Video killed the radio star (live poker is dead to me)

[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

[Bigwig]

Heh.

I play in a couple live tourneys a month. I wonder why. How much do I really make hourly from these tourneys? Not as much as online, that's for sure. Not to mention the pain of watching how everybody sucks so bad. Their dumb comments like, "I had AJ! Got to go the river with that!" with no A or J on the board.

If you think about it, six tabling you can play almost 20X the hands per hour.

I'm only going anymore to keep up some practice for larger buy-in tournaments I play live in the future.

In short, I agree.

[goldseraph]

Well I agree with your wife, but perhaps it you would just be fleecing them for fun. I primarily play online, but I like to get out and play 'real' poker from time to time.. it's not nearly as profitable but more fun to me. Although you may not find such rabble to be entertaining/challenging opposition..

[The Yugoslavian]

[ QUOTE ]
or 2,000 hands against the Yugoslavian and AA suited on-line?
Irieguy

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, I don't know what you're talking about since I pzwn you hardcore. Here are the results:

Played: 2
Me: +$84
Irie: -$66

I'm up $150 on you! How you like dem apples! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

And for the record, I PzWnD Sucker as well:

Played: 6
Me: +$72
Sucker: -$48

That's $120 on the sucka! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

So, I'm pretty sure Irie shoulda gone with bustin' that chump for his Escalade.

Yugoslav

PS Great post (as usual)

[USS Gut Shot]

Can't agree more. Walked into a Lucky Chances near San Francisco and wondered after five minutes, "WTF am I doing here?' Besides, they only let you play in one game at a time!!! Weak!!!

Multi-games at multiple-sites, Vodka, Tivo, and laundry on the fly!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That being said cardrooms are doing great business. Who knew?

[morgan180]

This is so true, not that I played that much live to begin with, but we have ocean's eleven casino about 25 minutes from us and i NEVER go. I don't want to sit next to a bunch of maroons, i want to sit next to my wife, in my house and win money...sue me!

I would choose to play online any time.

[skipperbob]

4 years ago I predicted that "B&M" cardrooms wouldn't last six more months; Now I can't get a seat on the rare occasions I go to one.....Go Figure!

[skipperbob]

maroons?....as in cookies?...or the shade of burgundy?

[MagnoliasFM]

A similar epiphany happened to me after I moved off to college and away from the 3210857210938572398 casinos in Southern California. Amen for Party Poker lol.

[AleoMagus]

[ QUOTE ]
August 1st, 1981. I was watching MTV when the first video was played. I was 11 years old

[/ QUOTE ]

I figured you for much older than this.

And you are crazy if you think online play is more fun than live play. I know a lot of us do this just for the money, but if I had my way, I'd never play online again.

God willing, Someday when I have a 50,000 Bankroll and I play nothing but $500+ Buy-in multis and 20/40+ that will be the case.

But then maybe it's just because I get so few opportunities to play live right now.

Regards
Brad S