Introduction: Chris S. — Player Support

Hello everyone. I’ve been with PAS for about two months now, and this is my first chance to reach out to the PAS affiliate community and really introduce myself. I graduated from Villanova University about 10 years ago with a degree in Finance and Management Information Systems. I then worked in estate planning and investments for about 7 years while playing poker as a hobby on the side. I’ve come a long way in my poker career. When I was a kid, I was playing 5-card draw and 7-card stud for pennies with my family. In college, we’d play late night “Dealer’s Choice” card games in college for beer and pizza money. Shortly after college, the summer before the year of Chris Moneymaker, I got into bonus chasing playing small stakes limit hold ‘em, and it was at that point where I became really hooked. Now for the past 3-4 years, I was mass multi-tabling small stakes no limit 6-max at Eurolinx (until they stole my bankroll), then Poker Stars (where I rebuilt my bankroll), and now on the Merge network, where I try to continue playing around 60 hours per month, roughly 40-50K hands, to increase my bankroll and move up in stakes.

I will be blogging here now and again, hoping to give my thoughts and views as an online poker player to the affiliate community here at PAS. If you have any questions or comments, or would like some insight into the mind of an online grinder, I’d be happy to respond in future blogs if you’d kindly post a comment or send a PM to “Player Support” on the PAS forums.

I figured I could wrap this blog up by answering a question posed by Tim in a recent PAS blog.

Q: Dear PAS support, why isn’t player X playing? Why did Player Y stop playing?

Obviously there could be a multitude of reasons why a player is playing less hands, or not playing at all. Perhaps the school year started, or the player just entered into a new relationship and is spending more time with his or her new sweetheart. Maybe the football (or futbol) season started and instead of grinding on a weekend afternoon, the player chooses to watch their favorite sports team. Even the release of a highly anticipated video game such as the new Call of Duty or Starcraft 2, will likely cause a player to put less hours in at the tables. Online poker is a competition, and many poker players are former athletes or gamers that now fulfill their competitive urges playing Texas Hold ‘em or other forms of poker online.

These things are pretty much out of the control of the affiliate. But certain factors that cause a player to log less hands of online poker are controllable. For example, this month I’ve played quite a bit less than I had hoped, after being highly motivated and doing quite well for myself in the month of August. Much of this is stemming from entertaining guests early in the month, but also, my rakeback payment from August was short by about 8%. My affiliate has not responded as of yet (unfortunately I didn’t know about PAS when I created the account!), and that makes me A) less interested in poker, and B) not wanting to give that affiliate my business until the issue is resolved and I know where I stand going forward. Since I’m aware of these factors that keep players at (or away) from the tables, I can assure you we will be working hard to resolve player issues such as these as quickly as possible.

Another motivator (or demotivator) for an online poker player, are the current promotions going on at my favorite poker room that month. It makes it very easy for me to set a goal when I know if I play X amount of days, log Y amount of hands, or pay Z amount of rake I will be rewarded above and beyond my typical rakeback. By being onboard with PAS, everyone here is offering that to their players in the form of rake races, chases, and monthly freerolls. This alone is very big, and an often overlooked factor when a serious online grinder is choosing a rakeback site to sign up with.

I hope some of the above was interesting and insightful to those of you reading this. As I mentioned before, I’d be happy to respond in future blogs to questions regarding what it’s like to be an online poker pro, as well as the current landscape of online poker from a player’s point of view.

Thanks,
-Chris S.
Player Support