Over The Hump

OK. I think I'm officially over the hump. My last six SNGs played were pretty good. I placed 1-3-3-4-1-1 . And the 4th place was even a chip leader position played too aggressively and got caught by some good cards from the villains. So I'll take that anyday.

I just read somewhere today that Neteller has now closed down its US operations. Meaning US players can no longer transfer funds to and from the poker sites using their Neteller account. Since Neteller is the biggest payment processor in the US, this seems like big news. This was a direct result of two of the Neteller owners getting arrested by the FBI in the US airports for money laundering or some such charge brought about by the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act a few months ago.

Out here in the local front, I'm not too sure how this affects Filipino online players. Probably only in the level of competition. I don't know if you guys notice, but I have observed that US players play generally better than their Europeans counterparts. Mostly I guess as a result of them being exposed to the game earlier and having more experience. So does this mean less sharks out in the poker sea ? I guess time will tell. If the US authorities are really serious about closing down all the funds flowing from these sites, then the US players will eventually have nowhere to turn to. Right now, some payment processors like Click2Pay are still open to US players, but I think this will also change sooner than later.

I do hope that this will result in the poker sites and the payment processors paying more attention to Asian players as this seems to be a largely untapped market for them. So it wouldn't be wistful thinking to hope for tournament times that are at least within our waking hours. =)