Anyone play online Poker???

[xsundownerx]

I'm trying to find a Poker site that also has casino games, that will take visa or mastercard...

I tried bodog.com but the poker sucks!!!!

Any suggestions???

[xsundownerx]

Fulltilt isn't bad but no casino games...

[raidenradio]

Yo. $50K+ lifetime winnings in online poker.

I deposited $50 on Full Tilt Poker back in 2004. Played some cash games and lost it all. Spent a month learning more about the game and redeposited another $50. That was the last time I ever deposited money online. Ran it up to $15k and then I lost my job. So I had to frequently withdraw money while I looked for work. Then I spent 6 months grinding professionally to pay my rent. At the end of the month I would ironically leave myself with $50 capital to start over with.

Once I found a job and was able to start grinding again I got my bankroll again it was all good. Back up to $4k now, hoping to get back to $10k by the end of the summer. I now played on Full Tilt and Poker Stars.

Oh and don't mess with the casino games. Poker is a skill game that favors those who think critically of the game and of themselves. Blackjack and that other horse shit favors the house. Don't mess with it.

[Guest]

i used to play a lot of pokerstars, but never had the balls to put money on it.

but now you have me reconsidering since im not exactly bringing in any other money (oh.. except the unemployment checks i get. golly, those kick ass.)

[somethingvinyl]

I play at FTP. Although, I don't have the skill/luck that raidenradio has. FTP has multiple freerolls a day, which means you can play for free a lot of the time.

I have deposited maybe $100 over a couple years. I only have $8 right now. It's a good way to learn trends and how people make calls with x amount of chips. A good way of learning the game. But I've been playing poker for a while and I can say assuredly that nothing compares to playing real hands in a cash game. People online are generally stupid, or act stupid. They don't make good calls. And as you know, in poker, sometimes that can hurt you. People make ridiculous calls online that they would never make in a real game simply because they're on a computer.

I like FTP because they have so many variations of cash games. It's not a money maker, but the Matrix is a really fun thing for me. I like the action.

[raidenradio]

While a lot of this is generally true I would still say that the guys playing $0.05/$0.10 NL are a million times better than the guys playing $1/$2 live anyday of the week. There is just no contest between online and live.

If you spend anytime talking to "live players" roughly 90% of them will say something close to "I can't play online because I never win" or "I don't play online, it's rigged." They are losing because they just plain aren't good or use piss poor bankroll management. When you play online you are playing 10x as many hands per hour than you are live. That means you are getting 10x as many bad beats. It's a psychological mindfuck that you have to get used to.

When I first started playing seriously and redeposited I discovered sit n go's. Basically it's a tournament for a set amount of people, usually one table. It is the cash cow to end all cash cow. When you play you should always have 100 buy-in's available to beat variance. As long as you have 100 buy in's you should almost never go broke. All you do is play and play and play. When your bankroll goes up high enough to where you have 100 buy in's at the next level, you move up. Rinse and repeat.

Anyway I had been building my bankroll when a buddy of mine got on and was trying to talk me into playing a cash game with him. I told him, "dude just play sit n go's it's so much easier." I let him get the best of me and I sat down with him with the intention of just playing tight with a friend. So I buy-in for $25 which at the time was like 10% of my bankroll. After like 5 minutes I'm dealt Queens on the button with 4 limpers, I raise it up to 4x the big blind and they all call. Flop comes Q-Q-7 with two diamonds. I flop quad queens. I instant message my friend and tell him, "wait till you see what I have." Some guy bets the pot and I flat call. Turn is the Ten of Diamonds. He goes all-in, I obviously oblige him. He turns up KJ diamonds for a turned flush. In a flash it hits me that he has a flush but also has an open-ended straight flu- bang Ace of diamonds on the river. Yep flopped quads, he rivered a royal flush. $50 pot gets pushed in his direction. I tell this story to anyone who comes at me with some nonsense like, "you have to be lucky hurhurhur." I remembered that moment and built off that.

