Oskar Silow

OMG! More Alfredo-players in poker please!!

I’ve played poker for almost 7 years now. I’m gonna reflect about that in another blog, but today I’d like to discuss the fee us poker players pay for enjoying online poker.

During my almost 7 years on the online felt, I’ve raked between $3-20k/month.  I’d guess that the average it’s somewhere around $6k. That would mean that I’ve paid almost $500k to play online poker the last 7 years. The month I’ve played the most I’ve raked and paid $20k, in one month!!! Is this an acceptable amount?

To play poker online is really not that expensive for the network. Sure; support, money handling, marketing and software development cost money, but is it reasonable that I pay for 2-3 full time empoyees per month myself? Unlike land based casinos, online casinos have less staff and less rent to pay. The rake on the other hand is not that much lower, if lower at all.

The networks are responsible for the situation, not the sites themselves. The networks have structured the way a poker site pays for its turnover so that they pay a certain % to the networks for using their platform. Everything is of course designed to make as much money as possible.

So what’s the alternative? Personally I think that there should be a maximum amount for how much one player can pay to one site to play poker in one month. The amount can be discussed, but I think $2k is resonable. One alternative could be that one player paid a fixed amount to a site every month to play, but this system would be unfair to the recreational players.

Are there other options out there? If you have one please share it with me, cause I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. One thing however is for sure, no poker player will ever be the biggest winner in the business.

The network owners enjoy our money

Pic from here

Nobody has seen him around since January last year. One rumor suggested he was in Macau playing high stakes and another that he was hiding after what happend on Black Friday. Yesterday he made another huge mark in the poker world, I’m of course talking about Phil Ivey.

I’m almost certain that no other player comes close to Ivey’s status as a legend in poker. Every since he owned Paul Jackson in Monte Carlo Millions a few years ago he’s been the man. Sure some say Doyle has the same legend status, but not really close huh? Sure, Stu Ungar is the biggest legend in poker, with the same legend status as Elvis, according to some. But you must not forget that when he was aroudn the poker world was smaller, a lot smaller.

Phil Ivey has been crushing all games since he started sneaking in to casinos in Atlantic City as Jerome with his fake ID for about 20 years ago. During the poker boom his poker wits grew fast than the number of players coming into poker. Yesterday he once again prooved his is the man.

After beeing away from tournament poker for almost a year Phil Ivey came in 12th in the Aussie Millions main event. After busting he didn’t do what most would do and tilt away the winning playing online, instead he bought into the super high roller for $250k and won!

Even the stone faced poker Jedi gave us a smile. It was, after all, his biggest tournament score ever.

Let’s just hope that the Full Tilt scandal gets sorted so that we can keep one “honest” superstar around.

Had enough winter? From today 5050 gives its players a chance to spend 10 March - 8 April in an exclusive villa in Phuket in Thailand. The first 8 player who sign up and rake €5k på 5050poker get’s a seat in the house. All players, new and old, are welcome to participate. Of course this wont affect your rakeback. E-mail me if you have questions: oskar@5050poker.com

More abour the Thai-promo here shortly.

The house

The Beach

Good luck

With the hope that 2012 will be a year of running over ev, I thank you for this year, dear readers and wish you all a Happy New Year!