Who's Up for Some Texas Hold 'Em Poker?Follow

I've gotten hooked on playing/watching Texas Hold 'Em poker, from watching Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo (hosted by Dave Foley from Kids in the Hall and Newsradio fame) and Phil Gordon, a pro poker player and multimillionaire philanthropist), the World Series of Poker on ESPN 2, and most recently, the World Poker Tour on the Travel channel. I also have bought a couple of poker books, including the new one by Phil Gordon, called Poker: The Real Deal.

So last Friday after work, I picked up a couple of poker software games. They were $19 each and unfortunately, I can see why they were so cheap. ValuSoft's World Poker Championship is god awful - specifically, the functionality is pisspoor. If you want to raise more than a standard bet, be prepared for some serious carpal tunnel pain as the dollar amount is only raised by $5 incrementally. It was a waste of money for me. Oh well!

The other software I bought, Bicycle Games Casino is a better product, at least in functionality and a greater variety of gambling games. Notwithstanding, the Vegas cheese factor is there with Danny Ganz providing video cutscenes throughout. The chatter of the poker players gets annoying very quickly, but thank Bob you can turn off their voices. Still, even with the variety, it's a so-so learning tool for poker games. I played a lot of Hold 'Em over the weekend on it and learned some other games that I never played, like Omaha, and some classic games like 7 card stud and 5 card draw.

Another poker book I've been reading recommends Turbo Poker but that $89.00 price for software is pretty frikkin' high.

Having felt like I knew what I was doing in the game, I decided to hop onto Pokerroom.com last night for the first time. To ensure that I wouldn't be thrown out of the house, I promised my wife that I would only sit on "play money" games, thus assuring her we'd make next month's mortage and other bills.

Once you download the free software and get set up with a $1000 credit of play money, it's incredibly easy to jump into a game by selecting an available table (or, you can start your own table with friends) and start playing.

The graphics are nice and the functionality is very smooth. You can also play for real money, but unfortunately for me, see the previous paragraph. I won a few fun hands and was up another $1000. Unfortunately, I went through all my play money pretty fast. You get two opportunities every 24 hours to replenish your $1000 credit of play money. Lesson learned for me was to slow down and be more conservative in my betting (or folding more often) to try to last a longer. Next time I'll probably leave the game after I win a substantial amount to build up a larger bankroll.

Anyhoo, I know Aadyn plays on pokerroom.com and I was wondering if anyone wanted to hook up and play on our own table (I think the limit is 10 players). My pokerroom.com player name is Smoggo (they wouldn't take Smoggy). What the heck, doesn't cost anything and it might be fun for ***** and giggles.

Count me in.

Post on the FoS board when you set the time.

Great Bhod and Aegis, if we get enough interest, we can try to work out some timeframe. I'll be sure to pass on the info at FoS (our defunct EQ guild) msg board as well.

TStephens, I'll have to check out pokerstars.com. I totally understand folks who prefer playing with real money, but I gotta stick to the monopoly money for the time being. Maybe after I show that I can win often enough, I'll be able to set aside some insignificant amount of fundage and play some low-level real money games.

It would awesome for Smash to hook up and school us but I certainly understand if he'd rather keep playing real money games as well. Still, it could be good times.