Game Theory in a Nutshell

I don't know why Vanessa Rousso was a second round draft pick in the PPL. Don't get me wrong... Vanessa Rousso was an excellent pick. There is no doubt about it. The girl has game.

I've been listening to the circuit lately... working on my own game, trying to get ready for the next tournament series I play. Even been reading some non-poker stuff related to game theory and what not. If anybody doesn't listen to The Circuit, they are missing out on the most advanced free lessons in poker. The show rocks. I just wish more time was spent on interviews and news than Scott Huff responding to some random question sent in by a listener. Don't get me wrong... all three of them I'm sure can play. And I think that they do great radio together. Especially Gavin. But seriously, guys... if I click on The Circuit w/ Special Guest Vanessa Rousso, how long am I supposed to have to wait until I get to hear what I wanted to hear?

So, back to Vanessa... the girl sounds really smart on radio. Wicked smart. And she's been on a tear all year. Basically her rookie year, she enters the poker world and rocks it. She's one of the few name females who actually have a significant win under their belt.

I played with Vanessa in the 6-handed no-limit event. The table lightened up a bit when she sat down. All of the sudden, the table was a lot more colorful. All sorts of new motivations started forming between the five guys who are playing with her. And then she made this incredible fold that had me really scratching my head wondering if I was overestimating her or underestimating her. Or maybe the question was whether she was overestimating or underestimating me. She raised pre-flop with JJ. The big-stack, who she didn't know, I think made the call. I raised in the BB with 99. My memory is really bad, so I can't remember if I raised enough to put her all-in or just enough to commit myself to a preflop reraise by her. It doesn't matter. She agonized over it and folded. She showed it. Why did she show it?

What Vanessa didn't know at the time (because she had just been moved to the table) was that the other big stack was a donkey. He had gotten his stack by spending a few minutes with Daniel Negreanu and getting a decent strategy. I think it was his first poker tournament. He was just some rich guy who much have been well-connected because how else would he get that kind of one-on-one time with Daniel? And his strategy worked. It worked even better when he busted Tuan Le with a stupid badbeat. And even better still when he busted my QQ with a KT, most of it getting in after the T hit on the flop. That one left a scar. He was clueless though about how to actually adapt his strategy to the strategies of the players around him... and that point was obvious to everyone else at the table. Except Vanessa. So she's not only worried about my hand at this point when she folds her pocket Jacks. She's worried about this guy calling behind her. But she doesn't know that he probably only has some low suited connector and there is no way he's going to call me.

So she layed the better hand down and then a few rounds later I busted her out. She had QQ and raised in the same position... I reraised all-in with AK (I'm pretty sure it was all-in this time). She called fairly quickly.

This would be dangerous. She'd be out if she lost. She had enough chips to give me a big scar if she doubled through me. I'd be dangerously short-stacked. I'm talking M around 5. That's a bad place to be. Not to mention I'd be dumping my chips to the only other player in contention at our current table for the "best out of 6" spot. David Soloman, who also was at the table would later come in 6th, so maybe that wouldn't be fair to say... but at the time, that is what it looked like to me.

The board was favorable for me. It reminded me of an old poker joke I heard once that I someone told me when "It's a Man's World" was playing on the radio. He said, "It's like we were all born all-in, seeing the flop with AK vs. QQs... and gentlemen... we won."

I didn't give it that much thought until I heard her on the circuit. Now here is a girl who is in love with game theory. Not like most of the other pros who talk about game-theory are, either. Most people don't really know what it is. I'll be honest with you. I don't.

But I have been interested in it for awhile. Pretty much since I first fell in love with poker. The movie A Beautiful Mind seemed to make a big deal about it. And it won best picture so it has to be good. But I had never of Nash. I checked out a few books from the library on game-theory. I had heard of John Von Neumann, who is credited with inventing game theory in his book "Game Theory and Economic Behavior". Don't bother picking it up. The thing is 10x as tough a read as the bible. I tried... made it to about page six. Way too much math, and I had skipped way too many Calculus 2 classes back in school (which is about the time I changed my major from Computer Science to Sociology). So I stuck to other people's summaries. Real basic stuff. They all talked about the prisoner's dilemna. Just seemed like some sort of scientific attempt at explaining karma to me. But I still failed to see why all these supposedly smart people thought Game Theory was relevant to Economic Behavior. Or even better for my purposes, how is knowing about game theory supposed to make me a good poker player? And why the hell is some young, gorgeous, intelligent girl who can seemingly be doing whatever she wanted to be doing with her life... why was she all into game theory? People are motivated by all sorts of things.

