So, it's been a very long time since I last wrote in here. In that time the financial disaster I saw coming happened. Then I got laid off. More about that later. I was out of work for almost 15 months when an old acquaintance called me out of the blue and had me come in to talk about what was happening at his company, which was (more about the use of past tense later also) a competitor of my last company. Well, long story made short, I caught on there and three and a half years later got laid off again. So now I'm once again unemployed. That's where I am now. Here's how I got there.
I said that I saw a shitstorm coming back in December 2008. Lehman had already collapsed, as did Bear Stearns. Bernie Madoff got caught looting his customer accounts. Those were prime examples of creative accounting, ineffectual auditing (or actual collusion) by outside auditors, and loose oversight by regulators. But then again don't blame the regulators*. After all they are underfunded and understaffed. I applied with the SEC years ago, but they didn't want someone who had experience in the industry that they regulate. They wanted accountants who have book learning. And accounting firms just want degreed bean counters. So there you have it. Nobody wants help from the people who actually know what the financial firms are really doing. It all gets explained away with finger pointing and money being thrown this way and that. Actually I never saw any money thrown this way, just that way and the other way. So a few hundred trillion dollars get sprayed in a bunch of directions and it pretty much got sorted out and a great deal of it got paid back.
Anyway, the next month I was laid off from the job I had when I had last posted. Job posting and job boards took up much of my time with resumes emailed and copy-pasted into databases. There were some phone interviews and a couple of face to face meetings ,but nothing much came of any of them. I didn't think much about what kind of work I wanted to be doing, just that I needed to be working. I used up a 401k, borrowed money and did what I could or knew to do to get by. Boy, time flies when all you have is time. After more than fourteen months a guy who I had worked with at a previous company called me to talk about what was happening in the department he was managing. It was a company that I had interviewed at previously and I knew he and another guy from the old company worked there. He told me what he needed me to do, what I would be paid and when I could start. It was like no other interview I had ever had. Since we had worked together before for almost ten years, he knew what I was capable of. Boom! In a couple of weeks I was working again.
This company was spun off from a larger company which wanted to concentrate on it's main business, payroll accounting. The business this company was in is software for stock brokerage firms, just like the last place I worked. This one was different (aren't they all?). There are several business units in the corporation that owned this company. The mainframe here was an old Tandem. That's right, Tandem. The company that was bought out by Compaq in 1997. Yes, Compaq, which was bought out by Hewlett Packard in 2002. So the growth of this company was held back by archaic servers that hadn't been upgraded due to management inaction. There was some movement to Itanium microprocessors, and I even wrote test plans to test data integrity, but program development would have been slow to implement due to a lack of developers' time. So that was scrapped and the decision was made to shut down this company, move most of the more lucrative clients to another business unit based in New Jersey and de-convert the rest to competitors. At least they didn't pop it on us one day and say at an all hands meeting, "OK, people, you're all fired. We'll mail you checks for the time you have coming. Bye." No, they gave us about two years notice. We who stayed on got a decent package before and after leaving, so I'm not bitter. It just sucks having to look for work again.
But while I was out of work the last time I did acquire a new skill. I went to classes at night to learn how to be a craps dealer. It's pretty involved and fun, but you spend the whole time on your feet doing math problems and pulling in or paying out chips. And you'd better be damn quick about it because the house wins most of the time and you want to keep the dice moving so the house can make more. All this for minimum wage plus tips. I did get to use the skill a couple of times. I worked at a party that a guy had where he had a craps tournament. His friends paid some amount for buy in (like a poker tournament) and got x amount of chips. The table I worked was pretty hot and a lot of payouts were made. One of the players on my side of the table was knowledgeable enough to actually help me without being cocky about it, which was nice. I made $20 for the night. TWENTY BUCKS for four hours of work. Two of my players (out of the three that cashed) won hundreds, but did they tip their dealer? No, never thought of it. Even after I congratulated them and told them they played well. The other time I used it was an audition at a casino. I was playing at a number of casinos to get to know the pit supervisors and see about getting a job there. One place had an opening which I applied for. An HR guy there called me and arranged an audition. It was at a place where I had gotten to know the supervisor a little and his personality and management style. He carried the persona of a hard ass and the tryout was difficult. He started off by acting like "one of those" players, which I expected. I was nervous as hell and, while I wasn't terrible, I wasn't very good either. I didn't get the job. I figured it was just the first one and I'll do a lot better next time. There wasn't a next time.
