Dead Blogs, State of Poker and More

Posted by icemonkey9 on Nov 30, 2010 in General | 1 comment

Again, sorry for not updating.  I'll take this in small chunks.

Goodbye Dead Blogs

I've noticed that several of the blogs I had in my link blogroll section are dead, so you've been removed.  I defined dead as the last update was back at the beginning of September.  If you want your blog listed go to the contact page and send me a link.  Obviously, I'll expect a link back from your blog to mine, but ask me first.

Which gets me on the topic of dead blogs.  When I started playing three years ago everyone and their left nut had a poker blog.  They posted updates, thoughts, graphs and videos.  Now, it seems that all decent poker-theory blogs are dead. I still get emails from Ed Miller, which is kind of surprising since I haven't heard a peep from him at the tables in any capacity in years. Other blogs that I occasionally follow include Nat Arem's blog, Pauly's blog and occasionally the one from Leatherass9.  But, sadly, as many of you know I like Dusty personally but he does tilt me to no end, so I stopped reading that one for now.

Maybe poker training sites are to blame because I see a lot of players blog there instead at blogspot or on their own WordPress blog.  Whatever the case may be, I barely ever check my RSS reader anymore.

Poker ... Please?

I was real sad to hear that eWalletExpress got shut down, but hey, that was really only a matter of time.  I think for Cake and Merge players it was the only way in the United States to get money on.  Now ... who knows.  The money situation of offloading or reloading is getting straight up ridiculous and it's beyond me how a recreational donk might do it here in the United States.  Well, maybe they simply don't anymore.  The word is that there's a very slim chance that the online poker portion of the legalized online gaming bill might be passed in lame duck, much the same way the UIGEA was sneaked in.  I'd say the chances are slim.  Sadly, we really might be looking at the crappiest days of online poker in history. I hope we can finally get through this soon.

The NAPT

The NAPT at The Bike was a lot of fun and that place was packed.  I talked to a few pros I know and they all said what I was thinking and that the $5,000 Main Event there was as tough a field as any of us could think of for a live event. PokerStars did a great job making players feel welcome and did a bang up job taking care of the media as well.  The food at the Bike, by the way, is absolutely awesome ... and CHEAP.

End of the Year Approaching

The end of 2010 is right around the corner and I'll have to look back at my goals for the beginning of the year to see how I did.  I can say though that I am a colossal failure in the "playing poker" department as this year has been slightly above breakeven and my volume not even half of last year, which is really sad. However, I'll give life a big victory (so far!) since I was able to get a great job in the poker industry and have a lot of fun doing it. I think goals are important and that you should stick to them, but yearly goals are so hard to attain and figure out, especially in poker.