[Grunch]

The 1st era of poker began in time immemorial. It was characterized by many many terrible players, and a few great ones.

The 2nd era of poker began in 2003 when Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP. The WPT also catalyzed this change. I was a product of this event. The 2nd era was characterized by a huge influx in the poker population. Along with this influx of players came many who took a studious approach to the game. The poker state of the art transitioned far beyond the poker state of the art in the 1st era.

The 2nd era ended on Friday. We are witnessing the early days of the 3rd era now. I predict the following changes that will occur because of this "disaster."

1. A high proportion of 2p2ers will fail to make the transition to live play, and they will go broke much quicker than they ever thought possible. Many will be unable to adapt thier own psychology to live play. Many people complain that live poker is boring. My contention is that those people don't actually like poker. They just like the money & the video game-like action. These people will fail at poker in the 3rd era.

2. The quality of live games will fluctuate wildly. Many people have predicted that live games will either become better than they have ever been, or worse than they have ever been. I don't think that anyone has any frame of reference to make any long-term prediction pertaining to game quality.

3. The 2p2 population will decline. The decline will be gradual at first, but accelerate quickly in the next year. If 2p2 fails to adapt to this change, it (the website) will also fail. Unless efforts are made to ensure that the focus is on strategy (possibly by re-consilidating all the forums again once the population plummets), it will become all about OOT, thereby losing it's very soul.

4. Many posters will be told an important life lesson. Most will fail to hear it. The lesson is that your success in life is not dependant on your success in an occupation. For many people poker has become an occupation, even for people who already have careers. But since most people in the world fail to ever learn this lesson, I have no reason to believe that 2p2ers are any different.

I hope this is a wake up call for some of you. Many people seem to be at nearly the end of thier ropes because of the prospect of online poker going <poof>. These people most of all need to head this lesson. If poker goes away today, it is not the end of your life. At least, it should not be. Poker is not life. Life is life. Poker is just a game. In exactly the same way that your job is just a job. These things aren't permanent. They are just parts of your life. They aren't the whole thing.

It's just poker, dude.

You'll probably look back on this 10 years from now and realize that it was the best thing that could have happened for you. Just like when you get fired from a job, even though it sucks for a while, its usually for the best in the long-term.