Bobostonepony

Ok Ok Ok. I know. I ranted about how online poker is rigged. Well, I still think it is. After not depositing any money into Titan for about a month I decided to put $40 in on Saturday because I was extremely bored. The soccer games were over, my girlfriend was at work, and my regular live poker buddies were all out of town.

To make a very long story short, I turned $40 into over $2300 in about 12 hours. After building the bankroll to a little over $200 I upped the stakes from .10/.20 blinds to .50/1.00. I hovered at around $300 for an hour or so. After a few hours I built up to a little under $500 and went to $1/$2.

At some point I decided to try $2/$4 which is where I stayed the majority of the night. When I reached about $600 I took a HUGE beat and fell all the way to $90. It took me little more than 2 hours to turn that $90 into $750.

THE BIGGEST HAND OF MY LIFE

At $750 I stepped away from the table for a few minutes. At the time, it was a full 6 man table. The players pretty much would come and go except for me and 1 other player who were the big stacks for hours. I pretty much tried to avoid him since he was the only one that could break me. After returning to the table I found that I took to long and was booted. Therefore, I logged back in to see only that 1 player and another player that had around $120. I took that players $120 in the very first hand. Then it happened. Heads up. Me and the other big stack. I raised him the first 3 hands in a row. On the forth: After this hand I went on to bring the total up to over $2300. My biggest payday so far.

As you probably have concluded by my previous post, I am going to lay off the online poker for a bit and play only live. My 10 person table is almost complete and I am planning on have regular games at my home.

Due to a career change, it has become necessary for me to obtain a CCNA certification. Therefore, I have a lot of studying to do.

In the meantime, I will be chronicling my quest to obtain my Cisco Certified Network Associate’s certification at the following blog:

By Bobostonepony

The end of the road is near. It was a good run. I, like millions of others, got hooked on this great game. 3 years ago TV catapulted poker into the mainstream. Shows like ESPN’s World Series of Poker coverage, The World Poker Tour and Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown relentlessly pulverized poker into our living rooms. The frenzy began with a gentleman named Moneymaker. When ESPN televised Chris Moneymaker winning the 2003 World Series of Poker every has-been jock, every math geek, every local chess champ, every college sophomore living in a dorm, and every married man looking for an excuse to get out of the house one night a week all bought a poker book and decided to learn the game. Why? Because if an average schmuck could win it so could we!

What did we do? We bought poker books, we watched the reruns of the WPT and the WSOP, we spent thousands of dollars playing on internet poker sites, we organized weekly poker games and poker leagues, we bought our own poker chips, we bought table tops, we spent hours communicating with other wannabe poker players via chat sites, poker blogs, and newsgroups, and we took an occasional trip to Las Vegas to justify our investments.

Millions of dollars have been generated. Casinos, not only in Vegas, but in other states as well have rearranged entire floorplans in order accommodate the game. 5 years ago, you were lucky to find a poker room in a casino….. and even then, you were damn lucky to find a hold’em game.

The poker boom has made a handful of people millionaires and some of those have rock star fame as well. The rest of us hold on tight and try our damndest to reach the very next level. However, we are dangerously close to being oversaturated. There are now new poker television shows popping up weekly. Every household in American has purchased a 500 piece chipset. There are thousands of online poker rooms and we see advertisements for them everywhere we look.

The downfall is near. Now, in no way do I feel like people are just gonna stop playing poker all together. However, I think people are going to stop buying poker supplies, drastically reduce their online play, tune in less to the 20 poker shows that are now televised, and visit casinos to play poker less. Why? Here’s why:

1. Online poker is rigged. Period.
2. The WPT replacedwith
3. and Celebrity Poker replacedwith

I know the last two reasons seem minimal but here’s my point. We were used to seeing Shana Hiatt on the WPT and now we have a new face. It is the same phenomena as when a sit-com replaces one of the actors with a new face but we are supposed to act like we didn’t notice (ex: when Darlene got replaced on Rosanne). The new face happens to not be as attractive, as witty, and appears to not have any personality.

Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown now has Phil Helmuth as it’s co-host. This is quite possibly the worst selection Bravo could have made. They may have been better off choosing an amateur unknown player. Helmuth is quite possibly the least likeable person in the game. Why would you have him as your co-host? Look, the show wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. I know that. However, it did have a role in the poker explosion. The truth is, those celebrities are like MOST of us. They are terrible and they are acting like they know the game. This show is highly responsible for bringing NEW players to the game. The show is very entertaining, we like to see famous people playing the same game we play. We like criticizing them for their horrible play. But now, with such a terrible choice as a co-host, many of us will stop watching this show. More importantly, potential new poker players will start watching that show and quickly lose interest.

However, in my opinion, the biggest factor that will be responsible for the demise of the poker boom:

ONLINE POKER IS RIGGED. You may critisize me until your fingers are sore, however I am as convinced about this as I am that there is no Santa Clause.

What the future holds?

• Less poker on TV
• Many many online poker sites are going to fold
• Eventually, the government is going to outlaw online gambling
• Manufacturers of poker tables will make a lot of money when people migrate from online to home games. Not because they want to, but because that will be their only venue.
• Many casinos will reclaim floor space from the newly built poker rooms and replace them with table games and slot machines
• Many of the poker celebrities will disappear from the limelight and will have to go back to grinding it out night after night.
• The WSOP will peak and we will see the attendance go from 8 thousand players this next year to less and less until it finally settles down at around 1000 in 4 or 5 years.

I, for one, hate to see it go. I still have dreams of being one of the great ones. I have already began construction of my own 10 person poker table. I have made an executive decision to not spend another dime online until either there is a regulatory commitee that can officially protect us from being cheated or I have undeniable evidence that there is a site out there that has a TRULY random card generator. You may ask “why would they cheat us?”. To that, I respond “WHY WOULDN’T THEY?” Even casinos have an eye in the sky. Online, we are expected to simply have faith and trust. Unfortunately, I am not a religious man. Therefore, that is not enough for me.

So, here’s the scoop. My gay friend Mitch (not that there’s anything wrong with that) has a bi-weekly NL - Hold’em tourny either at his house or at one of the other players’ house. He keeps very good stats, rankings , and there is even a bounty each time.

Up until now, it has ALWAYS been NL- Hold’em. However, on this weeks mailer, Mitch posted that the game is going to be NL-Crazy Pineapple.

Now, i’m not a homophobe at all. However, the gayness of this proposition has NO rival. Not even the Queer Eye show is gayer than the idea of playing an entire Crazy Pineapple tournament.

Because of my protest, Mitch (the gay guy) insists on calling me Pineapple and created that ridiculous picture you see above. Simply because I am half filipino, and somehow he got it into his gay head that there are a lot of pineapples in the Philippines. This is simply not true. Now, I’ll admit that the PI (that’s what we in the know call the Philippines, it’s short for Philippine Islands) has it’s fair share of coconuts and papayas, but pineapples are just not as abundant there.

That being said… my main point is that Mitch is gay. He likes boys and he likes them a lot.