*There really ought to be a font specifically for sarcasm. Comic Sans would work. It combines comedy with the word sans which has the connotation of meaning without. So Comic Sans means funny not. I think that would work. I have seen it in use in business communications. It looked bad, probably because I have this prejudice, but the user continued to use it. It isn't one of the fonts allowed in this blog. Oh well.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wetdog, Wall Street, and an omission
The truth I do not stretch or shove
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I've also found, by actual test,
A wetdog is the lovingest.
Ogden Nash
Well, I'm not positive about that attribution. It came from another site , mrwetdog.com. Some guy in Missouri who trains dogs I think. I googled wetdog for the hell of it to see what was there. There's some sourceforge project that says "Use Wet Dog to lock down both Mozilla and Firefox (1 and 2) using ..." OK whatever. Then there's some chick punk trio from England, an Australian party invitation outfit, glass blowers in New Orleans, a kid's book about a dog that is wet ldo, and then my favorite. The original and the best, http://www.wetdog.com/ . I emailed the guy a couple of weeks ago, but he hasn't answered. I'll let you know if he plans to sue me or something. There's a bunch more links for wetdog but I'm sure not going to bore you with them all.
So, something about me that you don't know is that I've worked all my adult life in financial services. Most of the time I worked in the back office of brokerage firms and banks. I'm currently in IT, so I'm safe from the layoffs, but our customers are brokerage firms and banks. Now, I've been watching from the sidelines since July knowing that a massive truckload of shit was going to hit the fan. Countrywide and IndyMac were the canaries that should have told us all to get the hell out of the coal mine. It's just a solid stream of shit coming in watery clumps. Insurance companies, brokerages, banks, automakers all gagging and who's next, auto parts suppliers, retailers? I tell you what, I think I'm just going to hoard my cash for now and see what I can get in a couple of months.
It dawned on me this morning that I didn't mention something in my last post. BEER! OK the caps should make up for the omission. Oh, and one thing I will continue to consume and not hoard my cash away from is beer. There, that should make up for it.
Cheers.
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I've also found, by actual test,
A wetdog is the lovingest.
Ogden Nash
Well, I'm not positive about that attribution. It came from another site , mrwetdog.com. Some guy in Missouri who trains dogs I think. I googled wetdog for the hell of it to see what was there. There's some sourceforge project that says "Use Wet Dog to lock down both Mozilla and Firefox (1 and 2) using ..." OK whatever. Then there's some chick punk trio from England, an Australian party invitation outfit, glass blowers in New Orleans, a kid's book about a dog that is wet ldo, and then my favorite. The original and the best, http://www.wetdog.com/ . I emailed the guy a couple of weeks ago, but he hasn't answered. I'll let you know if he plans to sue me or something. There's a bunch more links for wetdog but I'm sure not going to bore you with them all.
So, something about me that you don't know is that I've worked all my adult life in financial services. Most of the time I worked in the back office of brokerage firms and banks. I'm currently in IT, so I'm safe from the layoffs, but our customers are brokerage firms and banks. Now, I've been watching from the sidelines since July knowing that a massive truckload of shit was going to hit the fan. Countrywide and IndyMac were the canaries that should have told us all to get the hell out of the coal mine. It's just a solid stream of shit coming in watery clumps. Insurance companies, brokerages, banks, automakers all gagging and who's next, auto parts suppliers, retailers? I tell you what, I think I'm just going to hoard my cash for now and see what I can get in a couple of months.
