Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Friends Network

 I’ve reconnected, if that’s what one can call online chat, with an old friend from Chicago. He doesn’t live there anymore, and we lost track of each other until social network searches found me, and in turn, I found him. He’s a fairly well known artist, and, as it turns out, a poker player.

I know I can find him online at a certain time of the day, and enjoy chatting him up. Problem is, he plays poker on the social network’s free poker site, and we chat while we play.

The play on this site is atrocious. Simply atrocious. At least in the small rooms. In the span of perhaps a month and ten hours of play, I have built a roll from $5,000 to nearly $300,000, and a third of that came yesterday as I made a bad play by playing way past my roll.

My buddy plays in bigger rooms than I. Yesterday I found him in a 100K room and sweated him for a couple minutes just to see what went on in the bigger stakes rooms. In fact, he was in over his head, playing with 1/4 of his roll on the table. I let him know I was sweating him, and he offered to find a smaller room in which I could comfortably play. I wrote that it wasn’t necessary, that I could buy in short and play snug.

When I clicked on a seat and hit enter, I misread my buy-in amount. I thought I was coming in for 10K when in reality I had just put 1/2 of my roll on the line at 100K.

This software lacks in so many ways. There is no hand history, and unless someone is all-in at showdown, one does not have any way to see an opponent’s cards. One is blinded in no matter what when first sitting down, which to my mind says, “What the hell, it’s free, and has little value.” And if one so much as farts, free chips are given, including just for logging on.

Shit play thusly encouraged… oh it’s just not worth my time, or, quite frankly, yours.

My friend took a pounding. One can push with Kings in the hole but it doesn’t really matter, yet to min bet with them is equally problematic. So is jamming with AK. Tilted.

I had limped for 1K UTG with a suited Ace, the next player made a raise to 2K, seven callers, and my buddy jammed for his last 17K. Knowing that I wouldn’t be the only one to do so, I called. The flop gave me the FD, and it was checked around. On the turn my buddy typed in “it’s mine,” with all small cards suggesting a straight. Of course the river gave me the flush, I bet, everyone folded and he showed 3-9off.

He’s pissed. He says to meet him in Las Vegas. I tell him I will be there in March, to email me and I will give him the particulars. It will be nice to see him again.

4 comments:

matt tag said...

I too have a friend on one of the social sites (actually, she's the wife of a old school mate), and she seems to love playing the free poker on that site.

I told her it ain't poker unless it hurts to lose, and to look me up on full tilt.

Memphis MOJO said...

My first thought was why play if there's no money, but after reconsidering, I could see the fun in it if the play wasn't totally horrible.

bastinptc said...

The play is indeed horrible. Idiot end straights are more often than not good, and two pair on a draw heavy board (straight and three to a flush) are the stone cold nuts. If live/cash play was this bad, I could burn my résumé. If I didn't have friends who play on the site, I wouldn't be there, for in the long run, something of this caliber will hurt my game.

PAPro_SandMan said...

Sweet, man, the more the merrier when it comes to poker lovers and the rendezvous. I didn't play at all when I was in Vegas last month and I'm regretting it a little bit; Although I'm not sure why after the donkfest at PAO ate me alive last night.