So the past 2 months or so I’ve been playing online poker from the client at Pokerstars.net

It’s pretty cool. You get like $1000-2000 in play money, and then you can find tables for anything from No-Limit Texas Holdem, Omaha, etc. There are a few other poker games that I’m unfamiliar with, so I steer clear of them. After poker got big in the past few years, I’ve followed it more on tv, and played it any opportunity I could. I’ve played a few home games with good results, and one time at the boats, also, good results. But this whole online poker craze thing was a lot bigger than I thought it was.

When you watch the World Series of Poker on tv, you always see the ads for it, Play for free this, that. I’ve always found the play for free stuff to be scams, starting with ok, give us your credit card # for verification of your age, etc, but truth be told, Pokerstars is legit. Its completely free, no credit card verification, etc. Never even had to enter one to get an account. Don’t get me wrong, they have another client on which you can play for $, but of course that’s illegal in the U.S. and nobody would do that haha. But I’m content just playing a few hours here/there when I get the chance, and I feel my game is improving too. I’ve entered 5 of their tournaments they call ‘freeroll’, which is just that, free tournaments for fake chips, just to see how you match up w/ other players. Granted this is to give you the gambling bug and get you to download their client on which you can play for cash, but the play alone is satisfying my poker bug. Anyway, the last 5 tournaments went like this. Tournament 1, I took a bad beat IMMEDIATELY and got bounced. Tournament 2 & 3 I got deep into the field and just missed placing. Tournament 4, I played an Omaha tournament, placed 107 of 1750, ‘cashed’. Last night, a No-Limit Texas Hold-em tournament, 5,000 entries.. yes, 5000, I placed 223rd, finishing ‘in the chips’ Although its play $, its still good to know my game is improving as I play more. From starting w/ $2000 chips a few months back, I’m around $24000 chips now. If ONLY that was real $. Dang