I finally did it. Yes this blogger has finally played poker online for REAL MONEY. I know, it's about time!


Last night, I got the wife and kids to bed about 10:45, did a few chores, rebooted my clunky PC, checked email, and updated the blog. Then the fun began. I closed out my blog and left my Yahoo email open to work on between hands. I clicked on the Party Icon on my screen and logged in.


I went to the .5/1 tables and was carefully random about my table selection. The average pots seemed to be between 6 and 10 dollars, so I chose a generically named table with 9 players with an average pot size of 8 dollars. I decided to bring 30 dollars to the table from my Party account.


I then sat out in the 10 seat until the BB. I wanted to observer the other players and I had 5 hands to do it. Seat one to my left had the best player at the table. Great! Seats 2 through 7 had generic calling station fishies. Seats 8 and 9 had players that were fairly good. So now I had a quick read on the table.


Did I always follow that read? Of course not! Did I follow it at all? Yes I did. If the calling stations raised, I folded most of the time. Because when they raised, they actually had good cards. Otherwise they called 90 percent of the time.


How did I play? Not too bad. I was way to passive most of the time. I did miss seeing possible straights on the board - twice. I got into a betting war once with the best player at the table over a flush. I had second best, he had the nut. The highest pocket pair I had was 88. The best hole cards other than those I saw were AJo.


My best hand was when I was on the button and had QJo I limped in and saw a flop of xJQ. I bet and it was down to myself, best play in seat 1 and good player in seat 9. The turn was another Q giving me Queens over Jacks. The Q also made it 3 diamonds on the board for a flush. The river was a rag diamond. No possible straight. Bet, Bet, Bet. I took down the biggest pot I saw at the table that evening - 22.75.


I played for a little less than an hour. I ended up 5BB for the session. (Best player was up about 40BB when I left.)


What did I learn? I need to follow my reads more often. I need to be more patient in my starting hand selection. I need to read the board better and not miss the possible straights my opponent has. I need to remember poker is a long term session, not just 35 or so hands. Limping in from BB with the hammer is fun (did not catch the flop - fold.) I really enjoy playing poker online. I need to learn a lot more about poker.


Hopefully I will get to play a couple more times this week.