It dawned on me this morning that I didn't mention something in my last post. BEER! OK the caps should make up for the omission. Oh, and one thing I will continue to consume and not hoard my cash away from is beer. There, that should make up for it.
Cheers.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
More stupid stuff this guy endured
In my last post I gave some trip reports on some off-brand poker sites I've played at. I forgot to mention Hollywood poker. It is/was a site partially owned by Vince Van Patten and James Woods. Man, was that a piece of work. Here's a portion of a post I made at denverpoker.com back in August 2006:
"Tonight I was playing on this godawful site, an Ongame skin, that is like a cross between Party and Bodog as far as the "feel" of the site. I was in the big blind with KK. One player raises all-in for almost 7xBB. Action comes to me and the site FOLDS MY HAND! I didn't even have my hand on the mouse and I get folded. What a piece of excrement. Of course I sent an instant letter of protest to support, which is surprisingly good, their support that is."
"Here's their lame response:
Nice.
Translation: We stole your money because our software is lame. To make it up to you, we'll keep your money and let you play in a freeroll tourney that we give tickets away anyway to to noobs who deposit money with us. That way we can steal it from you again."
I was pretty tilted back then about that. Here's another misadventure I alluded to in my last posting. I posted this in pokerincolorado last May:
So I got this thing in the mail back in April from Odds Maker Poker. I figured wtf, so I tried it. Funny thing is, you have to fund the account in euros, minimum 50 EUR. So on 5/3 I fund the account, which cost around $77 at 1.54jhngbutt(something) dollars per euro. So I donk around a bit. The players are bad and suckouts reign. I keep most of the money in the cashier account, which is in euros because they also have a casino with blackjack and slots and all that shit, because the dollar is sinking like a stone and maybe I can make a few bucks off the war. So on tilt last night I donk off a buyin at .05/.10 NL and request a transfer from the cashier account, which is in euros, to the poker account, which is in dollars, of 10 euros (about $15.40). It says the transfer went thru but it doesn't show up in the poker client. I get on the live chat with customer service and the following ensues:
Chat Information Please wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat Information You are now chatting with 'Jeffrey'
Wetdog130: hi Jeffrey
Jeffrey: Welcome to Customer Service. How may I help you today?
Wetdog130: how long does a transfer take from cashier account to poker account?
Jeffrey: may i have your first and last name please
Wetdog130: Xxxxx Xxxx
Jeffrey: may i have your valid address please
Wetdog130: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(after 5 minutes passes)
Wetdog130: will u answer my question now?
Jeffrey: One moment please.
Jeffrey: Please wait while I check your account..
Wetdog130: its not a hard question
Wetdog130: apparently it takes a very long time
(5 more minutes expires)
Jeffrey: Since you have made a deposit, our security department has to confirm if the card you used is indeed yours...if not then they need to acquire authorization from the owner of the card. Thus, a verification procedure is conducted. Our security department contacts the card owner’s Card Company or bank. Please be reminded that our security department works during banking hours. So the ideal timeframe for verification is 24 hours.They may also require you to provide additional documents for the verification process.
Wetdog130: the deposit was on 3 May. does it take a month?
Jeffrey: One moment please.
Jeffrey: im still checking your account
(a few more minutes go by)
Wetdog130: still checking?
(a few more minutes)
Jeffrey: yes
Wetdog130: are u there?
Wetdog130: this service really sucks
Jeffrey: im still here
(a couple more - I'm really tilting now)
Wetdog130: put your superior on
(more time)
Wetdog130: let me chat with your superior
Jeffrey: may i have your old address please
Wetdog130: why? i don't have an old address
Jeffrey: ok
Jeffrey: may i have your username
Wetdog130: just put your superior on the chat please
Wetdog130: Wetdog13
Wetdog130: who is your superior? i want a name
Jeffrey: One moment please.
