Well it's coming up on two weeks now since Black Friday and I've tried to not to make any rash decisions on anything until things have settled down a bit. While there still is a lot of uncertainty I think the smoke is starting to clear a bit so here are a few thoughts of mine on the present situation:

- By all accounts it looks as if we'll get our money back from Full Tilt and Stars sooner than we had anticipated. Based on the past Net-teller history many thought 6 months-1 year might be a reasonable time table - now I'd guess it'll be quicker than that.

- Still looks like it's gonna be a while before poker gets legislated/regulated in the US, and it's not even a certainty it will at this point. While I was hoping the DOJ crackdown might have been some conspiracy to give companies like Harrah's a way into the market, it doesn't look like there are any plans for that to happen at the moment. Knowing how slow the government works I think it'll be at least a year before we could play here again, with 2 years perhaps being a more reasonable hope. Although I would guess it's more likely to get regulated than not, I still doubt the probability of it happening is any more than 75% and if I had to give my gut feeling the likelihood is probably somewhere around the mid-60's% range. Just my personal estimate. It makes so much sense for it to happen but I'm just not sure it's really a big enough deal for a lot of voters, especially considering there's the other side - the fanatic right wing conservatives who equate playing poker to doing the devil's work.

-Even if it does get regulated I'm not sure Stars and Full Tilt would be allowed back in. Here I do think companies like Harrah's will put a ton of pressure on the government not to let it happen so they could get their own brand running in the online arena. And who knows what kind of system/rewards they might set up so high volume players like SNE on Stars or Rush Poker grinders on Full Tilt might be facing a letdown.

So after all those factors are considered I, like many others, am facing a decision - do I go play overseas and hope this mess gets sorted out in the US sooner rather than later or do I abandon this game and get into something else?

I think the deciding factors are going to be different for everyone but again here are some of my thoughts:

-Monetary situation - both current wealth and future income streams. Luckily my parents raised me to be a saver so I've got enough money where I really don't have to worry about immediate needs like food or bills for quite some time. Unfortunately I don't have quite enough to retire at age 26 so at some point I will have to start making money again. Short term, poker makes the most sense - I could probably make 5-10 times what I would in an entry level job somewhere. Longer term is a bit murky - if the US regulates poker relatively soon it should make poker much more profitable with new weaker players easily being granted access to the games. If that doesn't happen though the games will continue to get tougher as some American regs flock overseas and there just aren't as many fish to go around. Ideally if I went overseas I'd have one or two very good years and would have much more financial freedom when I came back, potentially enough to 'retire' with income from investments being enough to offset expenses.

-Personal situation - while an early twenties single guy probably is less tied down to staying, I'm married and will be 27 in a few months. I really don't have much time to go running around the world before I'd like to be settled down and start raising a family. Irishwife also has a job here in sales for a new home construction company so we'd have to leave that and the health benefits that come with it. She is pretty good at her job and would be pretty likely to get promoted to Sales Manager from Associate within a year or two. While my projected income would still probably be above that it's much harder to up and leave when you've got some good reasons to stay.

There are certainly other factors but I think these are the main two. I'm still weighing our options and hoping for some type of news, hopefully good, that will make the decision easier.

In the meantime I'm certainly keeping busy. I've been doing a lot more work around the house including cooking and yard work. When your income is xxx/hr it just doesn't make sense to do some tasks when you can pay someone else xx/hr. Now that I have so much unpaid free time mowing the lawn and looking for deals in the supermarket seem to make much more sense. Instead of losing to a 2 outer on the river, now a bad beat for me is when they advertised canned corn buy 2 get 3 free and when I get home I noticed they only gave me 1 free. So currently my shopping EV graph has me $1.50 below.

I'm glad to still be a part of Leggo and producing videos so that I can contribute somewhat to our income. The ones I've done in the past using Excel for calculations generally have gotten good reviews so I'm looking to do some cool ones like that focusing on different situations.

Given my abundance of free time I'm looking to get back into coaching. This year I've been playing primarily Rush Poker, both 6max and full ring so I think I'd be a pretty good coach for either of those for anyone playing up to 2/4. Here are my results year to date:



Again, I primarily 8 tabled Rush and I'd argue that more focus was paid on 2/4 resulting in the higher winrate than 1/2, but I suppose it could just be variance.

Anyway, I'm very flexible in my coaching style - you can check out my profile:

http://www.leggopoker.com/coaches/Irishman07/

Or feel free to send me a PM with questions.

As for now I'm looking to charge $100/hr but depending on demand and how many sessions you are looking for that could be lowered. Right now seems like Paypal would be the only payment option and I'd absorb any fees from that.

Well I think thats just about all the thoughts I have right now...back to housework and reading up on finance books in case I decide to put my degree to use!