I think the answer may be because the theory goes deep. It's not really about economic behavior at all... or about games. It's about how to make the right moves. Not just in poker. In all of life. And someone could spend their whole lifetime studying about how game theory applies just in poker. Or mating rituals of chimpanzees. Or the six-celled organisms all existing together in the tournament that was Event #5.

Being in the poker world is kind of crazy sometimes. You get the opportunity to watch people rise and fall. There seems to be two types of players who are successful in the very long run. There are poker players, who for whatever reason have devoted a good deal of time on their art and have gotten good at it. Then there are players who play poker. These guys come in and seem to just have a knack at it. Just like they did with backgammon, or magic, or gin, or whatever it was that they were doing at the time. These are the types of players that become the superstars in poker. So many of them have risen to the top of the poker food-chain without ever having to win a major tournament. It's amazing watching these players at work. Social engineers when they're not at the table getting better. And then a bunch of them those guys actually end up to win a bunch of bracelets.

Poker goes deep too. Poker is a metagame. I'm not sure if that's the right word for it. But it goes deep. It's not all about making sure you play each hand correctly at all... because what is correct in a given situation has to do with variables that have absolutely nothing to do with the cards, or the flop, or the percentages. Or the psychology of other players. Or your own subconscious. Yeah... the poker economy is every bit as subtle and deep as any other economy.

I remember one time Joey said that he wanted to start treating his own life more like a poker table. I don't know exactly what he meant. Still don't. But he won the WPT championship very shorty after that. He changed a little after... it was amazing seeing him splurge, spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on the people he cared about trying to make them all happy. But when they asked for a stake or a loan, forget about it. One time we were all having sushi, along with some very good conversation by Bobby. His theory was that eventually, we'd create robots to do all the world's manual labor and then we can all just play poker... and then we can teach the robots to play poker and then we don't have to do ANYTHING.

I remember we were all having a good time... and there was a little tension between Joey and me. The whole honeymoon period, he had been asking if I wanted something... everytime he'd go buy everyone new cell phones, he'd ask what I wanted. "I'm ok... got a cell phone." New clothes. "I'm ok. Thanks though man." New Heelies. "Ok. that sounds cools. ;)" But I didn't ask him for anything. So then right in the middle of dinner... right in front of everyone... he looks at me and goes "What do YOU want, Dutch?"

I thought about it for a long time. I looked at him and smiled, nodding my head... knowing that he was granting wishes and he owed me a big one. I would have backed him in that tournament if I had done better earlier that year. And we both knew it. My grin got bigger.

"A Ferrari!"

Everybody laughed... but nobody harder than Joey. I later asked him if he could help me out with a stake. I wanted to try to play the big game at the Bellagio and see if I could set some records. I didn't want to worry about makeup in the future. I asked him for $50k and he handed it over like it was nothing. A week later I was back to near-broke and close to being psycho-manic. Even had to go into the hospital overnight for a Haldol shot (after causing quite a bit of embarassment to myself in that game... and making a pretty stupid latenight call). But I was back out the next day... and honestly, I felt better than I had in a long time. On some crazy level, it all seemed like I had made the right move (except for the fact that I was I coming out of a mental hospital). A few weeks later I won my own bracelet.

Vanessa alter went on to go a lot deeper than I did in the $5k six-handed tournament. I'd venture to say she went deeper in EVERY tournament after that in the series. I didn't even cash again. Tons of tournaments (including the $50k HORSE), a lot of them now played on my own resurrected bankroll... didn't even cash after that win. Can't explain it. I had stepped out of the zone the minute I felt my friends lift me into the air and I wouldn't get it back. At least, not until after the series (I feel like I was definitely in the zone during the $40 tournament I played yesterday at The Bike).

