Thoughts from a top online poker pro & friend

Hey everyone, one of my good friends, Sparks... aka "GoMukYaSelf" on Stars wrote a really awesome note on Facebook about the recent events in the online poker meltdown.  It's a great read whether you're a pro, casual poker player, or basically anyone who wants to get a feel for what it feels like for an online pro right now.

Part 1: “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.”

It has been a very scary and frustrating few days.  I have gone from the height of confidence to the depths of despair and everywhere in-between.  For the last couple years, I have outworked and outplayed my competition to become one of the very top at my profession, making a lucrative and satisfying career playing the game of poker online.

It’s not curing cancer or teaching young children how to read, but poker paid the bills and allowed me the freedom to travel as well as the autonomy of being my own boss free from the bureaucracy that cripples the best and brightest “wage slaves” in the business world.  I met hundreds of the most intelligent, diverse, interesting, and just plain awesome people that you will ever come across through the game of poker.  To succeed, I needed to apply all of the concepts I learned in psychology and business school every day in new and unexpected ways.  I was rewarded with more experience managing employees, optimizing a portfolio of investments, making complex decisions with limited information under pressure, and running a profitable business venture than any job would have been able to offer me.

 On Thursday April 14th, I deposited my six figure check into the mailbox and sent it off to the most corrupt, uninformed, hypocritical, incompetent organization I could find – the U.S. Government.  I frowned as I heard the cold and definitive sound of the mailbox closing and dismissed paying every cent of my taxes owed as simply the cost of doing business in the U.S and of sleeping well at night.  I packed up my car with camping supplies and headed off to Coachella in Indio, CA for a weekend of music and bonding with some of my closest friends (as well as over 100,000 “new friends”).

I awoke the next day to the familiar sound of my phone ringing beside me.  I am a pretty sound sleeper and couldn’t summon the energy to answer in time.  I glanced at the clock – 10:42am.  The sun was starting to pour into the tent and the cold of the desert began to give way to the day’s expected 98 degree heat – I wouldn’t be able sleep much longer anyway.  I looked down again at my phone – 7 missed calls, 16 text messages, 44 new e-mails.  How long had I been asleep anyway??? I checked the date, it was Friday.  I recalled the words to my favorite song and felt relieved that Friday did indeed come after Thursday.

I began to go through the messages, each one more panicked than the next.  “United States Dept of Justice indicts the Big Three – PokerStars, FullTilt, and Absolute Poker.  Real money online poker from within the U.S. has been suspended indefinitely.”  I was so shocked that my legs became immobilized.  I opened my mouth to scream my four-letter explicative of choice but no sound came out.  Reality began to set in - the fan had been painted brown.

- Check back sometime in the next couple of days for Part 2!