Cash Game Casualties

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jul 21, 2009 in General | 2 comments

Today sucked in terms of announcements and realizations from some of my poker friends. Although I am not shocked to hear the news, hearing it in its finality really sucked today. Three friends of mine that grind online poker games quit ... and maybe for good. The first was BW07507 who was, at one point, 100nl's top winner at PokerStars for a solid month and was in the top 10 for a good chunk of the start of 2009. Unfortunately, BW's tilt problems and high variance LAG style simply became overwhelming and it greatly effected the personal relationships in his life. After what he said was over 100k+ hands of break-even and losing poker, he cashed out and left just enough to dabble in 25nl for fun.

Another person hanging 'em up is King Curtis, who is genuinely one of the good guys online. He doesn't play high stakes at all, but has done really well considering his small bankroll grinding out tournaments and Sit & Gos at various poker sites. His claim to fame was taking down a tournament for over $10,000 which is just an enormous score. Curtis tried to move over to cash game poker for a while and was doing okay at 25nl as he got his feet wet. Due to his family situation and life, Curtis entered into the Air Force, which I find noble and fantastic for him (coming from an Air Force family myself!). His creativity and intelligence will be appreciated in this branch of the military. He leaves any day now for Basic Training and will be 100% out of touch until October 1st, and then from there most of his time will be dedicated to his new job and/or family.

Finally, I found out another player that plays HU went busto, and I'll not mention his name because I am not sure if he wants me to announce it publicly. He's a good guy that I've occasionally butted heads with but overall think is a funny and nice guy. Of the three, I think he has the best chance to bounce back quickest, although if he gets his head straight on, BW could come back "best" if given the opportunity. Anyways, I was real sad to hear this 3rd guy went bust, but he admitted to play HU severely under-rolled, so that's the risk he took.

It's just the risk that we run playing online poker ... certainly playing a LAG type of game induces tilt due to the swings the game will take you through, and life stuff happens and can easily take you away from the game. Since I started playing recreationally online about 1.5 years ago I've known these guys so seeing them leave the game is a new experience. I've now outlived some players. Will they be back? I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it by the end of the year, and certainly hope that's the case.

In terms of other things going on I've been grinding out full ring with a new mindset and strategy and so far so good but it's been way too short a range of hands to draw any conclusions, so I'll be sure to check in with results type of stuff (since everyone craves that info) by the end of the month.