Online Poker Goes KA-BOOM!

It only took 4.5 years for the federal government to act on the bullshit, confusing legislation they passed in late 2006. Legislation that was 40 pages long and didn't define anything. Honestly a better bill could have been written by most college freshman.

In a speedy 4.5 years the fuckheads in Washington finally decided to do something to shut down online poker in the U.S. They froze all of the payment processor accounts and more importantly seized the domain names of Fulltilt, AP, Pokerstars and others.

You can read the whole indictment here: INDICTMENT!

The software still works and you can still go to the website, but you can't sit in a real money game and I hear that you can't cashout from some sites.

Personally, I did however manage to cash out the last $500 bucks I still had sitting on AP (luckily I cashed out everything but that last week and the money hit my bank account today), but that doesn't mean I'll get it anytime soon or ever.

I have about $100 on Bodog and just to test the waters I put down a $10 bet that Derek Rose would average less than 25 points per game in the 1st round of the NBA playoffs. Surprisingly everything seems normal there.

The dream is that online poker will be 100% destroyed in the U.S. and will then come back with U.S. based poker rooms. If the day comes when average Joe USA can deposit with a credit card and feel sure that his money is safe, the cash is going to start pouring down from the heavens for people like me.

If I could go back to early 2004 with the skills I have now I could make $200 an hour. Full blown U.S. based online poker could bring games as good as those of that era.

My condolences go out to everyone playing online poker for a living. It's a sad day for all of you and best of luck in the transition to the next chapter of your professional lives. And a BIG fuck you to the handful of people that tacked the UIGEA onto the Safe Port Act of 2006. You're all a bunch of cowards.

Now that I've taken some time off I'm actually excited to play some poker every now and then. I imagine I'll join the ranks of the weekend warriors at the Oaks club and other bay area card rooms. I think the 2.5 million hands I've played online might give me a small advantage. :)