All work & no play makes me a dull boy... greets from Charleston, SC

Note: Poker content in the second section.

So I'm having a bit of poker withdrawal.  I wasn't able to get seat time in last week, save for the Tuesday after we got back from the cruise.  I'm not going to be able to get any seat time this week.  After work, I'm huddled in the corner of my room, shivering, in the fetal position from lack of pokerage.  Not really.  But it makes for a good story, no?

Actually, Charleston turns out to be quite a pleasant city.  It has a small feel to it; very quaint and rustic.  I've kinda taken a liking to it - though I can't get over the odor that seems to permeate the area.  It almost smells like a sawmill; I suspect that's because this is considered low country and the smells roll in from the marshes?  Perhaps I'm wrong - maybe I should check the internet?

Ok - back from a simple search of "Why does Charleston smell" results in the fact that there's a paper mill in town...  wow; I really nailed the smell!

Anyway, the women are absolutely gorgeous here - and they're all friendly!  Too bad I'm a married man.  The food is *EXCELLENT*.  The buildings are all old school; typical southern like one would expect when visiting the south.  I'm having fun here, catching up with colleagues who I haven't seen in such a long time (it's been a year and a half since I've supported the particular meetings that I'm supporting today).

Online poker update

At any rate, I've been doing a bit of online play lately.  I've been playing on a place called Seals With Clubs.  For those that don't know, you can grind for Bitcoins, which while not readily available to convert into hard currency, are at least something "meaningful."  That is to say that people treat these bitcoins seriously; you don't see players donking off as they usually would with 72s in a PokerStars play money situation because... "they were sooooooted."  When suckouts invariably happen, people are genuinely upset in the chat box.

The way sealswithclubs.eu works for me is they run hourly freerolls for 50 chips (each chips = 1/1000 of a bitcoin).  I was able to win the very first freeroll I played, and tried unsuccessfully for a few more 50 chip wins.  Finally, I said screw it and started playing 1/2 -200 with my meager roll.  The min buy in of 40 chips allowed me entry.  I was able to turn that into a full 200 coin buy in that same day, and haven't looked back since.  I'm up to 2400 chips (2.4 bitcoins) at this point; it's been a month or so since I started.  FWIW, the USD equivalent for 1 BTC is around $14.  Additionally, they allow multi-tabling (I'm up to 2 HUD-less tables at this point) and offer a tiered rakeback program.  All in all, it seems very generous and easy to get started with the sole risk being time.

Note that sealswithclubs.eu does not have a downloaded client; it runs in flash through your web browser.  Therefore, I don't believe you can run a HUD to track hand histories / player tendencies.  I've found that with recent my live experience, I'm much better suited now to playing an online game sans PT3 / HEM (though I would love to get back into tracking players / fish).  sealswithclubs.eu has been rolling out mobile software as well - I got involved with their pilot program for software on the Android tablet which works well so far.  The best part about the whole thing is that bitcoins (BTC) are not regulated by the government, and thus cannot be shut down by the DOJ.  It's a very small site currently, but at least it's better than nothing and it seems to be growing.

It should also be noted that I have not yet cashed out anything, so I caveat your play with an "at your own risk" warning.  However, so far, so good.  I'm enjoying being back online.  Come & join me!