BOOM HEADSHOT. As I posted a few days ago, I expected to get my money back from these sites, especially PokerStars. Under an agreement announced today, the government will allow PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to use their web sites to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players’ funds held in accounts with the companies. The five-page domain-name use agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker will also let the poker companies continue to use their domain names to offer for-money online poker games to players outside the U.S. In return the world’s two biggest online poker companies have agreed not to facilitate for-money poker games for U.S. players and to let an independent monitor verify their compliance with the deal.

SHIP IT. This is amazingly awesome news. I would have been happy to get my money out within 6 months… let alone news I can get it out within ONE WEEK! Below is the official statement from PokerStars:

Also, stars has released a very informative FAQ that answers a lot of questions that I am sure many are asking.

Meanwhile, many online poker players are looking for options as to what to do. A hilarious thread started on 2+2 with MS Paints of US online poker players before and after. Here is my favorite:

[ ] land of the free

As for the author, SrslySirius is known for making some hilarious videos and photoshops on 2+2. Possibly his most well known come from this thread where a guy posts a beat about losing AK all in preflop to 10-6 suited. Its a hilarious thread with some great photoshops, but SrslySirius steals the show with some epic rounders photoshops.

Did you lose the money in your account?

No, my money is online in my account and in my stakes accounts. My account is a separate entity from that of the assets of the firm, so it is mine and cannot be used to pay the debts of the firm. I should be safe from any punishment that may be placed on the sites. However, currently I cannot withdrawal or transfer funds or sit at any tables, so my operations are basically shut down. For my stakes, the US ones have the same situation as me and the ones outside of the country are able to continue business as usual. I am working on plans with each of them individually. I have advised them all not to freak out and withdrawal their money for the reasons listed above.

How much money do you have online?

I don’t know, how much money do you have in your bank account? It’s kind of funny how social norms are thrown aside when it comes to poker. I mean I played poker about 40 hours a week for the past three years. Call it gambling, it is gambling, but its a job for me. I know what I’m doing, I know I have edge, and I treat it like a job. I would never ask anyone what they make at their job, but people essentially ask what I make at mine all the time. But to somewhat answer this question, I have about half my net worth online. I am not worried about this really at all. I am disappointed at the lost future profits much more than I am worried about the money I have online.

Is online poker illegal?

I have been under the impression that this answer is no. The legal teams of each site have lawyers who know the laws in and out. They have advised US residents that it is indeed not, but they may have just found loopholes in the system for which to operate. However I can only speculate on whether this is true and can offer no real answer to this question.

What do you think about this?

I think its fucking bullshit. The government says we can’t play online because its not regulated and because underage kids play online. Guess what? This industry is done entirely online. It would be one of the easiest things to regulate ever. It leaves a 100% traceable paper trail. As for kids playing online… who cares? They have to get the money from somewhere right? Shouldn’t someone be able to make that decision themselves? After all, the government allows you to make the choice of whether or not to smoke cigarettes, a habbit that will inevitably kill you. “Go ahead and kill yourself, just don’t gamble in your house while you do it.” Oh and kids smoke underage all the time, I don’t have numbers to prove this but I bet there are more underage smokers in the United States alone than there are underage online poker players worldwide. But that’s A-OKAY with the government because they make billions of dollars every year off the sale of cigarettes. And that’s what this comes down to really. If poker was regulated in the US and the government got its cut (a proposition that many organizations have been working on the past couple years) then this would be a moot point and we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Each and every day I lose a little more faith in this country, and we become more and more of a joke to other countries. I could continue to rant here but I will refrain.

What are you going to do?

I’m going to graduate. I will finish up school this year hopefully if I can take 2 classes this summer. I am going to play the EPT Main Event in Madrid in three weeks and win that obviously, then I’m going to play the Main Event in the WSOP. By then, the future of online poker should be a lot more clear. For the past three years, I have been working full time, going to grad school, and playing poker like a full time job. It has been both insanely stressful and time consuming. All three were such great opportunities that I decided to try to do all three until one of them became the clear choice of which to drop. Well it looks like the government has made this choice for me, so I’m going to put more effort into the other two, hang out more with my girlfriend and friends, get back in shape, and start sleeping more.

