It’s official folks! I am now an Ultimate Bet online poker player. I decided to make the move this weekend after a lot of analysis and deep thinking. This decision was not easy for me but one that I felt I needed to make. I have been a long time PokerStars player for the past 4 years and I have been successful with 2009 being my best year. So it isn’t about how PokerStars is “rigged” or somehow did something to make me change rooms.
Quite the contrary.
I decided to change poker rooms for 2 particular reasons.
- For the first time I am actually playing for a seat in the WSOP Main Event as one of my goals.
- The fields are significantly smaller than the thousands that I play against nightly on PokerStars.
Let me talk about reason number one first. I have never really had any desire to play the Main Event prior to this year. But this year I decided that if I am to do so I need to put myself in the best position possible to do so and that meant making a change in poker rooms where the satellites were more conducive to my style of play and, again, the fields I am competing in are smaller.
Second, smaller fields just make more sense for me. The better the player you are the smaller fields play to your advantage. There is no doubt in my mind that some of those cashes I made in the 1000+, 2000+, and 3000+ player fields on PokerStars would have been final tables had the fields not been so ridiculously large. True, you can play the 180 SnG’s and I did that with very good success. But again it comes down to wanting to play the larger tournaments without the entries being distorted. To me once you hit the 1000+ mark it becomes more of a luck scenario than skill. I want my skill to matter more than getting lucky in these uber large tournaments. Thus the change to Ultimate Bet.
Yes, I realize that UB is coming off of an online scandal from a couple of years ago. However, I have done my homework and I do not have my life savings invested in my poker account. So, if anything should happen on UB or anywhere else for that matter I would be far from in tears about it. Also, I have a great deal of faith in Joe Sebok and believe he is on the right track getting the site back to respectability. I looked at a number of poker rooms that accept U.S. poker players. I asked a few friends that play in those rooms that I was looking at. When I boiled it all down UB was the best choice for me. I am by no means dissatisfied with PokerStars and I still recommend people play there too. I still have money on PokerStars and will play there occasionally but UB will be my primary online poker home.
The bottom line is I am expecting this year to be my best year of online poker ever and a lot of it has to do with the smaller fields on UB. I believe I have an edge and that edge can be exploited much more easily playing in smaller fields. It’s the best decision for me and my game.
PS: I made my first UB final table last night in only my second tournament on the site and took down 6th place. Maybe I am on to something. Ya think?
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