Have you hugged your online poker player today?

April 15th..
A day that normally makes a person pucker a wee-bit, but with the 3 day extension, Tax Day was April 18th..
So one would think, that April 15th would be a day that would slide by with no fan-fare.. But Uncle Sam and the Dept. of Justice had other plans.

Black Friday.. as the poker industry will herald it from this point forward.. More inportantly the Online Poker industry.. The 'Big 3' internet poker sights were shut down friday afternoon. (Poker Stars, Full Tilt, and UB), now i guess sayin they were shut down might be a bit off.. you can still download the software and play as many tables of 'funny money' Hold-em or PLO as you like you just cant wager one REAL cent in the states.. PERIOD.

So that might not seem like a big deal.. BUT>
There are thousands of people who make their living multi-table'ing, ring games, or sit-n-go's, hours a day, thousands upon thousands of hands.. daily. 7 days a week. Several individuals that I know in Big Beautiful Butte, MT do..So i can only imagine the number of people that i Dont know, who do.. So the loss of 'work' is bad, but the REAL sticking point across the board is the DOJ not only shut down the games.. they also Froze EVERY dollar on those sites.. every digital cent, from the new player who just deposited 50 bucks.. to the grinder who might be in for a couple of grand.. to people like Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey and Patrick Antonius.. whom im actually AFRAID to know how much they have locked up.

For the non-gambler, those people who dont tivo High stakes poker, or watch Vids online of HUGE hands, the 3 guys i mentioned are 3 of the Biggest Sharks in the online (and live) game.. Patrick has won a single pot worth $878,000 online.. Eight HUNDRED and eighty THOUSANDS dollars.. REAL money.. that was in 2009.

 In the past calendar year the biggest single pot online, was 635,000 dolla. Out of the top 10 biggest pots this past year, 7 of them involve those 3 guys.. and if i add Ziggy, (a finnish player) and Phil Galfond ( a guy who installed a stainless steel slide to link his 2 NYC apartments),.. those 5 guys were involved in 10 hands of poker that totaled 4.5 million dollars... changing hands.. Real money. not tournament money.. not monopoly money....
i wonder how many boxes of monopoly you'd need...

so try and imagine the bankrolls those guys have online.. now frozen.

Now if you watch High stakes, or have read any of the books about the biggest games ever, you know that there are bigger games, and bigger hands live.. but the key is , in live games Uncle Sam gets his cut. If you cash out in Bobby's room at the Belagio, you can pay your taxes there (if its over 10k), or you can wait.. BUT Uncle Sam gets his..either way. Uncle Sam was NOT getting his from the off shore, online sites. And that is what the DOJ is out to change.. reading Tweets, blogs and articles from some of the big players, none seem to be to worried about losing their online bankrolls, most feel they'll get it all back.. But the question is when, some feel it could be a year.. maybe more. I just wonder what is going to happen to the game in that time.. will poker rooms start to pop up again.. or will the 'sport' go the way of the WNBA.. Either way im now looking for a few good home games.. Holdem, PLO, and i'm always willing to straddle..

-p-