shipitfish | Focusing on Online Play (Reply)

I actually do have posts from the rest of the Texas trip mostly written, and will get them up this week. I have a few other trip reports coming as well; I just want to make sure they are reasonably well written before posting.

Anyway, I am posting a program note, as it were, that I'm probably going to be spending most of my time playing online until the full-on crackdown from the law comes. I've actually worked out with the cashier department of Full Tilt Poker to allow me to deposit via Visa Check Card and cashout via standard, paper check. However, I'm planning to do careful bankroll management so I don't need to buy-in again, because the Visa Check Card method will surely go away as soon as the banks start complying with the law, which they'll likely do a bit early of their deadline. I figure I'll probably be able to deposit cashout checks from Full Tilt right up until the deadline; implementation of anti-check depositing systems will probably be last on the list, since it's only semi-electronic.

From a time management perspective, given that I'm relying on $1k/month coming out of poker for expenses, online play is the most rational. The games in NYC are still full of amazingly bad players. However, even though the profitability of the games outweigh the time charges and tokes, it's really a question of time investment. If you can get only 20-30 hands an hour, against annoying people (most of the NYC player fare), and still need to commute to the club, why bother? There's no point when instead you can get 200 hands an hour, against players who make (fewer but) enough mistakes to be highly profitable, and you can instead talk with your wife in-between hands. Is this even a hard choice?

Poker is about maximizing EV, and NL HE is a predatory game. Being a predator is a tiresome business, and meanwhile, I have a real job that is focused on making the world a better place. That job requires substantial time investment, and is actually worth it. It's not worth staying up far too late watching a bunch of insufferable people give you their money, when the same type of folks will instead click buttons and give you just as much money, and you can still get to bed at a decent hour, and go into your day job that you actually like.

Finally, there's the factor that online poker may be gone soon for US Citizens. I may find myself left with only the annoying NYC club scene at some point, and it's clear if it survived the last round of major busts, it will continue to be there indefinitely once online poker is really gone. I can always reevaluate based on new information as the poker world continues to change.

Oh, and on the home game front, I've made a deal with my wife, since it's better for her, to host them once a month but for much longer (1PM-midnight). The setup and cleanup costs are pretty high, so she's convinced me it's a better model to run longer games less frequently. I realized too that this fits a mixed game setup better anyway.