Forced Retirement

Last night we identified and stopped an illegal intrusion of the CardRunners servers.

While no customer credit card or financial information was compromised, we have confirmed that the following customer information related to your account may have been compromised:

Email Address
Encrypted Password
IP Address

Out of an abundance of caution, we have forced your password to be reset. If you use your CardRunners username or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we recommend that you change them as well.

Please check your email of record with CardRunners for our reset password or CLICK HERE to send another temporary password. Please contact support@cardrunners.com if you need further assistance.

CardRunners will never contact you in any way asking for any personally identifiable information so please be vigilant in not providing such information to anyone that represents themselves as working for CardRunners.

We regret any inconvenience this causes and want to ensure you that we will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect your private information.

Regards,
CardRunners Support

tranquilchaos's Blog

August 14 2011

I just wanted to put something down on ''paper'' here that I'm officially retiring from being a Poker Pro.
I start my new real world job tomorrow. Tomorrow, August 15th (exactly 4 months after my so called Land of the Free essentially took my job, career, livelyhood, dreams away for me ) I will wake up, shower, take my son to my sisters house for babysitting, cause my wife is also getting a job, and head into a office, where I'll again have to answer to someone other than myself... For the first time in 6+ years.

It's embarassing what I'll be making per hour. It's embarassing when my friends/family ask what I'm going to next. It's embarassing that all the people that looked up to me and my freedoms and my awesome job (lifestyle) will now be looking down on me as I make half of what they make since they've been building a career and putting in the time for the past 6 years..... I'm starting from scratch. I'm going through an orientation process tomorrow with 21 year olds. I'll be the sad, older guy, that they think "wow, I hope I dont end up like him when I'm 30) It makes me sad to think of anything farther out than the next 2 months. It's all just so...embarassing.

On the bright side, this is mostly a preventitive measure that I'm taking BEFORE all my poker money is gone and I'm desperate. I was afforded a little leeway in taking some time to find the ''right'' job, and putting my wife through some schooling so she could do something better than she was 6 years ago. The sad realization for me was I don't really have that many options when looking for a ''right'' job. No education (my fault), 6 year resume gap, and no real skills outside of calculating some pot odds and determining why someone made the bet that they made. I will say that poker proved useful during my interviews. It seemed that at the end of every interview, the interviewer made some comment as to how surprised he/she was that it went so long and that they just got wrapped up in ''job history''. (in other words, we've never had a legit poker pro in here and we have no idea what to ask you as it relates to the job, so we'll just be a fanboy for an hour or so).

In regards to poker, I imagine I'll load up a forum once a week or so to keep an eye on the legislation process. I'll probably make one poker trip between now and the WSOP, and maybe one during next years WSOP. Sadly, i'm not sure I'll have ''worked up the vacation'' time to even play the main event. Something I never thought I'd ever miss... Again, its all so embarassing.

I know I know I should quit whining.

Entry Tags:

8012 Views | Comments(10)

August 14,2011

It's probably really shitty right now, but in the end it might turn out to be a very enriching experience for you. In any case, best of luck and you can always hustle your new 21 yr old co-workers in home games...

Stake Monster

August 14,2011

GL Devin. There are potential downsides to all decisions we make. If it's any consolation, I'm not embarrassed for you. I respect you are making the necessary decisions as a husband and father. Best of luck to you and let's hope the U.S. government gets in gear so that online poker can return within a couple years.

Zimba

August 14,2011

I very much respect your disappointment. However, I'm dismayed by your wallowing for being perceived as and/or being concerned of being seen as an embarassment. You did not fail. Poker was taken from you as it was for many thousands of others. I would have expected a sense of purpose, confidence, and enthusiasm for doing well in this new endeavour, thus outperforming the younger people who have less life experience and maturity.

Blantons

August 14,2011

i am curious as to why not move to a site that allows us deposit like merge,, it is supposed to be open up to use deposits again in a week time possibly?.
in the meantime kudos for thinking with forsight and i hope you can comeback to pokerr someday.

MASTERHOLMES

August 14,2011

I do have a sense of purpose and enthusiasm about tomorrow, although I definitely didnt show it in my post. It kinda feels like the first day of school, so thats good.
In regards to moving to Merge, its something I'll likely do part-time or as a hobby again, but for right now I think the best decision for me and the family is to find some stability. I was able to withstand BF, not sure I'd be able to hold up to having significant funds being held if the DOJ seized Merge

tranquilchaos

August 14,2011

Keep your chin up. Going "back to work" is going to be a big shift but try and stay focused on working at being awesome at your life, whatever the context may be.

Bryce

August 15,2011

Saying that you're "embarrassed to have to go back to work" is pretty silly for a couple of reasons. First - and even though you may not have meant to say it directly- it's insulting to everyone who does work the "standard" 9-5. Just because there's a pretty well understood stigma against 9-5's, doesn't mean that stigma is fitting with reality for every person, for every case. There are lot of people - doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, etc - who probably love their job/what they do regardless of the schedule they are required to work. and though you didn't mention this "9-5" stigma directly, the implication is pretty clear. More than anything though, it shows a pretty huge insecurity to say that you're embarrassed to have a job/a boss/low wage. It's like life wisdom 101 that those types of externalities shouldn't determine your self-image/confidence. It's one thing to say that you would RATHER make a living playing poker than a 9-5, but a totally different thing to say your "embarrassed" to do so.

jefscott

August 15,2011

^Cliffs:
- Jefscott works 9-5
- Jefscott needs to untuck his vagina

bachelder

August 15,2011

Go easy on the guy. A lot of professional poker players started out young and haven't been in this space or had much success in it before, so he's in the middle of a pretty unnerving transition. He's also about to have to live his life with a bit less free time and money than he's been used to. Lots of people do fine with the same, but it'll take some adjustment.

Bryce

August 15,2011

I'm not embarrassed to have to go back to work. I think I was more implying that I'm embarrassed with where I'll be starting at and what I'll be making in regards to what I have made the past 6 years. To put it in perspective: I will work 40 hrs/week all year long to make what I spent in buyins in 4 weeks at the WSOP. It's more of a lifestyle change than an aversion to working for a living. I probably portrayed this wrong though. Thanks for all the kind words guys, its definitely a lifestyle/freedom change

tranquilchaos

Email Affiliate Program

Services

Shove Hold'em Manager Discount Poker Instructors Poker Articles Free Poker Training

FAQs and Terms

Technical Support Account Support User Agreement Privacy Policy Poker Tools FAQs

CardRunners is the world's best online poker training site, with training videos for all stakes and games. Learn poker from the best poker players online, including Brian "Stinger" Hastings, Andreas "Skjervoy" Torbergsen, and Mickey "mement_mori" Petersen. View our instructor list to learn about all of our poker pros. In addition to poker training videos, CardRunners offers an active strategy forum, poker blogs, podcasts and pro interviews.