(tick tock)
Jeffrey: yes, we need to verify first your account, just kindly wait for 24 hours to verify your account, because as of the moment we cannot verify it due to the reason that today is weekend and the bank is closed.
Jeffrey: One moment please.
Wetdog130: its thursday here, dunce
Jeffrey: all you have to do now is to log in to your cashier account
Jeffrey: the money is already in your poker account
Wetdog130: i am in the game client and it is not there
Jeffrey: kindly please log out and log back in to your poker account
Jeffrey: Would there be anything else that I can help you with?
Wetdog130: you will give me your superior's name immediately
Jeffrey: im sorry but there is no available superior
Wetdog130: all there are is inferiors. no matter. what is the name of your superior who is not available?
Jeffrey: Would there be anything else that I can help you with?
Wetdog130: answer my last question
Jeffrey: Would there be anything else that I can help you with?
(I check the account)
Wetdog130: so you transferred my whole balance. that is not what i wanted. i only wanted a transfer of 10 eur.
No more chat from Jeffrey, or Srinivas, or whatever the fuck his name really is.
<---Nat Arem has a new site called pokerterms.com where he defines some common and not-so-common words and phrases relating to poker. One of the terms is "Retarded Poker Sites." He invites people to submit proof of mental deficiency at the places where we get our gambool on. I think I'll submit this one.
"Tonight I was playing on this godawful site, an Ongame skin, that is like a cross between Party and Bodog as far as the "feel" of the site. I was in the big blind with KK. One player raises all-in for almost 7xBB. Action comes to me and the site FOLDS MY HAND! I didn't even have my hand on the mouse and I get folded. What a piece of excrement. Of course I sent an instant letter of protest to support, which is surprisingly good, their support that is."
"Here's their lame response:
Quote:
| Hi Wetdog_13, Thank you for contacting Hollywood Poker support. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience caused. I have looked at the hand played and I see you lost $1.50 on the hand played. I have credited a Bonner Ave ticket into your account which is valued at $2.25 and please accept our sincerest apologies in regards to this matter. Should you have any further queries, do not hesitate to contact us. Regards, Jeremy Customer Loyalty Specialist |
Translation: We stole your money because our software is lame. To make it up to you, we'll keep your money and let you play in a freeroll tourney that we give tickets away anyway to to noobs who deposit money with us. That way we can steal it from you again."
I was pretty tilted back then about that. Here's another misadventure I alluded to in my last posting. I posted this in pokerincolorado last May:
So I got this thing in the mail back in April from Odds Maker Poker. I figured wtf, so I tried it. Funny thing is, you have to fund the account in euros, minimum 50 EUR. So on 5/3 I fund the account, which cost around $77 at 1.54jhngbutt(something) dollars per euro. So I donk around a bit. The players are bad and suckouts reign. I keep most of the money in the cashier account, which is in euros because they also have a casino with blackjack and slots and all that shit, because the dollar is sinking like a stone and maybe I can make a few bucks off the war. So on tilt last night I donk off a buyin at .05/.10 NL and request a transfer from the cashier account, which is in euros, to the poker account, which is in dollars, of 10 euros (about $15.40). It says the transfer went thru but it doesn't show up in the poker client. I get on the live chat with customer service and the following ensues:
Chat Information Please wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat Information You are now chatting with 'Jeffrey'
Wetdog130: hi Jeffrey
Jeffrey: Welcome to Customer Service. How may I help you today?
Wetdog130: how long does a transfer take from cashier account to poker account?
Jeffrey: may i have your first and last name please
Wetdog130: Xxxxx Xxxx
Jeffrey: may i have your valid address please
Wetdog130: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(after 5 minutes passes)
Wetdog130: will u answer my question now?
Jeffrey: One moment please.
Jeffrey: Please wait while I check your account..
