\"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

Just curious as to see what % of folks started playing regularly online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

If the wsop did it, do I fall into "other"?

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

[ QUOTE ]
If the wsop did it, do I fall into "other"?

[/ QUOTE ]

Crap!

Too late to edit . . . I was interested in keeping the WPT separate (as I think it's interesting that as many as 20% or 30% of the folks here might have started playing poker because of a show on the freakin' TRAVEL channel, just as the poker boom was starting up -- the WSOP didn't get popular until the poker boom was well on its way) but still, it deserved it's own slot.

Just put it in "Other" for now, I guess [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

I found Party Poker off Suprnova.org . . .

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

[ QUOTE ]
Just curious as to see what % of folks started playing regularly online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel.

[/ QUOTE ]

9 out of 47, or about 20% so far, started because of a show on the freaking TRAVEL channel . . .

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

2nd option for me. Played in a weekly home game, was flipping through the channels and came upon the WPT. Like the 1st or 2nd show, and saw an ad for Party. The rest is hysteria.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

FWIW, I had developed a profitable card-counting hobby since I lived so close to Vegas (Phoenix, AZ). One day, a fellow co-worker who knew I played BJ told me that one of his buddies was making money on Party Poker. So, I started playing Yahoo Hold 'Em (yea, 9 people to a capped flop) and picked up the Lee Jones classic. Within 3 weeks I made my $300 deposit into PP and haven't had to redeposit since (now that's BR management!). That was 15 months ago.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

When I think back, for me I think is was seeing The World Series of Poker televised.

I thought, "Hmmm ... that Texas Hold'em seems like an interesting form of poker..."


Adam

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

My background is similar. I started playing online shortly before the WPT.

I was making money counting cards at blackjack in Tunica.

In January, 2003 the WPO was in town so a zillion poker-players were running around all over the place.

One guy was sitting at a $25-min double-deck BJ game with me at the Horseshoe and was talking with the BJ dealer (who used to deal poker) about such things as 'i just got knocked out of the satellite. flopped the nut-straight but some guy caught a boat on the river.'
I had no idea WTF he was saying.
I didn't even know what a satellite was much less a flop or the nuts or a boat.


I told him that the poker over there looked interesting but I would be afraid to play because I don't even know how and i was pretty sure the sharks would eat me alive (I had seen Rounders).
He nodded in agreement with that sentiment and suggested I could learn to play online.
I said 'You can play poker on the internet?'
'Oh sure. Even for play-money if you want.'

Did a google search a few days later and pokerstars was the site I went to for whatever reason.

Later did a google search for 'poker strategy articles' and eventually that got me over to 2+2.


Again, this was a few months before the WPT debuted.
I got my start all thanks to some guy in a black-leather jacket with an ace of spades tattoo on his forearm.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

You have ignored the "Rounders" factor.

Shame on you

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

[ QUOTE ]

I was making money counting cards at blackjack in Tunica.


[/ QUOTE ]

Just curious, what system did you use?

FWIW, I used RPC (Revere Point Count system).

Did you ever belong to the BJ21.com Green Chip forums?

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

yes...i was on BJ21 and have mucho respect for Stanford Wong.


I have used a couple of different counts...mostly just a general hi-lo with a bunch of different side-counts in there.
In single-deck and double-deck you can make some casual observations that can prove helpful. "Hmmm...no 8's have come out yet" and then know the different appropriate strategy deviations.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

You left out some choices. Some of us started playing holdem online long before the WPT and before Moneymaker.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

[ QUOTE ]
You left out some choices. Some of us started playing holdem online long before the WPT and before Moneymaker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lucky bastards. How come you didn't tell me? [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Chann
 

Yea, I started after seeing "Rounders". I saw it, figured that since I had found online casinos, I might find an online poker room, and there it was. I started at Paradise Poker (back when .50/1 was the lowest you could find), and the rest, as they say, is history.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

Another WSOP vote.

I got hooked on the ME episodes from 2003, but didn't actually try out the game until midway through the 2004 shows. First started playing on Pacific (because I remembered seeing Dan Harrington wearing the 888 cap in 2003), just play money for a week or so. Then I picked up Hilger's ITH, read it, and decided to give it a shot on the nanolimits with a $20 deposit. About 3 weeks later I heard about a sweet bonus on Empire and deposited $100 there. I eventually got fed up with the software on Pacific & cashed out up about $100, but I'm still playing on my initial deposit at Empire (after about $3600 in cashouts). I also dabbled a bit on Pokerstars, eventually losing my first $100 deposit, but later making that up +$250 before settling on the Party skins.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

Late night TV here in OZ I saw some dudes playing poker (some WPT event) and I thought hey I could do that.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

I played with friends pretty regularly, but was hesitant to deposit money in an online poker room until one of my friends showed me it was legit. Now that it's so easy to sit in on a game I've been playing very regularly. But it's still just a hobby.

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

I was talking to my Mom in mid-2003 and she told me she was playing a little poker online. My parents are in WI and I'm in CA so we only see each other when we meet in Vegas or Reno. As an IT Manager, I told her I didn't know anything about it, but wouldn't recommend it. How do you know your money is safe? It is probably rigged, anyway.

I created an account on Paradise just to watch her play. Then promptly forgot about it. A month later a buddy at work told me he'd found the new addiction. I told him it's funny he says that because my Mom is hooked.

That was it. Off to PokerStars. Called Mom to say "I'm in!" and proceeded to lose a few buy-ins. Then heard about Moneymaker, got excited, and proceeded to lose a few more buyins.

By late summer 2003, I was tired of funding my online habit and decided to at least "try" to make some money. A library of books later I noticed the website on one of the covers and thought, what the heck, let's see what else they're sellin' and lo&behold found out what I was missing out on.

I didn't know this stuff was on TV until I was already main-line addicted. Now I'm trying to decide what to do about taxes. Fund a poker account? Never again with "my own money".

BTW, anyone else think this stuff is rigged? [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] hahaha!! Those were the days.

Onaflag..........

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

Other: Trading message board

Poker and the Beginning Trader

Re: \"I Started Playing Online after seeing the WPT on the Travel Channel\"
 

I was catching the wpt episodes the first season and really liked them, so much so that I actually figured out when they started and watched them intentionally rather than just finding them when I was channel surfing. That's rare for me.

After a number of episodes I thought it would be even more interesting if I understood how to play, I mean I didn't even know the hand rankings. I figured there was probably a book, but which book. Then they had a segment on one of the episodes where they asked players about what book they would recommend, there were a number of answers but the one most players said was Supersystem, by Doyle Brunson. Excellent! I thought, I'll get that.

In the back of my mind was the thought that maybe I could interest some people in a regular tournament style game, with like a ten dollar buy in or something. Probably not, cause I could only think of one guy who I though might want to do that, but the thought was there.

I ran out to the bookstore the next day and, oh no! they didn't have Supersystem. So I picked up poker for dummies. Hey, they had the handrankings in there at least.

I read all the general poker stuff and all of the hold em stuff that day. Poker for Dummies said you can play online (yeah, so what) but also that Turbo Texas Hold em was very realistic. So the next day I ran out to find TTH and couldn't, so I got a casino game that had hold em on it and also picked up WLLHE.

I started playing the casino game and was kicking its ass within a week (don't laugh, if I couldn't beat that I probably never would've gotten into real poker.) So I started playing play money online. When I'd built 50 BB's into 1000 BB's playing limit play money, I deposited 60 bucks and started playing .05/.10 and never looked back.

--Zetack