Retro-blogging here...I should memorialize my exciting first-ever online poker efforts.

The way I see it, I need to find out if there's any hope of my winning money in this manner. Something tells me it's a forlorn hope that I might make a "career" out of it, but it would be nice to find out that I can win a few hundred bucks every month if I wanted. Or lose that much. Considering that I cannot explain my success at Hold'Em down in Austin with actual people, I had no real expectations that I would be any good at an online version where I can't see anyone.

Anyway, first things first: I decided to go with PartyPoker. I went with these guys mostly because I had seen them advertised on TV a lot (World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel), and I figured that my money would be safe with them (as long as I wasn't actively engaged in losing it playing poker, anyway).

Actually, 0th thing 0th: it's going to be "The Cadillac of Poker Games" for me: Texas Hold'Em. Maybe Limit, maybe No Limit, not sure. But there's no other option, game-wise.

Next: after some sleuthing, I found a compelling bit of software called the Online Poker Inspector. It costs some $60 or $70 for a fully-functional version, but it's possibly a great tool for the online play environment; I haven't bought yet, mostly because I haven't figured out if I'm really going to spend any time pissing away my money in this manner yet. Here's the basic value proposition:

• The software "watches" you play online by literally doing screen captures of your poker app (the PartyPoker window, in my case)
• It constantly assesses the relative strength of your hand based on your two hole cards, the community cards showing, and the number of community cards left
• It gives you a real-time heads-up display with an impossible amount of detail, including the exact number of hands (and percentage of possible hands out there) that can beat you!
• To make things easier, it shows a little "stop light" that says at a glance whether you should be confident or worried. For instance, if you have a pair of aces (diamond and heart), but four clubs have come up on the board, it'll give you a red light and tell you to hurry up and fold--helps point out obvious bad situations.

Here's a screenshot in non-watching mode:


So anyway, I'm fascinated. The discussion forum and the support behind the app seem decent, so there's an OK chance that it'll be updated as the PartyPoker app gets updated. The thing also does all kinds of simulation, helps me track opponents I run up against, etc. If I were a serious player, I'd be using the crap out of the thing and presumably deriving an advantage; we'll see how it shakes out.

What's the drawback, other than losing my money fair and square to other online ne'er-do-wells? Well, as you might have guessed, PartyPoker takes a percentage off the top of every game or tournament, similar to the "rake" that a real casino takes. Depending on your stakes, this rake varies from 10% (low-money games) to less than 5%. So, in order to make money, I've got to win more than I lose, and I've got to make at least 5% on top of that. Sounds doable.

OK. All that behind me, the only remaining thing is to put some real money on the line and get started. So, I pony up $300 to the PartyPoker Cashier and I'm off! In fact, I've made money right off the bat, because good old PartyPoker gave me a $13.50 bonus as a first-time signer-upper. Hell, I could quit now, cash in, and boast that I had made money playing online poker! I sit at $313.50.

I decide to start out with low-stakes, No Limit, Single-Table Tournaments. The deal: ten people buy in for X dollars worth of chips and pay an entry fee (for tournaments this fee is the "rake," above) on top of that. Options range from $10/$1 up to least $200/$9, and probably higher in some cases. In these single-table tournaments, you keep playing until you've either lost all your chips or you've beaten the other nine guys ("guys," I say), and the top three finishers make money. The split is 50%/30%/20%, so if I were to win a $10/$1 tournament, I would net $39=((10 x $10) x 50%) - $11), accounting for my own buy-in and entry fee. Clearly, you can't make money fast playing $10/$1 tables no matter how good you are, but it seems like a good place to start.

I start conservatively at a $10/$1 table, play impatiently, and finish 5th. Later, I step up to a $20/$2 table, play with a little bit of patience, and finish 3rd: I've made my first bit of money, and, for the moment, I'm honestly in the black! Exciting! Next, I step up to a $30/$3 table, go all-in pre-flop on about the third hand, eventually lose to a straight, and I'm back in the red overall. For good? We'll see.

Naturally, I'm keeping a record of my progress (or my demise; we'll see). Here it is:
John's Poker Log (Excel)

How long until my account hits $0? Only time will tell!
- posted by John @ 9:55 PM