Wetdog130: its not a hard question
Wetdog130: apparently it takes a very long time
(5 more minutes expires)
Jeffrey: Since you have made a deposit, our security department has to confirm if the card you used is indeed yours...if not then they need to acquire authorization from the owner of the card. Thus, a verification procedure is conducted. Our security department contacts the card owner’s Card Company or bank. Please be reminded that our security department works during banking hours. So the ideal timeframe for verification is 24 hours.They may also require you to provide additional documents for the verification process.
Wetdog130: the deposit was on 3 May. does it take a month?
Jeffrey: One moment please.
Jeffrey: im still checking your account
(a few more minutes go by)
Wetdog130: still checking?
(a few more minutes)
Jeffrey: yes
Wetdog130: are u there?
Wetdog130: this service really sucks
Jeffrey: im still here
(a couple more - I'm really tilting now)
Wetdog130: put your superior on
(more time)
Wetdog130: let me chat with your superior
Jeffrey: may i have your old address please
Wetdog130: why? i don't have an old address
Jeffrey: ok
Jeffrey: may i have your username
Wetdog130: just put your superior on the chat please
Wetdog130: Wetdog13
Wetdog130: who is your superior? i want a name
Jeffrey: One moment please.
(tick tock)
Jeffrey: yes, we need to verify first your account, just kindly wait for 24 hours to verify your account, because as of the moment we cannot verify it due to the reason that today is weekend and the bank is closed.
Jeffrey: One moment please.
Wetdog130: its thursday here, dunce
Jeffrey: all you have to do now is to log in to your cashier account
Jeffrey: the money is already in your poker account
Wetdog130: i am in the game client and it is not there
Jeffrey: kindly please log out and log back in to your poker account
Jeffrey: Would there be anything else that I can help you with?
Wetdog130: you will give me your superior's name immediately
Jeffrey: im sorry but there is no available superior
Wetdog130: all there are is inferiors. no matter. what is the name of your superior who is not available?
Jeffrey: Would there be anything else that I can help you with?
Wetdog130: answer my last question
Jeffrey: Would there be anything else that I can help you with?
(I check the account)
Wetdog130: so you transferred my whole balance. that is not what i wanted. i only wanted a transfer of 10 eur.
No more chat from Jeffrey, or Srinivas, or whatever the fuck his name really is.
<---Nat Arem has a new site called pokerterms.com where he defines some common and not-so-common words and phrases relating to poker. One of the terms is "Retarded Poker Sites." He invites people to submit proof of mental deficiency at the places where we get our gambool on. I think I'll submit this one.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
More from THIS guy
Warning: This is way tl:dr
So you're still with me? Alrighty then. I thought I'd write about the sites I've played at. I'll let you know if there's any litigation.
The first site I played at was Full Tilt. I was watching the WSOP for the first time (the year Moneymaker won -2003) and saw Chris Ferguson and Mike Matusow wearing FTP jackets and shirts and stuff. So I googled it and read what others thought about it. It had just opened for cash games (was free chip beta at first) and most thought it was a fun thing. I only saw one "ZOMFG RIGGED!" post so I thought about it for a week. I watched another WSOP episode and took note of the other site advertising hats and shirts. I dunno why, I guess it was Ivey, Ferguson and all those other guys that made me feel cool that I was playing on their site. So, that's where I signed up first. My first post says what happened after that, at least there. I chanced to meet Phil Gordon in November of that year at some promotional thing he was doing for Seagrams. We had traded some emails about FTP and he told me he was going to be in town and he got me a VIP pass. He was cool. Rafe Furst was with him and he was cool as well.
While railing a table Howard Lederer was at, I asked him about poker books. He recommended Sklansky"s "Theory of Poker." I immediately ordered it on Amazon as well as "Holdem Poker for Advanced Players." Wow, I knew after reading TOP that I didn't know shit about holdem. They advertised on the back cover that they had a forum called twoplustwo.com. So I took a look in there and found out that I really didn't know jack shit nuthin' about holdem. So I read the forums and played (and lost, but not so much), and investigated other sites.