Ok... enough of all that. The shit gives me a headache and that's about as far as I'm willing to go to figure out game theory. I don't really care about it that much. I'm a lot more interested in sociology and playing games.

Here's a myspace message I got today...

subject: yo dutch

i live near philly and im kind of a child prodigy when it comes to poker. I play online despite the fact im a few months less than 18 under a friends account. I win rediculous amounts of money at least for my age. We deposited $100 and started at .5/.10 and in a month I built the bankroll to be able to play $10/$20. Its a thin line im walking cause im 17 but we withdrew all the money cause it was on paradise poker. Now I only play with my friends for like $20 and even they dont play much with me anymore cause I win 8 or 9 out of 10 times.

i'll be going to college to get a good education but my ultimate goal is to become a pro. it's a scary thing because of the risk, but I really haven't encountered any level of play that i've had a difficult time with yet, and 10/20 is high for a serious player, let alone a 17 year old. I've read at least 12 poker books that i can think of off the top of my head. Also, i've been playing for 3 years and ive gotten to a higher level than most people, certainly anyone my age. And I have 3 and half more years to improve until I'm 21.

I just wanna know what you think about my situation.

===================

My response is this :

Hey player. It sounds like you've got some smart friends. Good luck on your journey... I hope our paths cross one of these days.

If you're crazy like I am... check this out.

So supposedly 6 million people suffer from bipolar disorder. Trust me... it sucks. The only positives are that your hypomanic states are pretty damn good (imagine really really good sativa and a constant feeling that you "have it all figured out") and also you can blame screwups on just "being crazy". But if you don't manage it, you can seriously screw things up. Besides the russian-roulette odds that a BP1 patient will kill themselves in a manic episode, far more damaging to us personally is that we alienate those around us because we ramble on about delusions and spout belligerent things attacking the self-esteem of the people who are closest to us. It leaves family members feeling angry and guilty at the same time. Forget about having a normal relationship with a girl. And a job? A good credit score? Forget about all of that. And once it happens the first time, you live in a constant state of self-doubt and shame, realizing at anytime you can lose the only thing that's really yours... your mind.

The problem with managing bipolar is that all the meds out there have some pretty lame side-effects. You can't mess with brain-chemistry without changing. Obviously, it's a pain in the ass having to take little pills every day to fix you (like you're broken)... not to mention the fact that most of the meds (with the exception, probably, of lithium) are mad-expensive designer drugs and if you don't have insurance (which is super hard to get with a "pre-existing condition") you're in a bad place. And you pretty much are going to have to take the meds for the rest of your life. Everyone tries the medication route for awhile... because believe me... mental hospitals blow. You can't understand how important freedom is until you have it stripped away. If you haven't been in jail or rehab or the loony bin or the army, you won't understand. Outside of those four things, I guess the closest thing I can relate it to would be standing in line at the DMV. But it's a loooooooooooooooooooooong line.

So pick a drug... Lithium, Depakote, Geodon, Zyprexa, Haldol, Blahnadol. Lithium makes you fat. Geodon makes you impotent. Zyprexa makes you dull. Haldol makes you grind your teeth permanently. Mix them up for even more fun side-effects, like sleeping 16 hours a day. It all sucks.

But here's a little secret that you don't hear about very much... even as a bipolar patient. You can shock it out. It's called electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) also known as electroshock therapy. I know. It sounds really bad. I read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest too. But it isn't like that anymore. You go in, they put you under, and then you wakeup groggy with a little headache. You're not conscious when they do it. But the mania is then supposed to disappear. Supposedly it works really well for suicidal depression, too.


Why does it work? All sorts of theories on why... but nobody really knows. The only major drawback is that it screws with your memory. But I gotta tell you... drugs do to. There are chunks of days in hospitals where I don't remember a thing. Guess it's a pretty good argument for keeping a journal.

