Neteller and US players

Well the Neteller announcement is more trouble for US players. That sucks. Things had stabilized after PartyPoker and Paradise exited the US market, as Stars, Full Tilt and others picked up the slack. I didn't get the impression that a lot of people quit playing over it. Now things are even more discouraging and difficult for US players. This could really put a dent in the casual US play, leaving behind only experts.

I feel bad for the Americans. The US players are just regular folks, truck drivers, dentists, pharmacists, accountants, grad students, etc. It doesn't hurt anyone else if someone wants to play in a $10 online tournament with his own money or put in $50-$100 a couple of times a month on weekends playing $25 NL. I've grouched about it before but it's an American issue so what can I say about it here in Canada.

It does affect me though if large numbers of Americans quit playing voluntarily or by decree. It's not that Americans are worse players than anyone else. Every country has bad players and good players. It's that the Americans are most of the player base. Without them the site loses its critical mass and becomes unplayable.

The reason a large player base is important is to limit the effectiveness of the multi tabling sharks and ensure that there will more likely be good tables to play. If a site has say 6 $0.25/$0.50 limit tables open when I'm playing, then a strong player could easily be playing on all six at the same time. If there are 4-5 such players then the all tables at that level will be rocky. This will drive out and bust the profitable bad players. There would be no way to avoid them except to move down to lower levels.

So hopefully the US players will somehow be able to keep playing. It does get worse all the time for them though.

Stacking off with overpair in NL

I was lucky not to get stacked on this hand. I made a mistake of being willing to go bust with an overpair. Over on 2+2, this is considered bad style.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (7 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com (Format: Plain Text)

Button ($3.04)
SB ($3.04)
BB ($0.89)
Hero ($0.98)
MP1 ($2.98)
MP2 ($1.28)
CO ($8.07)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Tc, Td.
Hero raises to $0.08, 2 folds, CO calls $0.08, 3 folds.

Flop: ($0.19) 7h, 9c, 2s (2 players)
Hero bets $0.14, CO raises to $0.32, Hero raises to $0.9, CO calls $0.58.
Turn: ($1.99) 4c (2 players)
River: ($1.99) 2h (2 players)

Final Pot: $1.99

Results:
Hero has Tc Td (two pair, tens and twos).
CO has 9d 7d (two pair, nines and sevens).
Outcome: Hero wins $1.99.

Lucky for me on this hand I was able to suck out on the river to counterfeit his 2 pair. Villian played the hand questionably, making a loose preflop call with a weak hand. So I don't feel too bad for him about the come from behind win. Still my bad play nearly cost me 45 BB. This was a frustrating session where I'd had KK cracked, TT with a set cracked. This hand was a bit of tilt where I just kind of gave up on that last $1 and donked it away. No limit can be challenging to keep your cool when things aren't going well.

Anyway I'll have to keep that in mind, in general you don't want to go to the felt with TPTK or an unimproved overpair.