Where do I start?

Black Friday And My Future

First let me start with the fact that I can no longer play on PokerStars or FullTilt Poker.  I am literally depressed too.  Even though poker is just a money-making hobby for me at the moment, I was seriously considering making a job out of it.  All my plans and hopes were instantly shattered when the United States DOJ handed out the indictment of 11 individuals tied in with online poker.  Specifically PokerStars, FullTilt Poker, and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker.

I am so frustrated at the moment.  The only reason I have stayed at the job I currently have is because it was flexible enough to let me put in a considerable amount of time into my poker game.  Now that poker is basically gone for me, it is time to start looking for a new job.  I really hate my current job.  But the thing is what do I want to do? What skills do I have to offer?

The first question is much harder to answer than the second question.  I feel I have a ton to offer to a prospective employer. The only problem is….I just don’t know if I want to do it.  I just have lost the all “working for the man” lifestyle.  I want to be my own employer.  I don’t want to have to answer to a boss.  That is the problem, and I really just don’t know where to go from here.  As I have said before though, I guess I can be happy that I do still have a job in a time like this though.

So I have been thinking of learning how to program.  Maybe make some programs for Android (phones) or something.  Maybe get a job in programming.  I really don’t know.  But I feel like my personality really meshes well with programming; and if I get good enough, maybe I can start up a company.  Again, I just don’t know.

Was Gearing Up

Back on the poker debacle.  I haven’t hardly played that much at all this year.  I have been really busy working on my game.  I have basically been preparing for making the jump to play poker full-time.  I basically wanted to get all my ducks in a row.  I actually was thinking of making the jump at the turn of the year.  But since I had a pretty rough last couple months of ’10, and the fact that a possible blackout was looming if online poker was legalized and regulated, I decided to hold off for a little while longer.

I was really making great progress with my game.  I did some really in-depth analysis, and was ready to tackle what ever was thrown my way.  After all, I had to have some pretty big leaks to lose over 10k to one player at the end of 2010, right?

Cheated

Well, come to find out maybe I didn’t have as many leaks as I once thought.  Instead, I was playing against a player with an unfair competitive advantage.  If you recall, there was basically one player that was just giving me fits with 5 card draw.  In fact, I have never lost to one player the way I was to this player.  I was (and should have earlier) about to not play him due to the fact he was just better than me.  That alone is quite a lot, as I pretty much will play anyone.  I just have that much confidence in my game.  Yes, there is one or two other players I try to avoid, but if they REALLY wanted to play me, I would have.

But this one player that I was having fits with basically came out of nowhere and was sitting at all limits, and only playing heads-up.  I should have seen the red flags then, but I didn’t.  I mean how often does someone just come out of the blue and plays the better 5 card draw players and just absolutely crushes them?  In fact, this specific player was up on everyone he played except for one.  That “one” wasn’t even really a regular heads-up player either and his small profit was dwarfed by all the other players losses.

This “cheater” was eventually banned from PokerStars.  But the damage was done.  I lost well over 10k to him in a matter of a couple months, and I suspect that he easily made over 50k in that same time with all the opponents he was taking on.  I don’t want to name this “cheater” by name, though I should.  But here is the thing.  PokerStars banned him, but did not refund any of the players affected.  REALLY??? Ugh.  The thing is, once this player showed up and I was pretty skeptical; I emailed PokerStars about this player.  I basically just got a standard response email and it seemed I was just wrong about my assessment.  Remind you though, that just for me to send an email about possible cheating was totally out of character.  In fact, I have never done that before.  Though I have sent a couple “joke” emails asking that the “Doom Switch” be removed.

Anyway…about two months after my email was sent to PokerStars support, more evidence was sent to PokerStars about this player.  Some pretty damning evidence was provided too.  It was pretty obvious, that at the least this player tried to take advantage of the system.  Because of this evidence that was brought on by another player (I will not name names) PokerStars decided to ban this cheater from ever playing on PokerStars again.  But I later found out that PokerStars did not feel they had sufficient evidence to confiscate the cheaters account, thus paying back those that were affected.