Anyway... I first heard about ECT from a book called Electroboy, which was about a manic who claims that after 9 or so treatments, he never had a relapse again. Recovered completely. Then I heard about it from a buddy of mine in Columbia, who said his wife suffered from really bad depression, but one ECT treatment and she's never had the same problem again. He said that the doctors didn't tell him about it... that one of his buddies from dentist school did. He explained that the drug companies make a LOT of money selling pharmaceuticals, and a ton of that goes into marketing... mostly to doctors who don't ever actually experience what they're prescribing, but also to everyone else on TV. This is why if you go manic, you're probably not going to be prescribed Lithium right away even though of all the drugs on the list, it's the one that has the least side-effects and is ridiculously cheap.

But back to ECT. I guess I should probably admit that I haven't actually tried it yet. Haven't been committed for a year and a half... except if you count a quick overnight stint in Vegas around the time Joey won his bracelet. But I don't count that because I was only a little manic when I got in. They shot me up with Haldol (tricked me, really). I slept for 14 hours and then it was back to normal and I was out of there.

On a sidenote, if you ever lose it, Vegas and New Orleans are the best places to do it in. Most places will keep you until they're convinced you're not crazy (and that you're going to take your drugs). Vegas and New Orleans will just keep you until they think you won't hurt yourself or someone else.

Everytime when I was committed I didn't really know what it was all about. Plus whenever I mentioned it as an option to the doctors, they'd shrug it off. A lot of people out there think it is somehow more humane to strap a guy into a bed and stick a needle in his arm then to shock a sleeping guy for a few seconds. Maybe they are just apprehensive because nobody REALLY knows what it's all about and what's going on. I suppose that's hard on your conscious as a doctor without all the positive marketing pushed on them. So now I'm thinking the next time a manic episode starts to creep up on me (and it will almost certainly happen again... BP is a timebomb), it's time to get juiced.

Everybody has to figure out what works for them. If drugs work for you, great. But if they don't, look into this thing. Do it quick, too... b8ecause it's a progressive disease. It gets worse and worse everytime you slip into an episode. And if someone you care about suffers from bipolar, tell them about this. It just might save a life.

Also, to anybody who is relating a little more than they'd care to admit... remember there is nothing to be ashamed about for being crazy. It's a disease. You don't see a lot of people ashamed at having leukemia. Or how about lung cancer? Now there's actually something most people actually SHOULD be ashamed about having. The stigma is all in our heads. Try to look on the brightside. You get to experience something that not a lot of people get to. People pay a lot of money for illegal drugs to make them crazy, and you get it for free.

I have a magnet on my fridge that makes me feel better everytime.


Visit ECT.org for more info.

Selling Out Never Looked So Good

And now a short post, for readers out there with short attention spans (you know... the online players ;). Here's a great shot of the Bellagio Day 2 (?) chipleader, Brandi Rose Hawbaker, sporting an FTP logo while crossing her eyes and flashing the camera. Rumor is that she got paid $100k, which is 5x what she made in the tournament.



Now why couldn't she just snap the thing off? There's no way Nike could keep themselves from putting a swoosh on her if she took down that event. If you need proof, here is what she looks like when she's just chilling doing an interview.

Brandi - if you're reading this, here's a little PR advice. Never ever ever say "I just feel lucky to be here". I can't believe that they don't have this at the beginning of every "how-to" book. Haven't you learned anything from watching the rest of us top pros? Act is if it's natural and you expected it... see if you can bluff everyone watching. And I don't think you should say anything profane in an interview... but definitely not "shitty". If you're going to curse, stick to the f-bomb... otherwise it looks like you're just trying to be dirty but aren't. Here's a good example... it's a drunken interview with Gutshot where I demonstrate these two principles.

I'm hoping that this will open the door for the rest of us pros and that Golden Palace will reconsider my offer to wear a temporary tattoo on my ass during next year's WSOP. I mean, come on guys... it'll only cost you a grand!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ban

I promised some thoughts on the recent port-security-online-gambling-funding bill that was passed a couple weeks ago by congress. Things aren't always how they seem. There are a ton of people speaking out about this bill, but everyone has their own agenda. If you're out of the loop like I usually am, here's the summary as I understand it.