But getting back to the friend I had. He's a great guy but an idiot when it comes to poker. He watched me build up from nothing and despite wanting to make it in poker more than anything could never duplicate it despite me offering him all the tools to do so. He was like the lovable loser, redepositing every other week despite being unemployed and in dire need of money. He just keep trying to beat those cash games and not using bankroll management. Once I watched him go on a lucky streak and run a $50 deposit into $2500 in a week. I was over the moon happy for him but told him he really needed to buckle down and start playing smart. He simply couldn't do it. The next day I go online and search for him, he's playing $25/$50 NL with Full Tilt Pro Allen Cunningham. The whole $2500 is on the table. He lost it all in 20 minutes. It was surreal.

To make matters worse, the following year when I went to Vegas to play a World Series event he decided to tag along. He just scraped together what money he had to come out and watch me play. He didn't have a lot so I paid for an extra cot in my hotel room and some of his meals. It kinda sucked having someone there that was more than likely jealous. Anyway on the last night of the trip (I didn't cash in the World Series) we went to Caesar's to play some $1/$2 NL. It was the only time we played together on the trip. I got some good hands paid off and was up to $300, he was just playing tight. We end up getting into a hand where it's just us. I have AQ on a board of A-5-7-T-Q. On the river I moved all-in, looked him dead in the eye and said, do not call, I have it. It's against the rules to tell him my hand so I'm just trying to tell him in any otherway possible to just lay his hand down. He thought and thought and the whole time I'm just sitting there shaking my head no and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I call." I took his whole stack.

He got up from the table and I followed him. He turned to me and said, "that's the last of my money" grabbed his bag and left, went to the airport and flew home pennyless.

[controlthebleeding]

i don't know anything about poker. wish i did so i can at least get in on fun games with a few of the people i know.

[thebiglebowski]

The advice about not moving up in stakes is legit. That's my problem. Everytime I double my money I want to double the stakes. Then one really bad beat and I get crushed. Haven't played in years though.

Also, this is just my opinion, but I have always suspected that the online poker sites tend to give people better hands than what would be considered statistically normal. I don't think it is biased towards any player, I think they just want better hands in play so the pots are bigger. I may be imagining that, though.

Also, I think a lot of people play in teams. They tell each other when to fold. If you are playing against a team, no matter how good you are, if you play legit you are going to tread water at best.

[somethingvinyl]

So much said has been quite interesting.

Mr. raidenradio, that was a good story. And it's rad you played in the WSOP. I get board easily, so sitting for hours, even online, just creates the need within me to take chances I wouldn't take with real money on the line. Usually, when I'm feeling the need to just take chances, I'll enter a big stakes game with the play money, which I've accrued 50K easily. But the play money, nobody plays that seriously.

Like I said, a lot of truth was spoken. I love going to home games. It's my dream to be as good to play at the WSOP but I'm just not that competitive, nor do I have the money to spend.

[raidenradio]

Yeah the first time I went to play in the World Series something really funny happened. This was before I was playing online and so I thought I knew wayyyy more than I did.

Anyway the tournament starts and there's an empty seat directly to my left. We were all joking that it was Phil Hellmuth cause he always shows up for tournaments late. Anyway we reach the first break and I'd increased my $1500 starting stack to around $4000. Blinds were going up to $75/$150 though so it would soon be time to build a stack or go home.

We come back from break and now the empty seat was occupied..... by Phil Hellmuth. He's sitting there complaining about having his stack blinded down to almost nothing. Then he goes on about how he was late because doing a photoshoot with Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson and that, and I am quoting here, "just another company wants to pay me a million dollars to do an ad."

It was just like what you would imagine playing poker with Phil Hellmuth would be like (by the way, he really is an atrocious player who lacks basic fundamental tournament skills).

So anyway, within like 10 minutes of restarting play he picks up AA and quadruples up to roughly the same stack as me (lucky sack of shit). Soon enough I'm getting eaten alive by the blinds and I'm totally card dead. Finally with roughly 12 big blinds left I pick up 55 and try to limp from early position (I told you I was bad.) Soon as my chips hit the felt I hear Phil say "i'm all-in!" and shove his chips into the middle.

