If the 18-34 population of Vancouver, British Columbia seems to be growing at an accelerated rate you may want to look into the number of young online poker pros who have been making their way to locale in order to continue to ply their trade. The latest online poker legend to take a hard look at moving to the Vancouver area is Cardrunners coach and online legend Brian “Stinger” Hastings, likely best known for his $4.1 million win over Viktor “Isildur1” Blom in a single session in early 2010.
Hastings would join players like Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Olivier Busquet, Daniel Negreanu, and possibly Daniel “jungleman12” Cates if he can work out his Visa issues –or simply not announce that he is heading to Canada to play online poker when questioned at the border!
Until the online poker situation in the US is straightened out in some way, I would expect this exodus to continue, especially amongst the younger crowd of online poker pros who are not tied down anywhere, and have the freedom and money to travel –I know that’s what I would be doing!
According to his Cardrunners blog, Hastings grew to love live poker during his time in Las Vegas for the 2011 WSOP, but was not at all impressed with Vegas itself –at least not as a place for permanent residence.
“Despite going 0-for-I think 12 in the WSOP in events where buyins weren’t cheap, I managed to make it a profitable summer, which I’m very pleased. I also made some money staking in tournaments, most notably having a piece of CR coach Eric Rodawig (ChipsAhoya) when he beat Phil Hellmuth HU to win the 10k stud8 event – congrats Eric! The best part of it all, in my opinion, is that I enjoyed playing live poker WAY more than I thought I would… Despite my newfound liking of live poker, I really don’t like Vegas and just can’t imagine spending any more time there than the WSOP and a few shorter trips during tourneys or whatnot.”
So what are Hastings’ plans? Well, it seems the PLO specialist hasn’t quite made up his mind yet on that one, other than a short-term stay in Canada seemingly in the cards, “I’m leaning toward a short term move to Canada (at least until it gets too cold). I’ve heard great things about both Vancouver and Montreal and have some friends in each city; right now I’m on the fence between them.” From there it appears he’ll be off to one of the coasts, but honestly, you never really know where you’ll end up in this world!
