[Irieguy]

August 1st, 1981. I was watching MTV when the first video was played. I was 11 years old, and stayed up all night drawing MTV signs on blank paper and filling in whatever patterns I could think of. It was the beginning of new era, and the end of another one.

20 years later, almost to the day, I played my first hand of poker on PartyPoker and a new era was born for me.

Tonight, sadly, another era came to an end for me.

I ate dinner at the Little Buddha at the Palms Casino with my wife and another co-worker. It was quite an enjoyable evening, and the wine didn't hurt either. Walking out through the casino I peeked into the "High Limit Poker Room" to see what was happening. They had 4 No-limit games going and they were juiced. Vince Neal's girlfriend and her entourage were sitting at one and there were several racks of chips in front of everybody without a shark in the water.

"Ok, change of plans, honey. I'm playing poker tonight."

So, I kissed my wife and pulled out my new Neteller ATM card to test out what the maximum withdrawal was. This game was live, and these monkeys were about to be fleeced. Mr. Neal would soon be calling my cell phone to plead for the pink slip to his girlfriend's Escalade back.

Then my wife said "why don't you just 8-table on-line? You make more doing that anyways."

Hmmm. I watched for a few minutes. Looked like they were getting about 22 hands an hour in... with all the newbie tourist no limit players fumbling about with their chips. How much is on the table? I counted. Maybe 8 grand. If I played for a couple of hours, how much could I make? I figured my hourly rate. Damn. 50-80 hands against these jokers, or 2,000 hands against the Yugoslavian and AA suited on-line?

I went home. Will I ever play in a casino again? (with the exception of the WSOP, of course.) I don't know.

It is a far, far better place I go than I have ever gone before. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.

Irieguy