Action folds around back to me and I'm left there. I honestly had never felt so alone in my whole life. The entire table is just staring at me and I'm just frozen. I remember thinking, "I'm so flipping here, if he has 77 or 88 then..... fuck.... does he have 77?"

Then Phil opened his mouth and uttered the immortal words I will never forget.

"C'mon kid. When are you gonna get another chance to bust me?"

I call. I turned over my meager fives.

Phil says, "Geez kid I didn't think you really had a hand."

Phil turns over Ace-Queen.

I'm not even looking for the flop, I'm just sitting there staring at Phil. He is staring down at the dealer so intently. It's weird, he showed up 2 hours late for this tournament. Why does he care so much? Shouldn't I be doing this?

The dealer spreads the flop..... and Phil shrieks loudly in disappointment. Like his favorite team just lost the Super Bowl.

The flop was K-5-T......

I FLOPPED A SET!!!!!! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod I don't care about anything else in the world. I am about to knock out the biggest A-hole in poker. This is so surreal omigod!!!

Wait, why is Phil still staring at the felt?

"Jack!" he says. I look down, the turn was a 7. Phil was calling for a Jack. Oh yeah a gutshot straight draw. Fuck. He has 4 outs.

Here comes the river. Again I'm not even looking at the table. Just sitting back and watching Phil. Taking in his every nuance.

OHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

The entire table leaps back in their seats. Phil fistpumps the air like he just won the whole tournament.

Finally I lean forward and see the river.

It was the Jack of diamonds.

The next I got what was left of my chips in. Pretty good too, Ace-King against 88. Funny I was in another flip but I was never really in the hand. Remember that light-headed flushed feeling you got the first time a girl dumped you? That's what it felt like. Total dejection. As thorough as it gets.

Made for a good story though. Which I still enjoy telling once every 12 months or so.

[jerseydave77]

I gave up online poker years ago - too time consuming. As soon as I quit my career took an upswing as I reoriented my priorities. I do however enjoy a bit of Sports Gambling with NFL and NCAA Football and B-Ball being my areas of expertise. (Having a very enjoyable March)

Enjoy playing, manage your time as you see best for your goals. Good Luck.

[mcm1610]

From someone who plays a lot of poker live and used to play TONS of online poker, they aren't even comparable.

Live poker is more about playing the person. Online poker is playing the odds. I constantly win live poker with absolute bullshit because I scatter my behavior and people constantly fall for it. I won an 18,000+ person free-roll online one time, too, so I'm not bad there, but you don't have nearly the control. Your only behavior is your betting, so it's tougher to bluff or bullshit.

The one piece of real advice I have for online poker is getting beyond the cheap-o games. In the really dirt-cheap stuff or free-rolls, you just get idiots throwing money around or trying to buy pots or just being simply reckless. You CAN capitalize on it, but you have to be smarter. I much preferred playing up a bit.. not big money but away from the >$1 blinds because people played with a little more control.

[somethingvinyl]

Good stories.

[vinylyesyesyes]

OMG he's the best EVER! And don't deny it.

[raidenradio]

OMG he's the best EVER! And don't deny it.

He really isn't. If it wasn't for his sponsorship deals he would've been broke years ago. He also plays literally every single tournament there is so seeing him at final tables isn't that great of an accomplishment. Also there's a good chance he was one of the people that ripped off the online community for millions with the crooked software on Ultimate Bet.

Top 5 players in the world right now:

1. Phil Ivey

2. Patrik Antonius

3. Tom Dwan

4. Phil Galfond

5. Jungleman (don't remember his real name)

[somethingvinyl]

That guy who is called 'The Grinder,' Michael Mizrachi, is pretty good. He won a ton of tourney's last year and made it to the final table at the WSOP.

[raidenradio]

That guy who is called 'The Grinder,' Michael Mizrachi, is pretty good. He won a ton of tourney's last year and made it to the final table at the WSOP.

