Yeah I'm not expecting to become a millionaire from it but I think I can turn a very comfortable living and I think it would greatly increase my happiness EV. One thing I have noticed with poker is that as my career has progressed, the winning has lost a lot of its enjoyment, I really don't derive much if any additional happiness from having a good month (thinly veiled brag coming . . .) I ran at 5pt this month and at no point has it increased my happiness, yet the losses still hurt as much as they did on day 1. It's like I have reached a point where I expect to win; so that winning no longer holds a sense of accomplishment, but because I expect to win, losing still hurts.


sidenote - for those wondering why it looks like I was talking to myself in the above posts Jloc deleted a bunch of WW posts.

over/under on when we americans get our ftp money? 1 year?

Would be nice to get it before the wsop.

I'm starting to have real doubts about this happening in 2012. Not because I'm thinking the deal isn't happening, but simply because I think there is going to be so much red tape bull **** to go through after a deal that payments could take forever.

I honestly do my best not to think about it anymore because I find the whole thing infuriating.

anyone talked to song recently? I haven't been on AIM in awhile just wondering how he's holding up through all of this ****.

I'd set the line around September/October but I think that is likely on the optimistic side, I really wouldn't be shocked if it was another 18 months before Americans see their money.

Jim/Sparky, iyo which is more likely to come first: getting our money back or online legislation?

btw, I live 5 minutes away from a local indian casino. I haven't played there in probably 3 years because they just spread 1/2. I'm seriously considering playing there (maybe on a regular basis?) just to pass the time/make some money.

god help me.

Probably similar time frame I would guess, but I really haven't been keeping up with the U.S. legislation news. From the little I know it seems like anything involving the U.S. government or one of its departments takes about 2 years to complete!

i think legislation could happen sooner. now actual us regulated and legal online poker might not. But at this point I'm not seeing a lot of resistance to legislation. I know in the past people seemed to think it was unlikely to happen in 2012 because Obama wouldn't pass it in an election year for fear of upsetting some voters, but TBH I think if the B&M US Corporations want it to happen it's going to happen. They're constantly greasing people's palms and are probably as much to blame for this whole situation as the religious right (if not more) and I think they have a lot of sway on the time frame.

But again it's an election year so you don't really no. One thing to consider though is that the type of people that would turn on a president for signing pro-poker legislation are not the kind of people that are likely to vote for Obama anyway (or are open minded enough to change their opinion about him in the future). So I do think something like this is less of a hot button issue than it was for a Rep. president like Bush that had to be concerned with alienating a portion of the religious right.

Winning elections is mostly about mobilizing your base, and you really only worry about not getting crushed in the middle. If an issue won't kill you with moderates and won't upset your base it really isn't a big hang up.

all of above is obviously IMO.

One thing I would say is that even if a bill got passed tomoz its gonna be 6 months min before any legit site opens up. On top of this I would expect the DoJ and the casinos behind the new rooms would wanna hit Merge, cake and bodog before they allowed legit sites to start up.

So basically, the government has us by the balls. To be fair, though, they pretty much have everyone by the balls. Not just out of work poker players. At least they're consistent.

Would be interested to get your opinions of this: http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/3...m-shift-silver

Probably TL;DR

cliffs: USA economy/banking system/retirement markets are in a bubble and doomed to collapse. Buy gold/silver. Especially silver.

Interesting article, thanks.

What he is saying is basically true IMO but the shift he is predicting could happen tomorrow, next year, in 10-20 years or never. Never being the least likely of those scenarios.

Economic growth simply can not continue forever sooner or later an economy reaches it's peak and GDP growth stagnates. In the last 200 years we have seen exploding populations and exponential improvements in technology, neither of these things can continue forever. Many countries have run up huge deficits in recent decades and they did this because they expected to be able to repay the debt through future growth, it's slowly becoming blatantly obvious that America in particular will never be able to repay its current deficit. Sooner or later that debt is going to be defaulted on or they are going to have to print a ton of money to pay it back. When this happens the price of precious metals will sky rocket.

This is just what I think as well except that I don't agree with the never scenario. Growth to infinity is not going to happen and like I've said, peak oil is one of the main causes why we can't sustain our growth right now.

TFmetalsreport is one of the blogs I follow on a daily basis. The guest poster in that link is "SRSroco". He's a major silver bull and you should probably have that in mind when you read that article.

Ski trip + millions, I envy you

The USA has the benefit of the Eurozone having to deal with this crisis first, but its not like really saves them in the long run. Imo, eventually something will have to change world wide bc the current system is anything but sustainable.

Just saw something on fb that I thought was funny, it trimmed down the zeros on all the US government debt numbers for total revenue, $$ spent, yearly deficit, and recent budget cuts and it turns out its the same as an individual making ~$22k/year, spending close to $40k/year, having ~$140k in debt, and cutting ~$400/year. Murrrrica' FK YEAH

Also, govt debts arnt really meant to be payed back in full at any point, but investors dont seem to care unless their interest payments are threatened.

Grind merge like everyone else?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=uxyv6UPluJs#!

thought some of you might find this interesting. also talks a bit about gold at 6:40

From what I understand:

1. It's a huge hassle getting money on and off merge.
2. Very little traffic at 400NL+.
3. Games are tough.
4. There's always a risk of Merge getting shut down/losing your money.

No thanks. I'll just continue to b1tch and moan for a while longer.

Sounds like...

hey robster why do you use same name on every site? do you not think your giving up a huge edge? I actually feel bad for knowing who you are whilst you hv no clue who i am.

a fair amount of 400/600 fr games have been running lately fwiw

Good question sparky. I only use the same name at Ipoker and FT. At Ipoker I don't want to change skins since I have a good deal and Im at a skin I trust. I also play at party, ongame, unibet. So I'm assuming you play at Ipoker and whip my ass?

But I agree I was pretty darn ******ed when I signed up at Ipoker and FT like 6 years ago and used the same screen name. That was back in the day I thought I was good and had an ego. Things change.

What sites are you playing?

Just iPoker atm thinking bout signing up to couple of other sites but I've tried multi siting before and I really don't like it

sigh.

GBT Unable to Collect Owed Funds from Several Pros

"If the money doesn't come in, it creates a serious obstacle to completion of the deal. This isn't the only issue with the takeover, and the deal won't end on any one issue - but this is a substantial item."

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/wo...al-Pros_56256/

gross

it makes sense though. the pros obv dont want to part with their $ and GBT will be able to apply much more pressure now than if they waited til the deal completed.

i wonder if a guy like matusow even has $ to repay. without sponsorship $ coming in and the fact he needed to borrow in the first place he cant be in a good place. I think a lot of these "pros" are screwed. not that i care, unless it affects the deal