A poster called Granny Mae had an affiliate deal where you could get an easily cleared 100% up to $100 bonus through Paradise Poker. I signed up and deposited a hundo and cleared the bonus in no time, which was good because I was still losing, learning and having fun. They had lots of bonii offers, so I kept depositing (I had opened a Neteller account by then), withdrawing, putting money back in FTP, clearing bonii, withdrawing, playing and becoming a poker degenerate.
I got an email from Bodog saying they'd give me a signup bonus. After a week I requested a withdrawal. They told me I hadn't earned the bonus yet, so why don't I stay. I told them they could keep their stinking bonus, I hated their site. The background made me feel like I was in a stainless steel room, the sound effects of chips going in sounded exactly like a ratchet wrench and I felt greasy playing there. I liked the island feeling of Paradise. They thanked me for my feedback and sent me a t-shirt! I still wear that shirt.
Oh yeah, I'd almost forgotten: A friend who owned a site called Aloha Poker gave me $10 to play there if I opened an account. I guess I was kind of like a shill helping to keep tables open. I deposited some of my money also, but I sucked pretty bad and lost it all and didn't go back because the traffic was pretty low. My friend wanted me to prop there, but I really didn't want to. End of that story.
So I bounced around between FTP and Dise and actually started building a roll. I heard the games were uber loose on Party Poker. So I made a deposit when they offered a bonus. Funny thing about that site; I could never ever win there. Ever. So I cleared the bonus and put what money was left in Neteller.
I also withdrew from Dise and started up with Poker Stars. I left a little money with Dise and some with Full Tilt. I really like Stars. Lots of tourneys, lots of ring games, wider limits from pennies to 100s of dollars. My wife, who was playing free chips on FTP decided that she wanted to try the low buyin tournaments on FTP. You can see when that happened if you do a sharkscope. I left some money on Neteller, about $150.
So I'm playing $4/180s and $5/18s on Stars and doing ok, tyvm, when UIGEA happened. My bank stopped sending money to FTP to keep the Mrs Wetdog cash hemmorage going. FTP does some software upgrade or some such shit and she can no longer log in to Tilt, which is just as well since Neteller got frozen as well. Feckin feds and their Talibaptist regime. So, we share the Stars account and I start running colder than the beer I'm drinking more of each day. (I was wondering when I'd mention beer, weren't you?) You can see when that happened if you do a sharkscope.
By the way, I kind of like having sharkscope keep track of our joint accounts. Bullies think I ran hot and then sucked. They tell me about it all the time. You can tell when it's my wife playing. She's the one folding her way to the bubble.
Anyway, I thought I'd try some other sites, as long as my wife is killing my charts. So I try PurePlay Poker. It's a subscription site where you pay $19.95 a month and play as much as you like. Outside of free bar poker, it's the home of the biggest donkey poker you've ever seen. I tried it for about 4 months, since a friend referred me and he got a $50 bonus if I played (or paid) for 3. Jebus that was an excruciating time. After I cancelled the subscription (and had to do around 5 emails and have the bank finally refuse it) I went back to Stars. I think my skills Purely rotted away. But I was happy to play with some decent fish for a change.
Oddsmaker was the next trial. A pure waste of time. Dead games, dead tournies, and a support staff from Mumbai or somewhere who thought that the banks were closed for the weekend on Wednesday. It was interesting that you held your funds in an account that was denominated in Euros. Good thing I got my money out of there before the banking crisis brought the Euro down from $1.69 to $1.25. Cashout was fairly quick though.
The next and final trial was World Poker Exchange. 65% rakeback was the big selling point there. That and soft $1 and $3 tourneys. I managed to make some money there, but when they changed the tourneys to guarantees (with no overlay, else they were cancelled - lol some guarantee) I cashed out. It took a month and a half to get my money, but it finally did come.
