One year ago today, the Department of Justice unsealed its indictments against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker. It’s been a tumultuous year for me, but not necessarily a bad one. As I predicted in an article entitled Gray Friday, “This catastrophe is forcing me to confront some big questions that I’ve been putting off for too long. I don’t expect it to be an easy or pleasant process, but I hope to be better for it in the long run.”
The title of this post is in German because that’s where I am right now. My girlfriend and I have just embarked on a three-month Europe trip. My inability to play online poker has become a convenient excuse to travel the world, spending several months first in Canada and now in Europe. As far as occupational hazards go, these aren’t so bad.
In a sequel to my Gray Friday article entitled Three Days in Madrid, I described meeting two new friends after a last-minute decision to play the Grand Final of the European Poker Tour. Appropriately, both Soeren and Nico are also coming to Berlin for the EPT, and I hope to see both of them today. Nico and I traveled to Cannes for the WSOP-Europe a few months ago, but this will be the first time I’ve seen Soeren since Madrid.
In the last year, Nico’s home country of Spain has adopted legislation restricting its citizens to playing on Spanish-only sites, and Soeren’s home country of Germany threatens to enact similar legislation. Back in the United States, the patchwork of pending legislation at the state and federal levels is too complex for me to keep up with it. Although the holy grail would be legislation welcoming PokerStars back into the US market so that US players could compete against the rest of the world, at this point even the creation of a US-only market would be a vast improvement over the status quo.
For now, though, I remain a poker nomad. I play the EPT Berlin on Monday and hopefully the rest of the week as well. Last night a former student who lives in Berlin picked us up at the train station and took us to dinner. Soon we’ll be on to Amsterdam, where I hope to meet another former student and also spend some time with Richard “tzen1” Veenman, a member of PokerStars Team Online whom I first met in the Bahamas earlier this year.
A long-time blog reader offered us a couch to crash on in his Paris apartment, so that’s where we’ll be after the SCOOP. Then there’s hiking in the Swiss alps, hopefully meeting a student in Switzerland while we’re there, and then on to a small town in Germany for the wedding of one of my closest friends, who asked me to be his best man on this date in 2011.
I still haven’t answered any of those big questions, but I’ve managed to orient myself and muddle my way through a messy situation by focusing on what’s important to me: relationships with family, friends, and my girlfriend; traveling, meeting new people, and having new experiences; and making the best of any situation in which I find myself, doing my best not to look to the past with resentment or longing nor towards the future with fear or anticipation.
How did Black Friday affect you? What has your life been like for the past year? How do you feel on this important anniversary?
Even though I was a rec player I really miss competing in MTT’s or just trying to win at cash games. I’ve always loved the mental challenge of playing poker but with a family of 3 with twins that just turned 2 I don’t have the free time to go to a casino and play.
I’ve had to go back to MTGO and Chess to fill those mental dexterity voids. It didn’t hurt either that I was a small winner as cashing out a couple hundred bucks every couple of months was nice.
Even though I could risk it playing on another site I have my reservations on getting paid.
The loss of online poker was such a harsh blow for me to take. In the six months leading up to Black Friday, I had made a couple of my first “real scores” (i.e. 4 figures). I had been treading water for way too long, but finally starting putting things together and getting those much needed “run goods.” (My improvement was aided GREATLY after I joined PokerSavvy+ and dug into the videos.) So just when I thought I might be able to genuinely start earning some real wages… out came the rug. I would gladly play live were the nearest spot closer than a 2-hour drive. My girlfriend is a literature professor, so there’s no real chance of me hitting the road.
On the bright side, all of my money was on Stars, so I was able to pay some bills. What’s more, the amount of mental time and energy put into poker is being channeled into re-exploring some creative outlets. I feel existentially better as a result.
Still, that was a really bitter pill to swallow. I definitely want my online poker back.
Good luck in the tourneys!
Post Gray Friday events raised questions about the integrity of online poker including PS.
I do not share your confidence in PS.They returned player funds.Great.
But It is now clear that PS engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud in big fu.. way.
It is clear indication for me that for profit they are ready to do illegal things.
I do not care if PS is int the US market or not.-NJ iGaming Bill includes International Player Pools.
Is it interesting that for Germans it was (Black)Schwarze Freitag not Grau Freitag.
How did it affect me? It cost me a lot of money! Thanks for bringing it up.
Black Friday didn’t affect me greatly. I didn’t play for a month or so, and I missed it so much that I started up an account at Bodog (now called Bovada), where the games in the low micros are tissue-paper soft and I can steadlily build my teeny bankroll into a small one. They’ve paid me out twice, so I am relatively confident that I’ll be able to access my money.
I still have a tiny sum hanging in Full Tilt. I’m not expecting anything, but if I get any portion of it back, it’ll essentially be found money.
On the BF anniversary, I am bothered. The idea that the government is prohibiting free access to something I enjoy is vexing, and the slow movement on reform is disappointing. I don’t understand why it’s so hard to pass a bill regulating online poker.
Good luck in Berlin, and enjoy your travels around Europe. Stay safe.
BF was easily one of the worst days of my life. I was by no means making huge money from online poker, but as someone who had spent the years previous struggling to find work, online poker was more than a blessing to me. Unfortunately for me I only reaped the joys of this profession for a mere 10 months before BF. I lost probably 50% of my net worth that day.
I knew that the day would come eventually, but I’d hoped that at least a year later we would’ve seen our money or at least more credible hope than we have now.
I wouldn’t deposit on Merge initially because I’d just got stung for 5 figures, in my mind, ” why would I risk the little I had left?” I suppose if I had it all do to over again I’d risk it now knowing it wouldn’t have been seized and merge is still running.
I miss poker still being a viable option for me to earn a living. My entire beef with working a ‘real job’ is that ultimately no matter how hard you work for someone else you’re never reaping the full benefit of your potential. Poker gave me the ability to earn in accordance with my efforts. It gave me a reason to strive for more.
It’s still possible to play online poker for a living. It’s just terribly different and far less profitable now.
Leaving the country was a viable option for some. Personally, I had just proposed to my fiancee the previous December. I couldn’t imagine uprooting her from her family, work, school and friends solely for my ‘career’, especially with our wedding still on the horizon.
So it’s back on the job hunt for me. Maybe school if poker doesn’t come back sooner than later. I’d planned on it either way, it’s just going to be more difficult without poker. But I suppose if having my livelihood stripped from me by my government is the worst that happens I can consider myself lucky 🙂
Sorry to hear about the disruption to your life, but congratulations on the engagement!
very annoying day… used to play every single day and the worst is that live results are no way near as good as my online results… not sure why, probably because i play a lot more garbage live since being tight in live is like playing almost no hands!
i was fortunate in that i have a peculiar habit, which saved me some money… when i go through down swings, i get annoyed with poker and start withdrawing money… so a little before BF, i went through a down swing and fortunately got most of my money out… but still, stuck low 4 figures which is nothing compared to what others must’ve been stuck…
this past year have been playing starcraft 2 which is fun, but poker is more fun… and some chess recently too…
i hope online poker will be available again soon, especially in NJ!