Pokerpocalypse 2011: Me

(First to understand the whole thing, if you're a non-player you should read my previous post.)

Saturday, April 16, 2011 was the first day where I couldn't and didn't play poker since I started. I suppose I could've played a play-money game, but that plays nothing like real poker. Plus, after nearly two years of not missing a single day, I figured given the circumstances, I could take a day off.

Obviously the blackout of the big three poker sites has a direct effect on me. A good chunk of my net worth is currently inaccessible to me. This is because it's on PokerStars and now thanks to the DOJ, inaccessible to me. I had/have more money in my Stars account than I do in my bank account. Naturally, I'm concerned that I'll never see that money again. I'm lucky that I didn't have the massive sums that some players did that are now stuck in limbo. I'm also fortunate that I wasn't depending on a cash out for anything really important. (One player I read about just signed papers buying a house before this happened, he's pretty screwed.)

Like most online players here in the US, I have no plans to stop playing. I'm going to wait for a bit, and see which sites are swooping in to continue to serve US players. (Like Bodog, Cake, Merge, etc.) When Party Poker pulled out of the US back when the UIGEA came to pass, Stars and Full Tilt jumped in to take it's place. I'm sure somebody else will take those sites places. I'll probably just deposit a small amount, like $50, maybe less and grind a roll up.

In the meantime, I'm worried that since I won't be able to play that my skill will atrophy a bit. Things had been going good for me lately, and not being able to play is obviously a huge setback. I could play play-money, but honestly, that's not like playing real poker because people will stack off with complete junk because it's not for real money.