Wednesday, January 07, 2009

State Of "Teh Pokers" Address

Greetings to readers and bloggers. I'm here to tell you that the state of online poker in 2009 is not very good.

I'm sure a bunch of you already knew that.

The last two years of online poker have been mildly profitable for me. I have gradually migrated away from tournaments and into cash games.

I find the games to be very challenging and tough to beat. Anyone with poor game selection will get eaten up like chum.

My favorite game is Stud 8, but I play LO8 because the structure is better for rakeback. It was not uncommon to face 4-5 supernovas every table, every session at .50/1 or 1/2, which are the lowest levels to earn VPP's.

If Supernovas are playing for happy meals, that should tell you that the games have gone to shit.

I also find the reliability of the US facing sites troubling. Cash out issues have affected every site. I have cashed out regularly (when I played regularly). IMO, waiting more than 5 business days for your money is unacceptable. Only one site regularly provides adequate service, the others are hit or miss at best.

Not only are the games and the sites in decline, so are poker blogs.

It's common knowledge that there are a lot of dead blogs out there and the scene has slowed down quite a bit. Everyone is in love with twitter right now, it will be interesting to see how long that lasts.

The biggest change in the blogging scene is the community. Bloggers playing together online used to be a social event - a chance to play (mostly for fun) and discuss hands and strategies afterwards.

Now it's just an opportunity to slam other bloggers - to ridicule them and their play. The "boom headshot" crap is just... old. I'm so over it.

I didn't play in any blogger series in 2008 and I won't in 2009. I don't think anything positive will come of it. Again.

In fact, I've decided to give up online poker altogether for 2009. The rewards have just not been worth the time and effort. Until something changes in the marketplace, I'll stick to the occasional live game.

I make a much better return on my money playing daily fantasy contests. With new fantasy sites coming online, there are just more opportunities in that arena with fewer hassles.

Good luck at the virtual felt. You won't see me there for awhile.


Football picks: NCAA, Florida (-5) vs. Oklahoma. Tebow is motivated. NFL, Ravens @ Titans (-3). Still not a believer in Baltimore. [2009 YTD 1-1.]

3 comments:

gamblers life said...

hey if dont mind could you give the name of the other fantasy sports sites i think you have a great blogg
i hope you can help me thank you

chis

Blinders said...

I feel the same way. The games are just plain tougher now, and not worth my time. I pretty much have to force myself to play online, and it is mainy to scrape up some material to blog about. The poker blog is suffering big time. I was cool with the UIGEA thing at first, but when Neteller went down, I figured I would hibernate until the laws were changed to legalize online poker. It appears it's going to be a long, long wait. I want to make some sort of a comeback for the BBT4, but my partisipation in blogger events was not there in 2008, so 2009 does not look promising.

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