Absolute Uncertainty

One of those good news-bad news kind of days around here.

On the good side, I successfully opened an account with Absolute Poker via Poker Source Online yesterday. PSO has several sign-up deals available with various sites, including some that actually start you with a readymade bankroll at the site of your choosing. It only took about a day for PSO to process my request, and today I found $50.00 waiting for me when I clicked on the Absolute Poker cashier. I’m also eligible for the 100% sign-up bonus, so in due time I’ll earn fifty more clams once I’ve played the necessary number of raked hands. Not bad at all.

I went over to a $0.50/$1.00 limit HE table and damned if I didn’t get dealt pocket rockets on the very first hand. And they held up! (Do all new players get dealt AA on their first hand?) So not a bad start over on AP.

Whether I’ll be able to take any of this money out is another story, of course. That’s because of today’s bad news -- Neteller’s announcement that they might well be going the route of Firepay here in the not-too-distant future.

Their “Update on U.S. Position” says that even though it is “a company registered outside the U.S.,” Neteller nevertheless “will comply with the [Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement] Act and its related regulations as if it were subject to the Act’s jurisdiction.” The statement goes on to explain that Neteller has “accelerated its review of the Act” and will await whatever instructions they might be given by U.S. federal regulators.

You might recall how the Act stipulates that within 270 days of its becoming law, the feds will have to come up with regulations to be followed by those various institutions (“designated payment systems,” “financial transaction providers,” “interactive computer services,” etc.) described by the Act. So it sounds like as soon as the feds tell Neteller to stop letting U.S. customers move money to and from poker sites, they’ll comply. No idea when that could happen, but the 270-day clock is a-tickin’ . . . .

I have no idea how I might withdraw funds from a site once Neteller is no longer an option. Any suggestions?

Meanwhile . . . I’m starting to think I might just skip that Ante-Up Intercontinental Poker Series event no. 7 tonight -- the pot limit Omaha High-Low event I mentioned in the last post. Since Bill Boston’s book was only of marginal value, I decided to get a little practice this week betting in a pot limit game (and also just gathering some experience valuing hands and reading boards). So I have been sitting at the $0.01/$0.02 PL Omaha High-Low tables over on PokerStars. Played a total of 107 hands. In the end, I actually came out a cool 41 cents ahead! Still enough for a stamp, that.

Playing those 107 hands helped me to rediscover three truths about Omaha High-Low: (1) Playing for half the pot is no way to make money at this game; (2) Betting less than the pot on third or fourth street is almost never a good idea; and (3) Omaha High-Low is one skull-numbing, boring-arse game . . . .

That first item was covered by Boston in his book (ad nauseum). The second I reminded myself through trial and error. If you flop the current nuts, betting less than the pot invites all draws to stick around. Of course, betting the pot usually doesn’t make them go away, either, but at least there you are probably forcing opponents to play poor odds against you. The third item -- the fact that the game is such a gawd-awful snoozerama -- is likely due to my having gotten myself addicted to action-packed 6-max hold ’em games. Took friggin' two-and-a-half hours to play those 107 hands. Hell, I could have written letters to every one of my representatives and senators in that amount of time. (Would've done as much good, probably.)

So while I haven’t made a decision yet, it may well be game seven of the Cardinals and Mets tonight instead of Omaha. I have no dog in that fight, but I’m thinking it has got to be more fun than folding a non-suited 37TK and waiting two-and-a-half minutes for the next hand.