The downside to playing poker with pretend money are the terrible players one encounters. I have no delusions about the quality of the game when no real money is involved. It is much, much poorer.

Still, I am hopeful that it improves as one advances to higher limits. I noticed this was true when I played poker on my xbox. I suspect it's true for the Full Tilt network as well. I shall see. Also, I have noticed that the game improves in the late stages of a tournament. The quality of play of a ten table tournament markedly improves at the final two tables. Though one also encounters idiots who have amassed a large chip stack by this point but have no clue how to use it. Case in point:

My opponent, bluff_all59, had been doing many annoying things all night.

1. Making ridiculously large raises pre-flop.
2. Min-betting into large pots, post-flop. Like $50 into a $600 pot. Clearly he doesn't understand implied odds. Nor does he comprehend that the intention of a bet is either to get information, isolate against a single player, or win a pot uncontested.
3. Raising multi-way pots with marginal hands.
4. Lecturing the table.

Full Tilt Game #7037583682, 120/240 blinds NL Hold'em Tourney, 9 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

9651397: 3,320 (13.8 bb)
bluff_all59: 33,830 (141 bb)
onemarteeny: 35,560 (148.2 bb)
Erik: 3,445 (14.4 bb)
polo_crew08: 855 (3.6 bb)
cuisinier: 185 (0.8 bb)
thenasty27: 26,473 (110.3 bb)
iplaypokeryay: 21,972 (91.6 bb)
casper2317: 9,360 (39 bb)

Pre-Flop: Erik is BTN with
4 folds, bluff_all59 calls 240, onemarteeny calls 240, Erik raises to 600, polo_crew08 folds, bluff_all59 calls 360, onemarteeny calls 360

Flop: (2,105) (4 players)
bluff_all59 bets 240, onemarteeny folds, Erik calls 240

Turn: (2,585) (3 players)
bluff_all59 bets 240, Erik calls 240

River: (3,065) (3 players)
bluff_all59 bets 240, Erik raises to 1,200, bluff_all59 folds

Results: 3,545 pot
Erik showed (a full house, Nines full of Kings) and won 3,545 (2,225 net)
cuisinier mucked and lost (-185 net)

After all that aggression and all that talk my opponent didn't know when to push. We're at the bubble of the tournament. I'm short stacked. He has a mountain of chips in front of him. If ever there was a time to push all in it was here on the river. I would be put to a very difficult decision. Not an automatic fold, but it would be damn hard for me to call and risk busting out of the tournament if he was sitting on the last nine.

The hand ended with the following exchange:

I enjoy the occassional game of poker with my buddies. One night a year ago or so I expressed my disgust after a particularly bad suck out had crippled my stack. One of the guys at the table said I sounded just like Phil Hellmuth.

"Who's Phil Hellmuth?" I asked.

This got a big laugh. I think it was especially funny to my buddies because I was one of the stronger players at the table. I had no idea people idolized poker players, at least not to the point of knowing their personalities. It struck me as strange because the game (no limit hold 'em) seemed very simple to me. If you understand pot odds versus hand odds, and you understand the perils of playing out of position, you'll do just fine. Throw in some knowledge of how to play short stacked in a tournament, plus some knowledge of how to exploit your table image in a cash game, and you'll be a winning player.

Worshiping poker celebrities seemed awfully strange to me because they just don't appear to be that much better than the casual player. Certainly the gap between the talent of an amateur and a professional is much more narrow in poker than it is in chess say, or tennis or soccer. The elevation of the professional poker player to celebrity status seemed calculated to promote casino tournaments and sell books and television advertising time. Nothing more.

Well, after watching the WSOP TV shows (which I enjoyed more than I expected to) I concluded that I was right. In the past year I had played plenty of small stakes poker with my buddies (mostly $10 or $20 tournaments) and plenty of play money games on my xbox. I had a feel for the game. So I decided to take a shot at online poker. I signed up for a Full Tilt account and off I went.

After nine months of playing online I have come to the conclusion that playing poker online for real money is boring. I am writing this blog on a new PC that I bought with my poker winnings, so I understand what it feels like to win. I have also lost money, so I know that feeling too. All told I have come out slightly ahead. Whoop-tee-do.

I feel the same way about my online poker experience as I felt when a colleague at work related, in tedious detail, his attempt to acquire a Play Station 3 console shortly after they were released then sell it online for a profit. "Profit?" I thought. "I already know how to make a profit. That's why I have a job. Why all this aggravation to make a measly $200? If you want to make more money get promoted or get a new job."

I feel the same way about online poker. It's not enjoyable because it makes you worry about your bankroll. You can't make money by playing conservatively- at least not at low limits. And you're not going to risk a lot of money on what is essentially a pastime, a game- not unless you're sick in the head. So you are forced to play aggressively if you're trying to make some money. Which means of course that you can win big and buy yourself a new toy. Or you can lose and feel bad about it. One thing is certain though, if you are a competetive person: You will stay up late at night obsessing about the game.

The only way to make money playing poker is to invest a lot of money in it and play conservatively for long stretches of time. I already know how to make money over long stretches of time. It's called a job, and software development is much more interesting than slumping over a table calculating odds in a card game. The variety of problems faced and kinds of creative thinking required to be a good programmer are magnitudes greater than the skills required to be a good poker player. The chief requirement for being a good card player, it seems to me, is tolerance of boredom.

Still, I love the game. So I've decided to play poker online only for play money and only for relaxation and enjoyment. I devised the following rules for managing my play money bankroll:

Poker Bankroll Management

Objectives

1. Relax and have fun. Learn to avoid tilting.
2. Improve my Texas hold 'em game.
3. Track my hold ‘em statistics using Poker Tracker software.
4. Learn how to adjust strategy for limit and pot limit games.
5. Learn how to play other poker games such as Omaha, stud, and razz.
6. Post notable hands on my website.

1. Single table tournaments are not a good investment. The payoff for cashing is too small.
2. Play tournaments with a minimum of five tables.

1. Do not buy in for more than 1/20th of bankroll (when possible).
2. Learn how to manage a chip stack in a large tournament.

1. Do not buy in for more than 1/20th of bankroll (when possible).
2. Do not bust more than twice in one sitting.
3. Buy into limit games at 50x big blind.
4. Buy into pot limit and no limit games at 100x big blind.