A few Fridays ago Bill Frist (a seasoned senator who is shooting for president and knows how to get things done) along with Goodlatte (now here's a guy who's been battling online gambling for awhile, but couldn't land a punch until now) slipped in a provision in a port security bill that would make it illegal for companies to fund offshore accounts of online gambling sites. They said that terrorists use online gambling to transfer funds between cells or something like that. They slipped in some exceptions for horseracing and state lotteries. Put the thing on the floor at the last minute... so it would be awhile before the bill could be voted on if it was amended. And then...

BAM! Thing passes by a landslide.




Here's Shelley Berkley arguing against the bill she voted for.



Here's Doyle Brunson sans DoylesRoom logo on Fox.



Here's Annie Duke and Mike Sexton with the PPA guy explaining why poker shouldn't be lumped in with other gambling games because it's a game of skill.



Here's some guy (who until recently probably relied on Party Poker affiliate money) smearing Frist and Goodlatte.


Then a bunch of things all happened at once.

1. Party Poker announces that they will no longer be accepting US real-money players when the bill was signed into law. Their stock goes into the toilet.

2. Firepay announces that they will pull out of the US market.

3. Neteller announces that they will stay in the US market.

4. Pokerstars announces that they are staying open. So does Full Tilt, Doyles Room, Poker.com, Absolute, and not suprisingly Bodog, who's owner, Calvin Ayre, has seemed to make it a point to get on plenty of magazine covers flipping off the US Justice Department). UltimateBet, which was a public company, somehow converted to a private company so that it could remain open. Overnight, Pokerstars and all the other cardrooms explode with the players that can no longer play on Party. A lot of other sites, though, go the Party route and seal off US action. A couple sites decide to go state-by-state and just seal off the states that have laws against it.

5. Antigua files some sort of complaint with the WTO. Their whole country has been built as a safehaven for online sportsbooks and casinos since the late nineties. Before that it was built around tourism... because it's true. Antigua Nice. If the US doesn't yield to the Antiguan government's pressure, we could face economic sanctions by Antigua. This could actually be a really bad thing... for anybody who loves rum or relies on its ports to fix their yacht. Most of us who just drink beer and are lucky to have a car probably shouldn't be too worried about Antigua backlash.

6. Neteller announces that they reversed their earlier decision and will now pull out of the US market.

Ok... that's pretty much it. Now what does this bill actually do? First off, it doesn't outlaw online poker. Online poker is already illegal. That's why we play on PartyPoker.com instead of Harrahs.com or ESPN.com. That's why media companies have already been fined for advertising real-money sites and why we can't deposit money online anymore with PayPal. And that's why all these annoying online poker commercials all end with some guy screaming "PAAAAAAAAARTYPOKER!"... and then in his inside voice "dotnet". I mean, come on... is anybody really fooled by the "poker school" idea behind these .net advertisements? Aren't the media outlets still violating the same laws they were when they were advertising the "dotcom"?

So you might ask yourself... how did this bill actually get passed? What was going on? Here's my take. Bill Frist and Goodlatte had an agenda to get rid of online gambling. One thing that I thought was interesting was that one of Frist's campaign contributors was... wait for it... Harrahs. That makes sense. The American casino lobbyists were eerily silent about the bill. And then the same day that Party stock tumbled, Harrahs went up 20%. All that money that's currently being siphoned out of the US gambling economies into offshore companies... now some percentage of that is going to be taken out to Vegas.

But I'll give Frist and Goodlatte the benefit of the doubt and assume that their agenda had everything to do with fiscal protectionism and not with special interest groups because I really believe that Frist and Goodlatte probably are opposed to all forms of gambling. And let's face it, people. Their agenda is not without some merit. Step outside your own point of view for a second and look at online gambling from a legislators point of view. I don't really think the US as a whole benefits from a bunch of college students putting loan money into blackjack at Golden Palace. Is anybody really going to say that online casinos and online sportsbooks are a healthy positive thing for society? And you might think Vegas is great... it is... but there is a big difference between people going on a vacation and gambling a little for fun and some MU college freshman betting his first credit card that the Cardinals win the series. And right now that happens all the time. Hell, I got started on Planet Poker when I was 17 years old. I get email from kids a lot younger than that asking for my opinion on a hand they played on Stars...

