USA Gambling & Monthly Update

Seems the poker world is in a bit of turmoil at the moment with the surprisingly rushed decision by US politicians to ‘ban’ online gaming. It appears before too long it will be unlawful for gaming sites to deal with US registered bank account holders.

Republican leader Bill Frist said "Gambling is a serious addiction that undermines the family, dashes dreams and frays the fabric of society. For me, the bottom line is simple: internet gambling is illegal. Although we can't monitor every online gambler or regulate offshore gambling, we can police the financial institutions that disregard our laws."
If this is the reason behind the draconian measures, I feel sorry for any US equivalent of myself. How can you argue against someone who publicly states that his personal beliefs should be made legal. Where does this stop? What if he doesn’t like cats either?
As well as my fellow bloggers, I know a few other players and ‘gamblers’ and you could not apply the above statement to any of them. Ridiculous if you ask me that it has gone this far, but what can you do about it?
What doesn’t seem clear at this stage is how these players are going to get at their money already held within these online accounts, can they leave this online and keep playing? Does the ban mean payments cannot be cashed out as well as in to gaming accounts - this seems unclear on the pages I have read so far? I’m sure that there will be alternative payment routes for US residents to exploit, so I’m not sure what the impact will be. If there’s a will, there’s a way.
The bill now needs only the approval of President George Bush to become law, and he is widely expected to sign it before the November 7 congressional elections to gain support from the political right.

A very sad state of affairs.

Anyway, on to my stats for the month of September. The words ‘roller coaster ride’ could never be more aptly applied than to my summary of this month. The first 7 days were a great start, and my bankroll saw a great increase. The next 18 days were probably my bleakest since I started playing poker and the graph dipped severely as doom and gloom seemed to be enveloping my play and my mental attitude.
Closing my accounts and moving to 2 ‘new’ sites seemed to put a stop to the run and the last week has been very healthy indeed and through some incredibly tight, steady and overly patient play, I’ve managed to drag things back to a slight profit for the month of 43$.

This 3-week period taught me a lot about my play, and I know that I have got to learn how to deal with these beats a lot better than I do. These things are going to happen, the huge amount of hands we play as individuals are a mere millionth of an atom compared to the number of hands being dealt at the poker site you play at. The thousands of tables dealing hundreds of hands per hour mean the likelihood is that things should happen more often than they do, not less often, as I seem to have in my head.
The key factor I think is my decision making process. If this was flawed, I would be in big trouble, but I actually think that in most (not all) of the situations I made the right decision, got my money in the pot and then was just unlucky. Luck plays a huge part in this game, and it isn’t going for you all the time! If I maintain this correct decision making process at each hand, I think I will be the more successful player in the long run.

So although I’m disappointed a lot of the month’s winnings have gone down the swanny, I’m still here, have shown a + figure for the month and hope that I am a stronger player for it.

In the words of a great songwriter: ‘That which does not kill you, makes you stronger’.