An online adventure - long

Sue me Wrong Forum Guy. I'm not posting on the Internet Gambling forum.


My son has an online poker account. He gave me his password a while back so I've been looking around there a bit. A few days ago I couldn't resist nosing around so I checked out how much he had in his account.


$50. Hmmm....okay. Start small, work your way up. Still, a bit too small for my liking and I told him so. He hemmed and hawed, stuck between a rock and a hard place. He finally admitted to starting the account with $500. What limits were you playing, I asked. $5-10, he answered.


I wasn't entirely pleased but didn't let it show. I asked him what limit he was playing at the moment. He said none, impossible to to recoup what he had lost.


Now I was getting seriously annoyed but I didn't show it. Tell you what, I said. Let me fool around with your money for a few days and see what I can do. If I get it back to $500 you follow my advice on how to continue building your bankroll. If I bust out, and that's entirely possible, I'll give you $50 cash. He agreed.


With only $50 I had two choices. No limit with the smallest blinds I've ever seen, or $1-2. I watched the no limit for a couple of hours. It's a strange game online, ultimately beatable but too much risk with only two buy-ins. So off to the $1-2.


It was the oddest session I've ever played in. Nobody raised (except me) without the nuts, and even then I noticed a couple of them just calling with unbeatable hands. It took me....oh, two hands (in one hour) to lose half my (son's) stack. Finally I got QJs on the button in a familt pot, raised and all was right with the world. Result: Ten hours of play +$75.


The next day I was back facing a totally different line up. Talk about weak tight. A raise sent them all scurrying. On one hand I got a small set to fold (he showed me) by jamming AQ with a Q on board. Seven hours of play +$60.


The next session was wild. A true, certified maniac entered the game. have you ever played against a real maniac before? He raised, reraised or capped every single hand. And he won for a couple of hours, won real big. I was staying out of the way with my terrible hands as he drove everybody else nuts, cracking every imaginable hand and capping it each time. I was begging the Lord to give me a hand and finally my prayers were answered. I nailed him six times in a row. The flops hit me, not him. My name's Billy son, wanna play head-up? Just joking. The best luck I had that day was staying out of the way during his rush. His rush ended and the rest of the table was too battle-fatigued to do anything but watch. +$130 for the day.


Yesterday was most bizarre. I was down 15bb or so, trying to resist being sucked into the loose-passive rythym of the game. Fold, fold, fold...finally 9h8h appeared in my hand UTG. I limp and so does everybody else. Good.


The flop comes 10h7h5h, something like that. Anyway, I've got a flush. now the kicker is that at this site they have a high hand jackpot. Every ninety minutes the high hand wins whatever. In this case it was $127 I believe. As much as I'd like to bet here I can't take the risk of everybody folding. Or can I? Anyway, the blinds checked, I checked and it was checked around.


The turn brought a lovely Qh. Checked to me. Now what? Easy...bet. I got three callers and the button raised. I called. So did the others. The river was a 3x. It was checked to the button, he bet, I raised etc etc until it was capped. Straight flush baby, a nice pot AND the jackpot, which held up.


So that's my online adventure. If there's any point to this tale it is that of adjusting to your opponents (most of whom are very straight forward at that limit). Being able to note the changes from loose-passive to weak-tight to tight-aggressive, all of which you experience over many hours of play make the $1-2 game online very profitable.


One hand that still annoys me, though. I open-raised with 88 UTG+2. Three callers in a very passive game. The flop came AK4o. I bet, call, call. Bad sign. The turn is a 9. I check, button bets, small blind calls, I fold. The river was a baby card. Bet, call. The button wins with J4. I can only wonder what the small blind had.


Best of luck to you all. Billy (LTL)