I will post some pictures I took recently from the weekend and give some non-depressing trip reports as well when the dust settles a little from this incident.

I will also be doing a podcast for CardRunners hopefully within a month. I will make a post about that too when it gets released. That should get around 15,000 listeners which will be some good exposure for me. The link and translation from the article is below:

ZepHendrix Elite en Tres Salas Diferentes

“Poker requires dedication, no doubt. However, there are those who spend more than others, although it seems that the title of “The Grinder of the Year ” takes it ” ZepHendrix “a member of Two Plus Two , which has achieved the feat for the second consecutive year, having the highest VIP status in three different rooms: PokerStars Supernova Elite, Black Card in Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker Diamond Elite.

Clearly Supernova or Black Elite Member Card is not a simple task, but as a poker pro can devote much time to achieve the goal. However, the most incredible “ZepHendrix” is that not only plays poker but has an eight hour days as a stockbroker, he attended the University of Chicago and, as if this were not enough, says having a girlfriend and get along perfectly to have everything in perfect balance.

Of course, the first question was “ZepHendrix” was how a normal day in your life. Ready?

- I sleep between 4 and 6 hours
- I get up at 6 am and arrived at work at seven.
- Get home from work at 5 and twice a week I go to class from 6 to 9.
- Play poker from 9 until 2 am.
- On the weekends I go if something interesting to do and if I do sessions of up to 12 hours.

There, in five steps pokeril recipe for success. Because, “ZepHendrix” no rakeback lives or the promotion of the rooms. According to his profile PTR , hands on three million won $ 232,000 dollars just on PokerStars, mostly in and NL1.000 NL600.

And … how many hands you have played today?”

McGeeUmphrey’s McGee Live at 9:30 Club on 2004-12-11 (December 11, 2004)

They also play “mashups”, which is the combination of two or more songs intertwined together to form a new awesome sound. My personal favorite is “Bulls on the Bus” which is a combination of “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine and “Mark on the Bus” by the Beastie Boys. You can check it out as song #5 from this show. Or just check out the youtube video of the same show which is way lower audio quality, but nice visually and goes right into “Front Porch”.

Another great mashup is Nemo’s Fat Bottomed Good Times. It’s a mix of “Good Times, Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin, “Fat Bottomed Girls” By Queen, and “Nemo” by Umphrey’s McGee. It is just so creative and quite awesome. Check this band out if you haven’t yet. They have an incredible drummer and two of the best guitarists in the World right now.

A lot of people in the thread want to see pictures of my poker set up and my place. So I will abide.

Work station. This will change in about a month:

Home Setup. Alienware laptop and 30″ Dell monitor

Guitars. Les Paul Classic, Ovation Century Legends acoustic, Fender Blues Junior, Line6 M13:

TVs. 55″ Samsung LED, 42″ JVC for vids, Bose 321 surround sound system:

$1000.00 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 1255823
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP: $1906.52
CO: $2000.00
Hero (BTN): $2883.50
SB: $2276.50
BB: $4653.37
UTG: $2914.75

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BTN with Q Q
UTG raises to $40, 1 fold, CO calls $40, Hero calls $40, 2 folds

Flop: ($135.00) T 2 2 (3 players)
UTG bets $100.00, CO folds, Hero raises to $270, UTG calls $170

Turn: ($675.00) Q (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $440.00, UTG calls $440

River: ($1555.00) K (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1183.00, UTG raises to $2162.25, Hero calls $950.50 all in

Final Pot: $5822.00

Here is some analysis and my thought process at the time on the hand:

Preflop
This is a spot where I 3b a majority of the time 100-150 deep. However we are 300 BBs deep and there is a fish in the blinds and I think calling is better to play a potentially big pot on the button in position vs the reg and fish who will overcall a lot.

