{"id":153,"date":"2008-01-14T10:45:58","date_gmt":"2008-01-14T15:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/14\/rethinking-online-poker\/"},"modified":"2008-03-24T15:15:09","modified_gmt":"2008-03-24T20:15:09","slug":"rethinking-online-poker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/14\/rethinking-online-poker\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking Online Poker"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started playing online poker in September 2004. It instantly became an obsession<\/strong>. For the first 10 months, I believe that I missed only one single day where I didn’t play.<\/p>\n

I still play a ton, but it’s definitely well beyond the obsession stage. In the past year, I have gone two weeks in a row without playing a single game, at least a few times. That would have been unthinkable in the first year.<\/p>\n

I enjoy it immensely. It’s great entertainment, distraction, escape, etc. I have come to accept the incredibly bad beats that I regularly experience with a clamness that I could never have predicted earlier, which I’m hoping is a sign of maturity with regard to the nature of the game.<\/p>\n

It satisfies my inherent nature to gamble, without really being a gamble. First, I consistently make money (albeit a very tiny amount). But, even if I were to lose, that too would be a tiny amount, certainly less than I pay for our more regular entertainment (concerts, new TV’s, restaurants, etc.).<\/p>\n

So, why am I rethinking online poker? For the first three years, the only real glitches<\/em> that I had were connectivity problems, and on rare occasions, server overload problems. They were certainly frustrating, especially when it happened in the midst of a tournament that was otherwise going well, but they were understandable.<\/p>\n

When the US passed the idiotic banking laws to try and thwart online gambling, most of the online poker sites that I had an account with turned away all US citizens. That included the site that I played on 95% of the time. I shifted 100% of my play to one site that was my second favorite anyway. For 14 months, I had virtually zero problems with them.<\/p>\n

Now, for the past month, it has been one problem after another, all administrative, not table<\/em> related. I have reported on a few of them. While they have made it right<\/em> each and every time, I don’t feel like being ever vigilant<\/em> about my account, and then chasing them down when I spot a problem, and waiting too patiently to hear back and eventually get it fixed.<\/p>\n

There is enough mystery about the online experience, that trust has to be a big part of the proposition. This particular site is quickly losing my trust. In the past, reporting a problem typically yielded some sort of response within a few hours. Now, it can take days. Something is wrong.<\/p>\n

As I reported recently, I had a credit<\/em> (called Tournament Dollars or TDs) for an entry into the big Sunday tournament. Last night, I settled in and was ready to use that credit. At roughly 3:20pm, I tried to register for the 5pm start time, using the credit. The menu only allowed a cash entry fee. I double-checked my account, and indeed, the credit was there, just not available during the registration process. This had never happened before.<\/p>\n

At 3:30pm, I used their highest<\/em> level of customer support, a form which reports live play<\/strong> problems (presumably bringing much quicker help). It is now nearly 19 hours later, and I haven’t heard a peep from them.<\/p>\n

I had promised myself that I would not pay the $215 entry to the weekly tourney. But, since I was settled in, and geared up to play, and believed that the site would eventually do the right thing (take away my credit, and put back the cash), I decided to pay the full freight entry fee last night for the first time.<\/p>\n

1069 entrants, top 110 paid. I’ll spare you the details of the incredibly bad luck I had on my last hand, but I finished 471. I don’t care about the lost money (though the lost credit<\/em> would have been nicer). I do care about the problems, and the lack of swift service.<\/p>\n

So, what are my choices?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Suck it up, ignore the problems (perhaps, even expect them), and continue on with this site.<\/li>\n
  2. Move my money from this site to a new one (there are still a number of top sites that welcome US players).<\/li>\n
  3. Take a break for a while (leaving the money in my account, so I can take it up again).<\/li>\n
  4. Withdraw my money, and not think about online poker for a while.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I honestly have no idea what I’ll end up doing, but I’m seriously considering all of the above, for the first time in three years of nearly non-stop playing. If you have any insightful suggestions, feel free to leave them as comments here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I started playing online poker in September 2004. It instantly became an obsession. For the first 10 months, I believe that I missed only one single day where I didn’t play. I still play a ton, but it’s definitely well beyond the obsession stage. In the past year, I have gone two weeks in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,12,2,18],"tags":[245,1363,1368],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4","category-3","category-gambling","category-2","category-poker","tag-customer-service","tag-gambling","tag-poker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}