A Quick answer or two to a comment question

In a recent comment my sister posted the question: In light of this post. 1) Does this mean the big carrot is moot? 2) If you play in person, will you play for higher stakes, since you'll be forced to play less hands per hour? 3) Once you've established a reputation in person, are you worried that people will start running for the hills once they see you heading for their table? As in, "It's Dave Huff! We can't beat him! Ahhh!" It sounds funny, but it's actually a serious question.

I would say that The Big Carrot (incentives for playing a given amount in a year on pokerstars) probably won't be my focus. I've figured that it's not worth busting my hump if there's a fair chance that I won't get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Of course I'll continue to play online as long as I can and there's a good chance I'll hit a few yearly milestones, but I won't earn the supernova elite status.

When I play in person, not only is it for higher stakes, but it's a totally different game. In stead of playing no limit tournaments I'll be playing limit cash games. Since I'll only be playing in one game at a time I'll need to play much better relative to my opposition, but my focus will be undivided and I'll be doing much more of "playing the other player" instead of "playing the cards."

Of course, after a while some people will realize that I've been winning consistently. But, no one is going to avoid a game just because I'm in it. It's not like I'm going to sit down and immediately empty everyone's pockets. They might avoid a game if they saw only really good players playing in a game, but one player not matter how good they are isn't enough to have a big impact on someone else's bottom line.