the domain had the DoJ symbol on it. I converted whatever points I could to tournament tickets as per advice on 2+2, which I guess was one of the few things I was able to get ahead of through my diligence.

The gravity of the situation wouldn't hit me for some time. The first inkling came with the singing of the National Anthem before the Pens game that Friday. My dad and I had tickets to game 2 of the first round playoff series and were very excited. During the anthem, something I hadn't seen happen before happened. The guy who usually sings for the Pens games held his mic up to the crowd and all ~20,000 people sang it for him. Well, I guess ~19,999 helped him. My voice was lost somewhere in my throat. I am always one to jump on the chance to go to a game, whether it be the Pens, Steelers, or even the Bucs. I am also one of those guys that takes the anthem seriously, thinking about how absolutely insane those in the revolution must have been. So it is a big deal when I am not singing the anthem. Something must have been wrong. Something is wrong.

If those in the American Revolution would see what had transpired on Black Friday, they would slap us in the jaw for allowing this to happen. By "us" I don't mean poker players. I don't mean the PPA. I mean every US Citizen. How did we get to this point? One of the main reasons to break away from the tyranny in 1776 was taxation. The colonies were paying an exorbitant price without any voice or avenue to argue their case. That is exactly what we are doing now. It's almost worse. The US Govt is trying to control its citizens even more than they already do by simultaneously telling them how they can and can't use their money by playing a game between consenting adults AND setting precedent to further regulate the internet itself in future cases. It is such an arrogant stance its almost hard to comprehend. This is the reason the mainstream media is picking this story up all over.

For those of you who are now in poker but were not during Neteller in 2006, how much did you hear of it? Maybe a small lead on CNBC. That was it. Neteller was a huge deal. Before Neteller was banned in the US, it was possible to put money from your bank account(s) onto their site. Then, they would act as a currency exchange of different sites. You could take money from Partypoker and put it on Full Tilt on the same day. This made everything much more safe. With their absence the black market of inter-site trading arose which was responsible for all sorts of people getting scammed. You didn't hear about scamming when Neteller was in the US market. There was no reason to trade except for very extenuating circumstances and even then it was carried out in the way it was meant to, between two friends or at least acquaintances who knew each other away from online poker.

When they went out, not a peep from the mainstream media.

Now almost every network, both domestic and across in Europe, has picked up the recent story and have had experts on to weigh in. That's a great first step.

So what now?

For me, its a 3 step process:

1) Secure my money online.

I was able to cash out of Stars today. I had to send in extra documentation even though I have cashed out for years from there (That may be an exaggeration...God I run terrible over there.)

Hopefully this will put pressure on FTP to follow the same route.

2) Secure future means of income.

I was looking to move in a year or two regardless of this situation. That is one of the best things about our chosen path. If you have the opportunity to travel and don't, then you are missing out. My whole view on the world changed during my two week trip with Taylor, Wiggins, and Spud to Asia. Everything and everywhere I go is more exciting since the first time I really traveled. I have also never lived abroad, even in college when most of my friends did. This might be a great time to explore a new place.

3) Find an avenue to have my voice heard.

That is part of the reason I am starting this blog. I used to run a poker forum which some CR members were a part of. It was a great spot to write articles and interact with people talking about something I loved-poker. That laid the groundwork for my future coaching and video-producing ambitions. Outside of the people that will read this blog, we as players need to find an avenue to be heard. No, I don't mean join the PPA (I'll probably get into my thoughts on the evolution of the PPA in a future blog as well...this is just too long already.)

No one in this fight is on exclusively the players side. That is a dangerous and helpless position for us to be in. We are forced to align ourselves with Democrats who are with us just to take down Republicans. We are forced to be against Republicans with more allegiance to their warped-morality base than their party platform. What's crazy to me is how someone can simultaneously fight for deregulation of our financial markets while at the same time denouncing online poker and everyone that plays it. We must really be fucking evil then.

So where do I think this is going? Well, anyone who has been in the industry knows that the Las Vegas casinos used to be completely against online poker. Now they are chomping at the bit to get in as Vegas still suffers from our recession. If you were trying to get into a market saturated by foreign companies who were circumventing silly laws (is it a crime to circumvent unjust laws? I don't think so and will go further into that later this week.) how would you go about accomplishing this goal? If it was me, I would push for the prosecution of my competitors and then slip in to save the day when there is a populace backlash against the DoJ and the administration in power and instantly have the backing of both the government and the customers who you are bringing online poker back to in an apparently much safer environment. That's what I'd do, anyway.