GG, online poker

[Habbaku]

I pulled all my money out of PokerStars a few months back.  Sigh.

[Gups]

They are going after Full Tilt hard now. And Howard whatshisname and the Jesus dude.

I thought Full Tilt had gone completely busto and wasn't retuyrning customers money? Haven't looked for a few months though.

I gave up a couple of months ago. I trusted pokerstars but when they put up the tournie rake it became really hard to justify spending time. Plus I'd got boredof it all. Playing 16 tables at a time I was just robotic.

[DGuller]

Essentially it did go completely busto.  They're now in trouble with DOJ because they used player's money that they couldn't pay back to pay the owners huge dividends, essentially looting the company and the players' accounts.  Something always didn't feel right to me about having a bunch of players run an online poker company.  Thankfully, all my money were on Stars, which does seem like a fully legitimate poker company.

I also agree that online poker has gotten to be way too boring, and I haven't missed it once since the Black Friday.  Way too much emphasis is put on accommodating the robotic grinders who play 24 tables at once, and not nearly enough emphasis is put on making sure that it's just a fun poker-playing experience for casual players.  Good riddance, I actually hope now that online poker never comes back to US.  I think in its present iteration it's just a money siphoning machine, with the "pros" who forgo useful careers in their 20ies being one of the victims (even if they don't know it yet).

[Tamas]

Goddamit I still had a bit of money on full tilt, now that you mention it. Damn.

But I agree fully with your analysis DG.

[Neil]

I think in its present iteration it's just a money siphoning machine, with the "pros" who forgo useful careers in their 20ies being one of the victims (even if they don't know it yet).

I often wondered what the low-level pros (the guys who are pulling down five figures) are going to do with themselves once the fad ends.

[Ed Anger]

I think in its present iteration it's just a money siphoning machine, with the "pros" who forgo useful careers in their 20ies being one of the victims (even if they don't know it yet).

I often wondered what the low-level pros (the guys who are pulling down five figures) are going to do with themselves once the fad ends.

Starbucks barista.

[Tamas]

I think in its present iteration it's just a money siphoning machine, with the "pros" who forgo useful careers in their 20ies being one of the victims (even if they don't know it yet).

I often wondered what the low-level pros (the guys who are pulling down five figures) are going to do with themselves once the fad ends.

I kinda' witnessed that in fixed limit poker and it wasn't nice. As my game improved and I started making decent profit (with the help of bonus grinding, to be fair), the no limit tables started to spread and all the fun-seekers went there. Gone were the days of asstard Turks berzerk-raising on mid-pair through the hand.

But also after a while, were gone the US people I liked to play against the most: they were there for fun, and even if I didnt play well / were unlucky, it was a good time with a good flowing game, and some chatting.

So what remained were the rocks, and the tables just dried the fuck up. I had a bad spell, then made the calculations that I could might as well get a second job as an accountant, or coal miner, becasue this is very low paying, tedious, stressful, and boring.

So yeah I was wonderign how on Earth can this remain the money-making machine the media still make it out to be, when the general public gets fed up of losing their all ins and move on.

[Gups]

I often wondered what the low-level pros (the guys who are pulling down five figures) are going to do with themselves once the fad ends.

Anyone in the last couple of years who could make more than $50K pa playing poker can almost ceratinly make double that doing something else. It's certainly not the easy money it once was.

From what I can gather from 2+2 some of yank pros have got proper jobs, some have moved to contries like Thailand or Argentina where they can play and have lower living costs, some are playing casinos.

[Neil]

I think in its present iteration it's just a money siphoning machine, with the "pros" who forgo useful careers in their 20ies being one of the victims (even if they don't know it yet).

I often wondered what the low-level pros (the guys who are pulling down five figures) are going to do with themselves once the fad ends.

Starbucks barista.

Starbucks will go out of business about three days after Apple does, after they're forced to pay a trillion-dollar fine for all those patents they stole.

[Ed Anger]

My 10,000 in play money still exists at Poker Stars. 

[Grey Fox]

I used to play at Pokerroom.com, does that still exist?

[Tamas]

Speaking of which, what I wish to have is the insight to spot the next big hipster tech thing appearing. Because then I would short the hell out of Apple and laugh as they crumble themselves into my retirement.

[Eddie Teach]

Starbucks will go out of business about three days after Apple does, after they're forced to pay a trillion-dollar fine for all those patents they stole.

Just because Apple goes out of business doesn't mean hipsters stop being hipsters.

[Maximus]

My impression is that Starbucks' boom years were when Apple was nearly invisible.

[Drakken]

So in essence FTP was an online Ponzi scheme, its owners funding themselves with players' money.

Well it's 200 US$ I won't ever, ever see back. It's little, but it's the principle of being had and robbed.