[Al_Capone_Junior]

to all...

I know some very good players got to the WSOP via the internet.

However, I personally took a smaller money prize, very near the grand prize (a trip to the WSOP), in two tournaments, whilst watching two complete idiots make incredibly dumb plays and get very lucky, and thus making the WSOP. It's not even a bad beat story, because in neither case did the idiots knock me personally out of the tournaments, I just didn't get the cards at the right time, thus I didn't win the seat, and got $$ instead. I cannot believe that all online qualifiers were great players who played well and deserved their seats. In addition, I can't even believe that the majority of internet qualifiers are great players. There is just too much luck and too much hype attracting too many fish. Besides that, once someone like Negreaneau wins a seat, he won't win two or three or five.

The whole boom of poker is making all these tournaments FAR more of a crap shoot than they were before, everyone's SD is going way, way up all the time, it's just not the same anymore.

I won plenty of $$ just fine before the poker boom. I may actually win more $$ now, but it is FAR less enjoyable. Thus the crux of the biscuit with all my cynicism regarding the poker boom. The tables are less fun, the forums are less fun, poker as a general pastime and/or financial venture is just LESS FUN, and it's not just a LITTLE less, it's a LOT less. I'd gladly transport poker back to the way it was five years ago anytime, and keep it that way.

al