So online gambling is a problem. They decide to try to get rid of it. But how do you kill it? It's easier said then done. It's the internet, and going after Party isn't as easy as raiding some mob-run underground room down on 14th street. A few years ago they thought, well, maybe we can put the burden on the ISPs like AOL and the cable companies. That didn't work. The internet is too tricky and the cable companies had deep pockets and lobbied hard against it. So then they thought, let's put the burden on the financial institutions. That was pretty smart. If you can keep the bulk of the money out, you can cut it at its source. You still have to put a burden on banks and credit cards to make sure they aren't letting transactions through to what I assume would be some sort of blacklist of companies.

What's that? But poker is different than sportsbooks? Yeah. Damn skippy. It's a lot different. It's a skill game. And the poker economy is like a big giant pyramid. Thousands of professional players consistently beat their opponents and live off their winnings. At the top tier you see many players (hundreds, not thousands) making several million a year. But hundreds of thousands of players consistently lose. Billions are taken out of the pyramid by the operators, but funneled back into it to some extent by their marketing expenditures (which go to editors and writers who then play poker) and the fact that a good chunk of poker players own a piece of the operations they endorse. It's an industry where being a top-earning professional poker player means spending more time doing commercial shoots and writing poker articles then actually sweating in a chair all day going for a checkraise.

Just because poker is a skill game doesn't mean that the poker industry is a positive thing on a social level. Being a professional poker player means taking money from other players. It's not charity work. It's a negative-sum game where most people lose. Poker is never never never going to be accepted as a "non-gambling" game as long as the majority of poker players are losing money. The comparisons to nascar and basketball and golf just look stupid. You don't see many NBA hopefuls losing their tuition... or PGA pros going broke because they lost their bankroll after missing a putt. But you see it all the time in poker.

This is a big problem with poker as a game and why I think this bill might not be such a bad thing. Poker the Game is the illegitimate child of Poker the Industry. Our stars are just as bright as any other sport... our game is just as demanding. But poker is held back because our industry has built around a business model which is dependant on real money wagering. This is the way poker is played. Always has been. But in my opinion it's not good for the game. If the WPT had come out as a radio show in the thirties and poker had never been brought out to the casinos in Vegas, I think that poker would be in a much healthier state today and the top players would be doing much better.

I saw a marathon of MTV Cribs the other week where they showed houses of popular extreme sports stars. Skaters, snowboarders, BMXers, that kinda thing. I didn't recognize a lot of the names, except for Tony Hawk and Bam Margerra. All these guys had sick houses with sick walk-in closets filled with clothes from endorsement deals with Volcom Stone or Hurley or whatever. Video games. Sports drinks. Great big tournament prize-pools in freeroll tournaments with words like "Dodge" in the title. Poker is slowly getting to that level.

But I would submit to everyone reading this that many players in the poker industry don't want change. They don't want poker to be regulated anymore than they want poker to be outlawed. They want the industry to stay exactly how it is because they're making out pretty well and why change a good thing?

But things are changing... make no mistake about it. A lot of people are taking the attitude that Party is overreacting and that this is all going to pass. It's not. The people who are getting hit the hardest are the people who are in positions which are reliant on online poker advertising. Operators can pay much more for advertising space because the customers are worth more. You rarely see regular ads in poker magazines because Degree (or even The Commerce and Harrahs) doesn't make as much money per eyeball as Full Tilt does. All that pretty much fell apart. Marketing budgets are being frozen because now companies aren't sure what's going to happen.

What will happen? This is what I predict for our game and our industry.

First off, all current online poker sites are going to suffer. The ones who pull out of the US market will suffer immediately (i.e. Party). The ones who stay put for awhile will see an immediate boom in profits... their numbers will be up because of the Party fallout. But this boom will be short-term. Pokerstars may be seeing a drastic increase in customer activity, but Neteller and Firepay surely are not. And my guess is that the average deposit per player has gone down for these sites even as their players have grown.