What really upsets me is I was down maybe 1-2k at the time I first had suspicions and sent PokerStars an email.  I lost another ~10k over the time period until he was banned.  It was sad that a player had to find the evidence that was out there.  That should be the job of PokerStars security.  I was really let down by PokerStars.  But at least they did take some kind of action.  Full Tilt never did.

That’s right, FullTilt was still letting this player play!  Though, I wasn’t playing him anymore…he was sitting at nearly every limit.  I know they were presented with the same obvious clues to possible cheating that PokerStars was presented with.  The only thing that was ever sent in response from FullTilt, was just a standard response email.  Thanks!  Way to make me feel secure!

This type of stuff is the exact reason online poker needs to be legalized (though it’s not illegal, it just kinda like the Wild West) and regulated.  It will protect the consumer from this exact type of thing from happening.

What was this player doing?  I don’t really want to dive too much into the details.  I do know he had a program that assisted him with his play that no other player had access to.  Even if it just gave him a slight edge, that can be huge and the small edges can accumulate pretty quickly when playing heads-up.

The Aftermath

So after the whole cheating took place.  I was wondering what to do next, should I remove the PokerStars ad on my site?  Should I let everyone know what was going on?  Well I just didn’t know what to do.  But at the advice of the person who submitted the evidence-filled email to PokerStars, he asked that I keep it under wraps for a bit.  But now that time has gone by, and I am not dropping any names; I am letting the cat out of the bag.  What about still being loyal to PokerStars?  Well, I can’t play there anymore.  But really, they were the most secure site to play on.  It was just a shame that this happened and to be honest, I don’t know the whole procedure and righting the wrong over at PokerStars.

When all the smoke cleared from the cheating, lets just say my motivation for playing dropped to an all-time low.  I was having to scramble at the end of each month just to keep my supernova status on Stars.  But away from the virtual felt, I was analyzing what it was this player was doing “well”.  Now there are some things he did extremely poorly, but I think it was more as an image play.  This player, and his cheating ways, basically pointed me to some new directions as far as improving my heads-up game was concerned.  I slaved away at crunching numbers and probabilities.  I improved my game a ton over the first few months of this year.

I was all geared up to take my new-found knowledge to the tables……but then boom, I was not allowed to play anymore simply because I was an American.  Sigh, thank you Department of Justice!

This Blog and Other Websites

I am probably going to stop posting on this blog.  I am just going to let it expire when the time comes.  Sadly, I just don’t have the motivation to keep it updated.  I made a whopping 15 bucks from ads though!  Ha, I know it isn’t the most appealing thing.  Someone trying to make money from their blog, but I was simply just trying to pay for the cost of the website.  After all, I was hoping that I was providing some kind of entertainment/information to those that came to my site.

Instead, my time will now be focused more on some other sites that I have coming through the pipes.  They are strictly business-oriented.  Maybe, if I finish some of them before this blog reaches its deadline, I will provide links.

Again, I also plan to learn how to program.  I would like to make games and apps for computers/cell phones/etc.  This is my future, as I see it right now.

I will hopefully be able to play some poker a little here and there.  Whether it be on the smaller internet poker sites or a brick and mortar casino (closest casino to me is over 3 hours away).  I just don’t know.  But one thing is for sure, I will still keep myself in-tune.  I am looking forward to the day that this so-called “land of the free” allows me to have my hobby/perspective career back.

One thing I need to do is work on my holdem game.  Sadly, 5 card draw is just not that popular.  If it was as popular as holdem, I would already be a millionaire by now (assuming the same quality of opponents).  If I truly want to make the amount of money that I dream of, I don’t see 5 card draw as being a viable avenue.  However, it was a good start!

What could have been and more

One thing I never did was post my full name on this blog.  Mostly because I have bashed my current job situation so many times, I was worried someone at my workplace might come across it.  The day I was to turn pro in poker, I was going to title the post “Hello, My Name is Tommy ____”.  Well, that post is going to have to wait.  In fact, if poker is not legalized by time this blog runs its course.  I might start up another blog in the future, but it will likely just be a blog named after my name.

In fact, I have read how important it is to have a site under your name for possible networking opportunities.  I might create another website, just about me and maybe add a blog there.  It will likely have my work history and a resume for possible future employment opportunities.  Again, this is just a thought running through my head.  Right now I am still just in shock of the recent developments with online poker here in the USA.

