I'm Not Supposed to Be This Excited, But I Am
I am having trouble containing my excitement. As I mentioned in previous posts, tomorrow I will host my first home game since about ten years and two months ago. I have very fond memories of my wonderful college games, and then my post-college games when I lived for two years afterwards nearby all my old college poker regulars. I never got a game going in Cincinnati, and in Boston I played River Street, which was a Greg's home-game-turned-club, but because of that never saw the need to start my own game when just about everyone in the local Boston poker scene played at Greg's game.
I love hosting. I like making the onion dip, which I hope will be the same hit it was with my old Baltimore crowd. More than that, I love the idea of playing the game with people in a social setting where it's a little bit about competition, but also about being friendly and enjoying our beloved game together.
I am even more excited now that, even though I need to borrow a table as a backup plan, that my table's delivery is scheduled for the day of the game. [Update: they just called to reschedule delivery because it didn't arrive at the depot on time. Oh well, we'll have it next week.] Logistically, it's not totally optimal, but it will be somewhat cool to have the delivery men arrive and set up a brand spanking new table for us to switch to. Of course, if I get really lucky, the table will arrive at the beginning of the delivery window, before the players arrive. If that happens, I won't even mind that tonight I will have had to lug the loaner table (graciously provided by the wonderful Dawn Summers of ihadouts) across NYC in a cab.
For those who want a sneak peak at the new table, you can find it here, although I ordered green, not the burgundy shown.
I have to admit, if my home game excitement wasn't so strong, I'd be pretty downtrodden about the state of poker. I've gotten email after email from the affiliate managers or from the sites saying that they plan to stop accepting players in the USA. It seems that of the large sites, PokerStars and Full Tilt are holding on tight to staying open. But, although perhaps it's a bit alarmist, I am worried that the games may never be the same.
I logged onto Full Tilt for a couple of hours last night, and was very concerned by what I saw. More games than usual for a Thursday night (Eastern US time) were going, and a few seemed like good tables. But, when I got seats in some $1/$2 and $2/$4 NL HE games, I saw something that really concerned me. Namely, the shark-to-fish ratio is way off balance.
Usually, when you come on a site, if you see a username you've never seen before (which, as recently as a few weeks ago, was more the norm than the exception), the player is typically not that good. This time, I saw a whole host of new usernames, but the players were strong. I'm not saying they were particularly good, but they were solid. They were playing reasonable starting hands, and they weren't getting trapped paying off with one pair after the flop when beat. Sure, these players had some weaknesses, but I could see clearly that they wouldn't be easy to exploit.
I'm hoping it was a bad night. I'm hoping it was a fluke. But, it could very well be that the confusion of which poker rooms are still open, and the general media coverage that isn't being too clear about what the bill actually says may easily be scaring away the casual player already, even on sites that continue to accept US action.
When I mix this with the dangers of robberies around the NYC clubs, I am beginning to return to first principles. I used to be only a home game player; maybe I should be again. As far as playing with any regularity, that may be the only option for the car-less New Yorker who doesn't like Greyhound.
Anyway, I'll put all these thoughts aside and focus on the excitement of SIF@HOME!