Mindless Juices

OK, so a number of my male friends have gotten into the poker craze that's hit the nation over the past couple of years. I can honoestly say that, while I was interested, I felt it as being a passing fad. I thought the same thing about the rise of NASCAR popularity. Like the WWF who rocked, then sucked, then rocked, then sucked... I imagined these trends to follow suit (no pun intended) for poker, and, specifically, Texas Hold-'em. Unfortunately, my interest grew from watching the occasional WSOP show on ESPN2. I was invited to a few poker games over the past year and I greatly enjoyed the company. Specifically, I loved the fact that my pastors would join us in a beer and some poker. This is just one more reason why newhope is a great church. Even more, I appreciated just hanging out with the guys, making crude jokes about who brought nuts for hours, listening to blues or jazz and just having a lot of fun. I've never won back my money, but I always do pretty good. I'm rarely the first one out and usually I'm in the final three. Well, I accidentally watched a show on FSN sponsered by fulltiltpoker.net. The main pro poker player on the show is none other than "The Professor," Howard Lederer. I really enjoy Howard's style of play. His willingness to help other players and run commentary has earned him his nickname. He explains things well and in such a way that I understand it well enough to apply it. So, after catching this show, Learn from the Pros, I realized there was a lot I DIDN'T know about the game. I headed over to fulltiltpoker.net to see what the website had to offer. I had no intentions of playing online. After reading several of the articales there, I NEEDED to try these lessons out. Unfortunately, our most regular game hasn't been very regular and, worst, I have not been able to attend due to prior commitments. So, I went ahead and started playing online. I really enjoy it and am learning how to apply the techniques from the articles. Now, i can't wait for another game for some real life action. I should say that I am NOT playing for real money. Fulltiltpoker.net has a whole play money thing and I'm playing there. I've done pretty well and I'm keeping track of my stats in a MS Excel file to insure I'm ACTUALLY improving. There's plenty of growing room in the play money area, but eventually, I might try my hand at the penny=dollar poker tables. I can play at the play money tables for a while as I build-up my bankrole and move into higher stakes play money tables. The better players are at the higher stakes tables, even with play money. To improve my game, I'll need to play with better players. Soner or later, and probably MUCH, MUCH later, I'll be playing at the high stakes play money tables and the only way to play with better players would be to play with real money. My thought was that if I can win a couple of real life games, I'll take just $5 of my "winnings" and play a little online for real money. The nice part will be that the penny=dollar real money poker tables SHOULD be a higher caliber player than high stakes play money and I should be able to improve my game with VERY little investment. If they aren't very good, then I'll win lots and actually make a few dollars online. The main reason for getting better at poker has little to do with money. Though it's nice to win some every once in a while, I'm hoping to raise the caliber of the guys that *I* play poker with. That is, with regards to their poker game... I'm not sure if I can raise the caliber of anything else with these guys. :) I'm hoping that we all get better and that makes the games even more interesting than they already are. I'd like to play more than just Texas Hold-'em and I'd like for the games to have a reputation of being "good." ... "If you want a good poker game..." or, better yet, others want to play with us because they want to raise the level of THEIR game. Of course, this is all assuming that all this work and research will actually result in my being a better poker player. Someone get a game going! I need to know!