Four years and a couple of bankrolls ago
March 1, 2008 | 04:12PM | maudie dot b - gmail d c | |
Vintage Poker Perspectives. I took a look at my archives for the past four years. Then I went to the Wayback Machine to look at a few of my original pages. It's only four years, but it feels like a decade.
I began this experiment in November of 2003. I found Felicia's blog by way of postings on the United Poker Player's forum. From there I found the Royal Vegas blog, and for a long while, it was the only blog on my tiny blog roll:
United Poker Forum
UltimateBet
Paradise Poker
Royal Vegas Poker
Party Poker
Card Player Magazine
At that time, it wasn't an online casino site, but another blog that was very good at pimping other blogs. That lead me to Guinness and Poker where I saw, to my delight, my own blog had been pimped.
I discovered more and more poker bloggers and by March of '04 the blog roll had grown:
Felicia's Poker Talk
Love and Casino War
Guinness and Poker
Guppy to Shark<
Up For Poker WBT-II
Cardspeak
Tao Poker
Anisotropy
Chris Halverson
Daily Grind
Decker's Journal
Down to the Felt
Grubby's Journal
Jason's Poker Odyssey
Lion Tales
Mean Gene WBT-I
Paulsbourbon
Royal Poker
Shaynamouse
Stick & Move
Suited Trash
TP's Table Talk
Table Tango
The Fat Guy
The Intrepid Card Player
Tight Pocket
Ugarte
AlCantHang
Gambling Blues
Tales form a Yeti
Paul Phillips
Wil Wheaton
As you'll note from the above blogroll, I'd begun to log the winners of the World Blogger Tour tournaments. I missed the first one, but jumped into the second one and didn't look back. Those tournaments were the fertilizer that fed the growth of this unique online community of folks who are passionate about poker.
March of 2004 I was playing the .25/.50 limit tables with a bankroll of about two-hundred and fifty dollars. I espoused my wisdom on playing a fishy table. March 2005, game theory and poker were on my mind.
March of 2006, I wrote about dispatching a mysoginistic, brutish, neanderthal in a one table challenge on Poker Stars. Pauly called me about ten minutes before the tourney started and tried to talk me out of playing against Poker Champ. The whole thing was quite the controversy at the time and ended up being probably the best joke played on the poker blogging community. Bravo, again, Daddy.
March of that year also brought perhaps the best comment thread ever seen here at Poker Perspectives. I was thrilled to learn Wil was, indeed, a fan of this humble blog (and I do believe the bet was paid).
One year ago I was receiving a monthly paycheck for blogging over at PokerWorks. That was quite a challenge, but lasted only a few months longer before the plug was pulled on that experiment. I will always be grateful to Linda for giving me the chance.
The UIGEA, a prolonged absence while at Pokerworks, a botched domain change and waning inspiration has greatly slowed the momentum of this little blog. Readership is nearly nil. I don't blame anyone but myself. I haven't had much to say about poker that hasn't been said before and more eloquently and passionately elsewhere in the poker blogosphere.
The community has grown exponentially since I started this grand journey four years ago. We've gone from little online tourney's to WSOP satellites. Poker bloggers have come and gone. We witnessed marriages, birhs, deaths, winners and losers. Yup. We are a true community.
Consider this a shout out to the old-schoolers. To the folks I met that first trip to Vegas. To the friends I've made and hold dear. I love you all.
If this sounds like a goodbye post, well, maybe it is. It didn't start out to be... but, well, this retrospective has shown me that perhaps it's time I accept reality and should tuck this little bit of my life away for now.
There are a lot of great memories in the archives over there. Take a stroll through them whilst I take a sabbatical and try to figure this all out.
Thanks for stopping by - keep those cards in the air!