If and when Neteller shuts down, and the banks and credit cards start making sure that they aren't funding any online bankrolls... then the online action dries up quick. The money will continue to be raked off by the operators and cashed out by the winning players. But the recreational fish (i.e. the base of the pyramid) won't be putting in new money. The "big game" will drop from several 200/400 limit games going to a single 20/40 game. But online poker won't disappear.

Instead, most of the current operators will probably look to expand the game and their operations through the other continents. They'll start making plans to aggressively target South America and India. This will be a cool time for companies like the WPT as they bring poker as a spectator sport into other countries. But I don't think this strategy will work in the long-run for the operational companies (although it'll work out great for companies like the WPT), because online poker is going to change in the US.

The demand to play online is still going to be there and will be filled with companies that aren't violating US law. At first, it will be freeroll sites. The Myspace poker league. The Yahoo Poker Challenge. Online poker in the US will become an industry where players don't deposit anything. There will be a smaller percentage of players who actually make a decent living off of poker. But there will be a lot more players and potentially a lot more money to divide up.

Then online poker will probably start getting regulated state-by-state. When this happens, a lot of online sites will pop up that are region specific. Because it is now no longer "grey" a lot of well-funded companies will pop up and as a result you'll finally see the elimination of the rake forced on all the online real-money sites from companies entering the market with deep pockets to begin with and nothing to lose... you'll also likely see a lot of mergers and acquisitions of the existing online poker sites with legitimate American corporations.

Live poker is going to change a lot. Action in the LA, AC, and Vegas soar and I predict the games will get a lot bigger. I suspect they're already seeing a lot more action. In states without readily-accessible cardrooms, this opens up all sorts of opportunities for bar leagues (if I was in charge of Hooters or Buffalo Wild Wings, I'd be all over this yesterday) and promotional freeroll tournaments. It will also probably help the tournament circuit a great deal. I think a lot more people would be playing the circuit if it weren't for the fact that you can just stay at home and play the big Sunday tournaments online. Now people will actually have to go to Tunica if they want to play a $200 event. There probably will be a few staking companies that build a business around seeking out talent in online league-style tournaments to put into live events (if anyone out there is already doing this, I own PokerStakers.com which at this point I'd probably sell for a pretty cheap price). I think at some point some professional association will pop up like the PGA or MLB and really start making some moves. Tournaments will start to become positive-sum. Poker will start to become positive-sum. Losses will be nominal. Big American corporations will no longer feel pressure to keep their safe distance. And then maybe you'll see poker players on MTV Cribs.

I guess I'll wrap this post up by saying this. If you're reading this and you're somewhere in Kansas and for the past two years have been surviving off of online poker, don't be too worried. If you can beat poker in its current state, you can do anything. You will adapt... that's what poker is all about. You're a player and you're always going to be able to see opportunity. You might have to settle for less earn because you won't be able to get in as many hands a year. You might even have to move out to California because the biggest game online is picking between the 10/20 limit on some greymarket site against five other "pros" or some $1 million dollar Budweiser.com freeroll against a few hundred thousand other contenders. Worst case scenario is you might actually have to go get a job.

But poker isn't going to disappear. Poker is not a fad. It is one of the purest games ever invented. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they play poker. It's an American game and has been a big part of our culture since the Old West. Its appeal will be felt by new players getting dealt aces for the first time long after we're all gone. And those aces will still get cracked. That is why we love this game. That is not going to change.

Something Doyle said at the series this year stuck with me. He said, "Poker doesn't owe us anything. We owe poker everything." Good words.

ESPN baby!!!!

Tonight's the night where I win my bracelet on television... it's going to be a pretty good episode. Crazy to think about how many people I've run into in my life that will be watching tonight. I think ESPN is getting close to two million viewers an episode... that's a pretty significant chunk of the population when you think about it.

My plans tonight are to just chill at home and watch the thing with my brother and mom. Ali's coming into town for it, too... heading to STL in about two minutes to go pick her up from the airport. It'll be good seeing her again. After the episode is over I'm thinking we'll just head down to the Thirsty Turtle and tie one on. Good times.

I'll try to blog tomorrow about some thoughts on the episode and also what I'm thinking about this recent gambling ban by congress. Could be the end of the beginning.