Poker Articles

I’ve often said “maturity is the ability to look at the long-term consequences of short-term decisions.”  Well, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever said that, until now.  But I believe this statement to be true.  Every day, young people are growing up in a world bombarding them with frenetic imagery in every form of entertainment, teaching them to demand ever-more-immediate gratification.  Little is done to encourage any thought beyond the here-and-now.  Nowhere is this more realized than on the Internet, where anyone can be anonymous and the truth can be changed or deleted with a mouse click.

It is in this environment that many poker players, some old but mostly young, are pursuing professional dreams.  The money and the glory come with little grounding in reality.  But the real world does exist, hammering us with bills, demands and obligations.  We have to pay for shelter, food, clothing, taxes, insurance, and entertainment; not only for ourselves, but our families.  The real world does not care if you’re having a bad run of variance, if you get drunk and tilt off half your bankroll, if you’re unable to get your money out of a site and into your hands.  The real world requires a backup plan.

It’s been said hundreds of times in dozens of posts, but it needs said again: dropping out of school and forsaking your education solely for a poker career is a terrible life choice.  If you don’t know why you’re going to college and what you want to be when you “grow up,” that’s fine.  College is not for everyone.  But poker doesn’t give you a backup plan.  You can’t put it on a resume, use it to get a bank loan, or build credit. 

A college degree is a safety net for the rest of your life.  If you choose to never pursue your field of study as a career afterward, great.  If you walk off the graduation stage, toss off your cap and gown and head right to your nearest poker room, that’s your choice.  Once you graduate, you will always have the knowledge and recognition a degree brings you.  Banking the rest of your life on the hope you can play like the next Imper1um or JJProdigy is like skydiving without a parachute.  Maybe you’ll land just right, but more often than not, you’ll end up broke, and broken.

If you defy the odds and reach the pinnacles of success and the resulting financial rewards, you still have a long way to go.  The temptations of greed, bolstered by the appearance of security behind your computer keyboard, are always lurking.  Some of the best online players in the world have fallen prey to multi-accounting, buying accounts late in tournaments, and other unethical behavior.   Short-term, it seems to be a fairly simple risk-reward problem: one can make many thousands of dollars with a fairly small percentage chance of getting caught.  But the risks are much higher, and the reward shrinks, when placed under the microscope of long-term vision.

If you are busted for multi-accounting or other ethical violations, you are barred from an online poker site.  Most of the other sites will follow suit and bar any accounts from that same individual.  The online poker industry is developing a “black book” of people whose business is no longer welcome. 

Many people in the poker business, as well as a couple of high-profile politicians, are now predicting online poker will be legal and regulated in the United States within the next 12 months.  When legalization takes place, the large casino companies such as Harrah’s, MGM/Mirage, Wynn Group, and Boyd Gaming are likely to purchase the largest poker sites: PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Party Poker.  Those sites have mature software, established servers and operating personnel, and large international bases of registered users which would take years to rebuild from scratch.

When PokerStars.com transfers over to BellagioPoker.com (for example), not only would the technology and positive history carry over, the negative data would also remain intact.  I’m sure the new owners would keep the black books, to know who the previous owners determined were unwelcome customers.  At this point, things could get very interesting.

Harrah’s, MGM/Mirage, and other casino companies have existing black books, which they maintain in conjunction with the various gaming commissions.  The gaming commissions exist to keep cheaters in all forms out of casinos; to ensure everyone doing business, both proprietors and customers, are on the up-and-up.  I would not be surprised at all if the commissions require the online black books to be merged with the existing ones.  In the eyes of the NGC, when you’re labeled a cheater, the details are secondary or, more likely, completely irrelevant to the fact that you committed a fraud against the gaming industry.

Such a ruling would mean the end of some potentially brilliant and lucrative careers before they really had a chance to get started.  Get busted for cheating online, and you very well could find yourself unable to play poker in a traditional casino.  Do yourself a favor: play like some people busted before you, but don’t be like them.  Think - and I mean REALLY think - about the future before you act.

Think before you cheat.