Meanwhile FTP does another software doingdoing. I uninstall the old stuff and do a new download. Huzzah! It finally works. I have about $6 that my wife had left behind. My other bank allows a deposit and I'm playing again, now on FTP. My wife is still on Stars, so I now have the bad razz, stud and horse players to myself.
Cliff notes: I suck at poker on about 10^23 sites.
So you're still with me? Alrighty then. I thought I'd write about the sites I've played at. I'll let you know if there's any litigation.
The first site I played at was Full Tilt. I was watching the WSOP for the first time (the year Moneymaker won -2003) and saw Chris Ferguson and Mike Matusow wearing FTP jackets and shirts and stuff. So I googled it and read what others thought about it. It had just opened for cash games (was free chip beta at first) and most thought it was a fun thing. I only saw one "ZOMFG RIGGED!" post so I thought about it for a week. I watched another WSOP episode and took note of the other site advertising hats and shirts. I dunno why, I guess it was Ivey, Ferguson and all those other guys that made me feel cool that I was playing on their site. So, that's where I signed up first. My first post says what happened after that, at least there. I chanced to meet Phil Gordon in November of that year at some promotional thing he was doing for Seagrams. We had traded some emails about FTP and he told me he was going to be in town and he got me a VIP pass. He was cool. Rafe Furst was with him and he was cool as well.
While railing a table Howard Lederer was at, I asked him about poker books. He recommended Sklansky"s "Theory of Poker." I immediately ordered it on Amazon as well as "Holdem Poker for Advanced Players." Wow, I knew after reading TOP that I didn't know shit about holdem. They advertised on the back cover that they had a forum called twoplustwo.com. So I took a look in there and found out that I really didn't know jack shit nuthin' about holdem. So I read the forums and played (and lost, but not so much), and investigated other sites.
A poster called Granny Mae had an affiliate deal where you could get an easily cleared 100% up to $100 bonus through Paradise Poker. I signed up and deposited a hundo and cleared the bonus in no time, which was good because I was still losing, learning and having fun. They had lots of bonii offers, so I kept depositing (I had opened a Neteller account by then), withdrawing, putting money back in FTP, clearing bonii, withdrawing, playing and becoming a poker degenerate.
I got an email from Bodog saying they'd give me a signup bonus. After a week I requested a withdrawal. They told me I hadn't earned the bonus yet, so why don't I stay. I told them they could keep their stinking bonus, I hated their site. The background made me feel like I was in a stainless steel room, the sound effects of chips going in sounded exactly like a ratchet wrench and I felt greasy playing there. I liked the island feeling of Paradise. They thanked me for my feedback and sent me a t-shirt! I still wear that shirt.
Oh yeah, I'd almost forgotten: A friend who owned a site called Aloha Poker gave me $10 to play there if I opened an account. I guess I was kind of like a shill helping to keep tables open. I deposited some of my money also, but I sucked pretty bad and lost it all and didn't go back because the traffic was pretty low. My friend wanted me to prop there, but I really didn't want to. End of that story.
So I bounced around between FTP and Dise and actually started building a roll. I heard the games were uber loose on Party Poker. So I made a deposit when they offered a bonus. Funny thing about that site; I could never ever win there. Ever. So I cleared the bonus and put what money was left in Neteller.
I also withdrew from Dise and started up with Poker Stars. I left a little money with Dise and some with Full Tilt. I really like Stars. Lots of tourneys, lots of ring games, wider limits from pennies to 100s of dollars. My wife, who was playing free chips on FTP decided that she wanted to try the low buyin tournaments on FTP. You can see when that happened if you do a sharkscope. I left some money on Neteller, about $150.
So I'm playing $4/180s and $5/18s on Stars and doing ok, tyvm, when UIGEA happened. My bank stopped sending money to FTP to keep the Mrs Wetdog cash hemmorage going. FTP does some software upgrade or some such shit and she can no longer log in to Tilt, which is just as well since Neteller got frozen as well. Feckin feds and their Talibaptist regime. So, we share the Stars account and I start running colder than the beer I'm drinking more of each day. (I was wondering when I'd mention beer, weren't you?) You can see when that happened if you do a sharkscope.