Final words

I feel like I am leaving out a few things.  But if they deem to be important to mention, I may post again here in the near future.  But in the meantime, the best thing I can do is direct you to Poker Player’s Alliance’s website.  They are an organization that was created to fight for the right to play online poker.  So if you are from the United States, please email your local and federal representatives to protect this wonderful game of poker here in the States.

Well, I changed up some things with the website. Now I don’t have to worry about having to put an image for each post. I don’t have to worry about writing a stupid summary for each post. A ton of time wasted is no longer.

Hopefully what I did change will make it easier for me to update the site. If so, you can expect that I will update more often.

I also think it will be better for the readers as well. Now you don’t have to click on each entry to read the past couple of blog posts. It will all be right there on the first page.

I was trying too hard in the past to make it look more like a “professional” magazine style website. This is not a professional website though, it is my blog. After using a wordpress theme as a base, pretty much everything you see I created in some way or another. For someone who doesn’t really know what he is doing, I think it looks pretty good.

Until next time….

After writing the post called Creating My Website: Introduction recently, I felt the first thing I should do is give you my reasons for even wanting to create a website.  There are many reasons I am sure I could come up with but the following are the most obvious to me at this point in time:

1.  Express yourself!

One thing the internet has done is allow anyone to be able to share their thoughts.  You can write about anything your heart desires.  How you go about doing it is your choice and will be what separates your website from the rest.

2.  It’s fun

It can be truly exciting when you are writing about the topics you enjoy.  You start to constantly think about what to write about next and how to improve your site on a daily basis.  To throw it all together it becomes “your baby” as you watch it grow.  It can actually become quite addicting.

3.  Helping others

Whether it be offering advice on a topic you are knowledgeable about or making people laugh from some of your content, knowing that you might have helped someone make it through their day is gratifying.  Offering a tiny bit of support is better than not offering any at all.

4.  The challenge

I will admit, it is not always easy…..but that is what is great about it!  It is challenging. Attempting to learn HTML code, amongst other things, is not the easiest thing when you don’t even know where to start.  It is like putting together a puzzle piece by piece, but I promise….it can be done!

5.  Memories

Writing your experiences on your own website can be looked at as a diary of sorts.  A diary that anyone can read.  I look forward to being able to look back on some things I have written well into the future.  Hopefully others might enjoy it too.

6.  The money

This is not an easy task to accomplish as some great websites fail to bring in significant dough.  With hard work and good content though, the money should follow.  My website, now a little more than a month old, has brought in only a couple of dollars thus far. (mostly from Google Adsense)  But I am hopeful and determined to see those numbers grow!

7.  To create

Just look at this website.  I may not be Michelangelo, but this is my Sistine Chapel.   It may not be much, but I really do feel proud about some of the smallest things about this website.  Take the image behind the title you see above as an example, I created that and am proud of it.

8.  Higher learning

Because of this website, I have done more research over the past couple of months than I might have done in a whole dazed-out year at college.  I feel like I am constantly learning something new.  I hope I can pass some of this new-found knowledge on to you.

9.  To network

As I have started this website, I have met a number of people through either direct or indirect conversations.  I am sure those numbers will continue to grow.  Who knows, some friendships might be struck or even new jobs be passed along.  I look forward to who I might meet next.

10.  The future

Lets face it.  The world, and inherently the job market, is changing as we speak.  A prime example can be seen in this video.  Don’t be left behind with no skills for tomorrow.  If that job comes between you and another applicant, having website building experience might be that extra edge to get you that job.

Now I encourage you to go start your own website for what ever reasons you may have.  When you do, stop by and say hello.

Over the near future I plan on talking about some of the steps I took to create this website.  You do not need to be a technology geek to do it either!  If you know how to search the web and can remotely follow directions, you too can create your own site.  It is just a matter of preferences after that. 

As I have been working on this website, I have noticed that most of the tutorials out there expect the reader to have a vast knowledge of website experience.  That is just not the case for me, and I am assuming many others out there.  I am hoping to be able to help people that never thought they could make a website do just that, make a website!

