Tapping the tank

I suppose I shouldn’t even bring this up, but I promised a poker post, and here it is.

I’ve been playing shit poker. Not my game; the site where I’m playing is pure crap. It’s an app on a social page. A friend told me about it and suggested I give it a try. Free to play, play money.

I already play at a free site, Poker Academy, where I began to cut my poker teeth three and a half years ago. I’ve written about PA many times, and for the most part have good things to say about it. I can play against a fairly large pool of excellent players to hone my NLHE game, and many PA members have become my friends. Sure, it can be a donkfest at times, but nothing compared to this other site.

Let me give you a few examples:

•An opening bet is generally 12 to 20 the BB. At least 3 callers.

•Suited connectors is a jam preflop. Heck, K4off is a jam.

•Any connection with the flop is a jam.

•Naked Aces rule.

•The so-called “Pros” and Sharks” generally are under-rolled, often having only four or five buy-ins, their status evidently determined more by the number of hands played than by prowess.

I’ve played there four times for a total of about that many hours. I started with $700 in chips. I now have over $40K, the last $4K coming from a player who had over $9,000,000 in chips and came into the room admitting to dumping off just for fun. He/she had their name blocked yet showed a “VIP” status. Who was that masked person?

I just checked the site. There are supposedly 207,000 players at this moment, on a Saturday afternoon. There are 184.000 players on Stars, and 80,000 on FTP (187 on Poker Academy). One can only hope that some of these “social” players move onto the real money sites.

Yes, I know that play money and real money play is as different as night and day. Still, some habits are hard to break. Poker is a habit, and if one plays it poorly yet often, one can get in the habit of playing poorly.

Hey, I can dream.