By the way, I kind of like having sharkscope keep track of our joint accounts. Bullies think I ran hot and then sucked. They tell me about it all the time. You can tell when it's my wife playing. She's the one folding her way to the bubble.
Anyway, I thought I'd try some other sites, as long as my wife is killing my charts. So I try PurePlay Poker. It's a subscription site where you pay $19.95 a month and play as much as you like. Outside of free bar poker, it's the home of the biggest donkey poker you've ever seen. I tried it for about 4 months, since a friend referred me and he got a $50 bonus if I played (or paid) for 3. Jebus that was an excruciating time. After I cancelled the subscription (and had to do around 5 emails and have the bank finally refuse it) I went back to Stars. I think my skills Purely rotted away. But I was happy to play with some decent fish for a change.
Oddsmaker was the next trial. A pure waste of time. Dead games, dead tournies, and a support staff from Mumbai or somewhere who thought that the banks were closed for the weekend on Wednesday. It was interesting that you held your funds in an account that was denominated in Euros. Good thing I got my money out of there before the banking crisis brought the Euro down from $1.69 to $1.25. Cashout was fairly quick though.
The next and final trial was World Poker Exchange. 65% rakeback was the big selling point there. That and soft $1 and $3 tourneys. I managed to make some money there, but when they changed the tourneys to guarantees (with no overlay, else they were cancelled - lol some guarantee) I cashed out. It took a month and a half to get my money, but it finally did come.
Meanwhile FTP does another software doingdoing. I uninstall the old stuff and do a new download. Huzzah! It finally works. I have about $6 that my wife had left behind. My other bank allows a deposit and I'm playing again, now on FTP. My wife is still on Stars, so I now have the bad razz, stud and horse players to myself.
Cliff notes: I suck at poker on about 10^23 sites.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Who is THIS guy?
I'm nobody, really. I've been playing online recreationally for over 5 years under the screen name of Wetdog or Wetdog13 or some variation of that. I started out at Full Tilt (lol no rakeback FTL), playing free chips at first. The first night I lost my whole 1000 starting stack. I got 1000 more and inside of a week I ran it up to over 32,000. I thought, "This is easy," so I put my first $50 in. Two weeks later I put in another $50. Just as that 2nd fifty was getting eaten like a milk bone in a dog pound, I cleared the signup bonus. So, to throw a fishing (apropos) analogy on top of a dog one (also fitting), I was hooked.
I remember my first royal flush. It was about 3 months after I started playing online. Playing $10 PL QThh flopped AKJhhh. I won all of $1.60 and half of that was my money! Three months later I caught another one. I won a bit more that time. Three months later I catch yet another one. Happily I was playing against another flush and a full house, so that chipped me up pretty good. I'm still waiting for the next one.
I play some bar poker here in the Denver area, which gets me out of the house on the weekends. Fun people playing donkey poker and drinking beer. Good times. Nights I'm not doing that I'm watching sports or movies, followed by online poker and of course, beer. More later, since I'm playing right now and if I can figure out how to get back in here lol.
I remember my first royal flush. It was about 3 months after I started playing online. Playing $10 PL QThh flopped AKJhhh. I won all of $1.60 and half of that was my money! Three months later I caught another one. I won a bit more that time. Three months later I catch yet another one. Happily I was playing against another flush and a full house, so that chipped me up pretty good. I'm still waiting for the next one.
I play some bar poker here in the Denver area, which gets me out of the house on the weekends. Fun people playing donkey poker and drinking beer. Good times. Nights I'm not doing that I'm watching sports or movies, followed by online poker and of course, beer. More later, since I'm playing right now and if I can figure out how to get back in here lol.
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