My Return to Online Poker – Part I

I recently took a trip to Colombia with my family for four weeks. After a two-year hiatus, it was an opportunity to return to online poker! My brother-in-law who is Colombian had played a little online poker so what harm would it be to use his accounts and get back into the action? Since Black Friday, I’ve actually only played poker two times, and that was just in a simple little small-stakes home game. I was excited to finally play some poker, but at the same time I had no idea where to start and was a little anxious.

I had so many questions. How tough are the games nowadays? Has the playing style changed significantly? How rusty will I be? What sites should I play on? What stakes should I start out in? How will I cash out? What types of games should I play?

So my journey back to online poker actually started before I even left the country. I decided to start by getting on the forum at my website and asking those in the know from overseas. I also shot an email out to the authors of Winning Poker Tournaments as I knew a couple of them were playing overseas. So my first question was rather simple, “Which sites are the best nowadays? Which sites have the fishiest tournaments?” I hadn’t played in quite some time so my preference was to play in the fishiest tournaments.

To no surprise, one response was that Bovada/Bodog still had very weak games. He did note though that players are now anonymous which makes it impossible to build notes on anyone. Another response was that 888, the old Pacific, was still really good. Another collaborated, “888 is da fish-fest”. Some things haven’t changed!

Some other feedback I received was on sites that I should maybe avoid. I was told that Full Tilt Poker was really tough and that mostly regulars were playing there. Evidently, the grinder tournaments at PokerStars are pretty tough, but anything with huge fields or odd(ish) formats were much softer. I-poker and Microgaming “are slowly committing suicide with rake races, making it grinder heaven (or hell)”.

This was all very helpful information. There are so many variables that go into what games one should play, but one of the most important is finding the softest games. Unfortunately, I had some limitations in terms of cashouts. I was only going to play for a few weeks and I was using my brother-in-law’s accounts, which had not been used in a couple of years. Cashouts were going to be a pain. In the end, I decided to just stick to one site and chose PartyPoker as my brother-in-law already had an account there.

I arrive in Colombia and am ready to go. I start with a couple of $10 sit-n-gos just to get my feet wet. My plan was to start out slowly as I figured I would be rusty. But after a couple of boring sit-n-gos, I was ready to play a larger multitable tourney and entered a $50 nightly.

Things didn’t start out as I had envisioned. I really thought that although I might be a little rusty, I expected my concentration level to be at a very high level. After all, it had been a couple of years so I should be quite focused. When I used to play online tourneys, my focus would generally be very poor until I made it quite deep in a tourney. Surely after a two year break I would have rid myself of that bad habit! Well, not exactly. In fact, my concentration lasted about 10 minutes.

I soon found myself surfing the Internet. While playing only one tournament, I found that I just couldn’t stay focused. And it cost me big time. I was reading some articles, my hand popped up, I pushed all-in, and then I realized that a player had pushed all-in before me. I’ve waited two years, still got bored and was reading articles, and then I misclick! Pitiful. That actually tilted me for a few days. I just couldn’t forgive myself.

Finally after a couple of days I got back into the action. I played a few more sit-n-gos and did well, tasting sweet victory for the first time in two years. I played a couple of smallish $20 tourneys and got relatively deep before running into A-A. The small tourneys weren’t doing it for me so I went ahead and plunged into a $215. I had forgotten how frustrating tournaments can be. I have 5,000 chips or so and am dealt K-K. My opponent raises the flop of 10-5-3 with J-9. He turns an 8, we get all-in, and he rivers the straight.

Later I played a $50 tourney and get dealt A-A. My opponent raises to 300 and I call. The flop is K-x-x. He bets 750 and I call. The turn is a 10. He checks, I put him all-in for 2,400 and he calls with A-J? Of course, the queen falls on the river. Welcome back to online poker! Some things haven’t changed!

So it was a frustrating start, but I now realized that play hadn’t really changed all that much. There were still some major donks out there and plenty of money to be made. The next day I entered a $100 tourney, 47 entries, and took it down for $1,700. The heads-up match lasted over an hour so I was quite pleased with how I played.
And now of course, “I love online poker!”

Next month in Part II of my return to online poker I’ll discuss what games I found to be quite difficult and what variant turned out to be incredibly fishy. ♠

Matthew is the owner of Dimat Enterprises, “Publishing Today’s Best Poker Books”. Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Volume III is available at pokerbooks.InternetTexasHoldem.com in both print and e-book format. You may also try our new iPad app for free, Poker Coach Pro, based on content from the Winning Poker Tournament series.