He's okay. Would've been nice if he could've kept more of that money. He was backed by Patrik Antonius and lost most of his share within 3 months of the WSOP.

[somethingvinyl]

Dude, that's nuts. He still has skill, regardless of his backing. He still won a lot of big touneys last year.

[raidenradio]

Well, crazy to me is like guys like Patrik Antonius. He went from being a Swedish professional model and tennis pro to one of the top poker players in the world.

A couple months back he issued a challenge via CardPlayer magazine that he will play anyone in the world heads up at "their best game." Now that's fucking crazy to me. To want a challenge so bad that you're willing to play anyone heads up in the game they specialize in and obviously will have a bit of an edge.

His challenge was accepted by a player who is widely considered the best limit hold em player in the world. So far not that crazy since Antonius is at least in the top 5 best limit hold em players.

Or guys like Phil Galfond, one of the 20-something college kids who made millions playing cash games online. He wants to become good at all of the games so he decided to start playing 2-7 Triple Lowball (a draw game). He started at the highest cash games available ($250/$500) and last I heard he had dropped somewhere around $800,000 "learning the game."

[mcm1610]

That's just stupid, not crazy.

I can't get excited for someone who gambles all day every day. Especially if they gave up other actual careers to be a poker player.

[somethingvinyl]

raiden, I started playing limit games on FTP because I find myself going 'all in' when it's unnecessary. I won two small games in the past 2 days. Of course, I just donked out of another one. But i find that I remain more patient when I can't lose all my chips at one fell swoop.

[raidenradio]

Hey speaking of limit games check this out. This was from a HORSE tournament last night. HORSE is a limit game where games switch betweeh Hold Em, Omaha8, Razz, Stud, and Stud8.

Full Tilt Poker Game #29435979733: $10 + $1 Tournament (228660325), Table 5 - 2000/4000 Ante 300 - Limit Stud H/L - 23:47:47 ET - 2011/03/28

Seat 2: RaidenRadio (2,737)

Seat 7: oldgreeneyz (100,763)

We played a huge pot in Stud8 where I had a ton of huge draws. Low draw, flush draw, straight draw. I bricked on all of them and was left crippled down to just $2737 as you can see.

As you can also see the blinds are 2k/4k so I'm pretty much fucked right?

Hell naw, you don't ever give up in poker.

This is 63 hands later

Full Tilt Poker Game #29436247225: $10 + $1 Tournament (228660325), Table 5 - 2500/5000 - Limit Hold'em - 00:03:21 ET - 2011/03/29

Seat 2: RaidenRadio (94,642)

Seat 7: oldgreeneyz (8,858), is sitting out

RaidenRadio posts the small blind of 1,250

oldgreeneyz posts the big blind of 2,500

The button is in seat #2

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to RaidenRadio [Qd 8d]

oldgreeneyz has returned

RaidenRadio raises to 5,000

oldgreeneyz raises to 7,500

RaidenRadio raises to 10,000

oldgreeneyz calls 1,358, and is all in

RaidenRadio shows [Qd 8d]

oldgreeneyz shows [Js 5s]

Uncalled bet of 1,142 returned to RaidenRadio

*** FLOP *** [3h Ad 3c]

*** TURN *** [3h Ad 3c] [5h]

*** RIVER *** [3h Ad 3c 5h] [8s]

RaidenRadio shows two pair, Eights and Threes

oldgreeneyz shows two pair, Fives and Threes

RaidenRadio wins the pot (17,716) with two pair, Eights and Threes

Came all the way back and shipped that tournament.

[raidenradio]

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[mcm1610]

What's your point? They have money? Sweet. Get excited about the fun they have with it, maybe, but to be like "oh man! He's a SICK poker player!" is just stupid in my opinion. He's sitting on his ass all day with sunglasses on in doors.

[raidenradio]

He's sitting on his ass all day with sunglasses on in doors.

Good call. He should get out from behind that computer and get a real job like this.