Flop
A great flop for my hand. The reg has a lot of broadways that may contain a T that he will bet for value, I also think he cbets most pairs 77+ here, although given his sizing I think its safe to discount his pairs under top pair a little, but not rule them out. I think he bets a lot of broadway hands in his range too with this size more than the under pairs to reduce the chance I float him with a smaller pair or QJ type hand which I probably would. I raise the flop for a couple reasons. My hand is very strong vs his range. Given the fact that I just tried to bluff him and failed I think he’s going to call this raise with almost all of his range that contains a pair and I’ll definitely get two streets vs KT+ because my raising range here is super polarized and the reg knows it. I’m not worried about the fish nor am I worried about him folding a hand he’d call if I flatted the reg. If he had a hand like 66 maybe I push him off the pot but most fish are calling with any T here regardless because there’s very few hands I can have that he beats. Fish love to call.

Turn
BINK. Now I gots the full house. Villian could have 22 here but I mean if he has 22 fuck him, that’s ridiculous. Okay so now how much to bet? A lot of my flop raising range has air very strong hands like JJ+ and hands with overcards and straight air that I would almost always be barreling this turn. Any hand like AJ, KJ, etc that are still air would definitely be barreling this turn, so naturally I’m going to bet a majority of my value range. I actually dislike my turn bet sizing here. I hit gin and I’m going to be bluffing here a lot so I think if I were bluffing I would bet closer to pot which is around 600. I think 550-600 is better because I can bet more on the river as well. I think especially if he’s not folding KK or AA maybe even overbetting 800-900 or so would be better to set up a river shove and super polarize to the point where the guy would literally have to put me on TT/QQ only to fold which he basically never does when I bet like that. I actually wish I had overbet there.

River
Given the line I actually dislike my sizing. It’s almost full pot and the K is not a good hand for his range unless he had KT. His AT and JJ and underpair combos are not calling a big bet any more given the board runout and I think I’m only getting called if he played TT or AA this way which is a possibility. I think I like somewhere in the $700 region a lot better. Anyways so I bet huge… he tanks for aboout 70% of his timebank and SHOVES. I snap called unhappily expecting 22 and KK damn near 100% of the time. I just felt likeI couldn’t fold. I don’t think he even shoves TT here. He knows I’m super polarized and now I’m probably betting a top pair type hand which isn’t calling a shove (yeah this is one of those guys that doesn’t shove when you’re polarized and he has 2nd / 3rd nuts). So given this read and the fact that he shoves I literally think he has a range of KK+ here. I actually thought that when he shoved but made a “FU if u have me beat call”. This guy is never bluffing here, and I don’t beat any of his 4 combo value range. In hindsight this river is a fold. It’s a hand that no one outside of .5/1 full ring on Stars would ever fold… but its a fold. This goes along with a line I always pass along to my stakes, which is “the narrower they rep, the more often they have it.” Especially at higher levels, people know what range they’re repping… This guy knows that in raising here he reps KK+ only and to turn a hand that he gets to the river with here into a bluff would be absurd. I don’t give him credit to do something like this. Because of these reasons, despite getting 5-1… this river is a fold.

$1000.00 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 1255823
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP: $1906.52
CO: $2000.00
Hero (BTN): $2883.50
SB: $2276.50
BB: $4653.37
UTG: $2914.75

Pre Flop: ($15.00) Hero is BTN with Q Q
UTG raises to $40, 1 fold, CO calls $40, Hero calls $40, 2 folds

Flop: ($135.00) T 2 2 (3 players)
UTG bets $100.00, CO folds, Hero raises to $270, UTG calls $170

Turn: ($675.00) Q (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $440.00, UTG calls $440

River: ($1555.00) K (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1183.00, UTG raises to $2162.25, Hero calls $950.50 all in

Final Pot: $5822.00
Hero shows Q Q
UTG shows K K
(Rake: $-9.50)

In the meantime, see if you can spot me in this picture (lol at my friend taking a picture of his TV, awesome). Also, the guy in the white hat apparently is at every game, according to the guy who brought us to the game. Today I have been trying to figure out who white-hat-guy is. The usher and refs were walking up to him to talk to him, as were the guys sitting at the press desk. Also at halftime we were in the Kettle Club and we saw him walk through the back door to where the players’ locker rooms were. I’m guessing he’s an agent but Very curious because he looked way too young to be an agent. If anyone knows who he is please leave a message.

Did you miss him? Take a closer look, maybe you’ll see him this time.