I want to comment on everyone's questions about what to do now that the main online poker sites have been seized by the government.  "Should we take our money off?"  "When will we be able to play again?"  "What are you going to do as a professional?" "Will we ever be able to play on Pokerstars again?"  All these questions are good ones, but I have no idea what the right answers are.  I can only speculate, but I want to be very informed on the situation before I ever give advice.

I'd like to take this space to just discuss how this has affected me personally, and just hope it's relatable.  At 21 year olds, I decided to give poker a whirl instead of pursuing a professional job.  I finished school as quickly as I could, never traveling anywhere.  I came out of college with a Master's Degree, but no life experience to back things up.

That's where poker came in.  Through poker, I've had the ability to travel to places I never would have otherwise.  I've also met people from every walk of life, which is quite an experience when you're from a white middle-class household on Long Island.  I walk around most live events with one of my best friends, Mohsin – who is a 5'4 Muslim from the Middle East that barely moves the scale when he steps on it. I'm a 6'0 210 pound Jewish kid.  How much more ethnic diversity do you want?

I originally went to school with the intentions of being a neurologist.  I did well in my classes, but I wasn't passionate about it in the least.  The only thing that got me really excited was poker.  It was one of the few jobs where my hard work paid off and I didn't feel like I was buried under a corporation working eighty hours a week to make a miniscule salary while sleeping in my office. 

The decision for me to pick poker over any other profession was not that easy for my friends and family, though.  The stigma attached to poker is not a good one, as people sometimes confuse the skill level with that of roulette or any other casino games.  Westerns showing people being shot and cheating hasn't helped, either.  It took lots of results and discussion to get them on my side, and now that is all being questioned again because the sites I have played on for over seven years are being charged with extortion, fraud, and all types of law jargon that I don't understand.  The only thing I do know is that whatever has happened has certainly raised doubt in people that were once behind me. 

I had plans on buying a house, getting married, and finally planting my roots in the next two years.  Now I have to think about going to foreign country just because I can't play a game that has given so much to me.  This seizure by the DOJ has potentially resulted in me and many of my peers having to uproot their families.  My future plans are very unclear.

I've written, started a training site, done private tutoring, and given life advice to tons of people.  All of these things have revolved around poker, and I don't have that anymore.  I really hope this is a temporary thing, because Canada is pretty damn cold.

Five days later.., 10.0 out of 10 based on 4 ratings Comments