Black Friday and DoJ Aftermath

I know this is old hat, as it happened nearly 2 months ago, but obviously the FBI/DoJ have thrown a monkey wrench into the online poker world by banning PokerStars, FullTilt and Absolute Poker in the US (and shame on you if you play at Absolute anyway).  Now, this sucks but isn't a big big deal for a casual part time player as myself, but this must really blow for the pros who make a living doing this.  In case you live under a rock and don't know what happened, go to twoplustwo.com and read up.

I started this blog to document my bankroll builder project and my progress.  Now since I can't play on the "grinder" sites, I was faced with 2 decisions.  Quitting or continuing and I chose to continue.  Last year I started with $50 and grinded (ground? lol) up to $157.16 (peaked at $181!) on Stars playing $2NL.  Black Friday happened maybe a few weeks after graduating to $5NL.  So this blog will still be a bankroll builder/manager blog geared torwards guys like me.  I have a regular job, a wife and daughter whom I love very much and generally very little time to play.  A fulltime player could do what I'm doing in a few months, but since I'm only able to play when my life dictates, it takes longer.  No biggie! 

Where do we go from here?  Well I cashed out my stars bankroll and am taking a month or so off to study up some more (Thanks Melissa & Nick for the books!) and research some new sites that allow US players (stars/ftp are accused of bank fraud and money laundering, which is why they're in trouble, has nothing to do with online poker legality).  The new direction from here will be grinding something out of nothing using bankroll management AND taking advantage of rakeback.  We're gonna be "bonus whoring" from site to site and build a bankroll out of nothing!  Now, the $157 from stars has been cashed out and I'm gonna put aside a little bit of money of my own (wouldve won it on stars eventually but oh well...) in order to deposit $250 on a smaller site.  $250 will bankroll me for $10NL which will be my new starting point.  Right now, some options are Bodog (no rakeback = no JonnyMoss..sorry), Cake Poker (33% rakeback and 110% depo bonus up to $600), Celsino (40%RB and 300% bonus up to $500), Minted (40%RB and 200% bonus up to $1000) and others like Carbon, Lock and True Poker all with their own rakeback offers and deposit bonuses. 

I created an account on Cake but haven't deposited yet.  Instead I had a friend ship me $5 to try it out.  The games are incredibly soft and fishy, but theres very little traffic so dont expect to 6 table cash or SNGs and don't expect MTTs to have 5000+ people (10cent rebuy only gets like 100-120 ppl...), but this is the aftermath of the DoJ/Black Friday happening and we as poker players simply have to adjust just like we have to adjust AT the tables.  I'll be sure to post again when I make my first deposit on a new site and then the project is back on!

One last thing, I changed my online handle from pwnurfaceoff (funny years ago, just lame now) to my real name and also that of a poker legend, Johnny Moss.  So JonnyMoss is now the name I use on Cake Poker as well as any other new account I may open up.  See you at the tables!