Through this process I will likely bring up terms that you have not heard before.  I encourage you to look up each term that you do not understand via wikipedia or some other source.  On the other side of the spectrum, I will still not know the proper term or phrase for one thing or another.  But I will try to describe it to the best of my ability. 

I am still very much a newbie to this whole website creation stuff.  I am not going to sit here and claim that I am a pro.  However, the fact that I am not a pro may be beneficial in helping to relate to those that might be looking for the proper advice.   A few months ago I knew absolutely nothing about creating a website, and I will guess that many of you do either. 

If there is anything special you would like for me to talk about, let me know.  I am not going to follow any type of step by step process.  I will just try to tackle each topic based on interest and relevance.

For future refence:  I will put all of this information in its own category, Website 101, so that you can easily find all the information you may need.  (Categories can be found on the right side of this website)

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to the brand new website!  For about the past month or so I have been slaving away at creating this site.  I am still working on some small things here and there.  But I feel as though the site is “ready enough.”  I really hope people will enjoy it and come back to visit.

Past Web Experience

To start, I have absolutely no idea what I am doing when it comes to building a website from scratch.  The only web experience I have had up this point was the creation of my old site on blogger.  I definitely hit some dead ends with some things but then would make a breakthrough with others when it came to the little intricacies of creating this website.  It was a ton of trial and error type of stuff, and this is the final product!  I am really excited about it.

I really feel like I learned a lot while going through the process of building this website.  I encourage anyone else thinking about starting a website to do it on their own and not hire outside help if possible.  In the coming months I will discuss how I created this website from scratch by using templates and plugins via wordpress.

The Old Site

Already mentioned, this website is a product of the transferring of my old blog.

The old website, nomenotpoker.blogspot.com

nomenotpoker.blogspot.com was my old blog hosted by blogger.  The old site was strictly a poker blog.  In fact, everything you see here on this site written before Mar 12th (’09) is a direct transfer from the old site.

The New Site

I noticed that as I was creating a new post on the old site one day that I didn’t really feel like talking about poker at that moment in time.  I wanted to broaden my horizons at a blogger.  I started talking about how the wife and I were expecting our first child (which is due any day now).  It was a start of the realization that I need to write about more than just poker.

That is exactly what I will do here at nomenot.net.   I will discuss pretty much whatever is on my mind for that day.  I am not going to limit it to just poker.  I will likely discuss the following:

1. Business- as I am a true entrepreneur at heart.
2. Sports- being an ex-student-athlete in college, it is a part of who I am.
3. Life- pretty broad topic for now, but think family stuff.

Of course that will just be the start of it.  I will post some as just quick updates or short topics on the day.  While at other times, I will attempt to approach a topic with the mindset of providing a true value to whom ever may read it.  I feel I did that with the poker article I wrote, Tournament Strategy to the Nth Degree.

So Why NoMeNot?

Nomenot, that was the title of this website I decided to go with.  Was it a lack of creative ideas or just the right idea staring me in the face?  I’m not sure exactly, but it is what it is.  If you are more interested in knowing where the term “NoMeNot” came from check out my About page.

Not only is that a term from way back when, but it is a term that is seeming to creep back into my life to describe my feelings as of recent.  When I think of the term “NoMeNot”,  I think of an anarchist, break away from the norm, point-of-view.  That is viewpoint I have had recently towards my work.

That brings up my next point as to why I started this website, to hopefully break apart from my normal 9 to 5 one day and do what I want to do.  Haven’t you ever heard someone say that you should do for a living what you would be doing if you were already financially secure?  Well, I would probably just play poker, attempt to own multiple businesses, and travel.  This would be my first attempt at owning a business.

The Business Side of It

Yes, there is another side to this website.  I am also trying to make some money if at all possible.  I plan to be completely honest about that with all of my visitors.  I hope the advertising will not discourage people from coming back to my site.  Hopefully I can provide good enough content to see to it that it couldn’t be an issue.  At the same time, it will be something for me to post about.  The business side of NoMeNot.net.

Keeping the Conversation Open

If you like what you see so far, I ask that you bookmark my site and comeback again.  If there is something you would like for me to talk about or you want to just say “hi” you can comment below or let me know.

-NoMeNot