As the game
draws in younger players, online sites are thriving
Chris Moneymaker declared: "I'm all in,"
putting all his chips at stake. The game is a poker
variant called Texas HoldEm, in which each player gets
two cards and the table, five. From the seven, the
players try to make a winning five-card hand or fool
their opponents into thinking they have. In this case,
the cards on the table were lousy: a 9, 2, 6, 8, and 3,
three of which were spades. Moneymaker didn't even have
a pair.
Sammy
Farha, his remaining opponent, stared him down. "You
missed your flush," Farha said, trying to get a read on
his opponent. Farha held a pair of nines. Minutes
passed. Finally, Farha shook his head and folded.
Moneymaker won the monster pot in one of the most famous
bluffs in poker history, and went on to win the 2003
World Series of Poker and its $3 million prize on the
next hand.
Thanks to colorful gamblers, celebrity players such as
Ben Affleck and Matthew Perry, and a lipstick-size
camera that lets television viewers peek at the players'
cards, the age-old of game of scruffy cowboys and cigar
chompers is new again. TV poker has become a display of
deception, a reality show where wits, guts, and a little
luck can turn a nobody accountant like Moneymaker into a
millionaire.
Of course, poker is not just a spectator sport. Spurred
by the growing coverage on TV, teens are putting down
their video- game controllers and picking up the cards.
Thousands of players, from college kids to grandmothers,
are joining the action on the Internet. According to
PokerPulse, $100 million is wagered each night in online
poker. Some of the larger sites can attract up to 40,000
or 50,000 players a night.
Is it legal? Many of the online sites are located
offshore, beyond the U.S. government's reach.
Technically, anyone 18 or older can legally play at a
Web site based offshore. Regulators have made it tough
to use credit cards, but the sites will take an
electronic check. Online poker joints based in the U.S.
say players must be 21, but no one's checking IDs at the
door.
GREENHORNS GALORE
You can't twirl your chips or read your opponents'
faces, but online has its advantages. You can play
whenever or wherever you want. You're anonymous, known
by a screen name, and so you're less likely to be
embarrassed by bad moves. Online leaves more money for
the players, too. In any card room, the house's cut, or
"the rake," is 10% of every pot. The maximum rake, or
cap, is usually $3 online and $4 in casinos. Over the
course of many hands, that dollar makes a huge
difference.
Because online poker draws lots of inexperienced
players, the venue is rewarding for the skillful. Among
them is Justin Bonomo (ZeeJustin on PartyPoker.com), 18,
from Centreville, Va. He uses two monitors to play as
many as eight tables at once and says he has turned a
$250 stake into more than $90,000 in a year. Bonomo will
soon enroll at the University of Maryland, but he
aspires to a career in poker. "There's no doubt in my
mind that I can make a very comfortable living off of
poker," he says.
Not all the stars are kids. David Ross, 44, who goes by
the name davidross on PartyPoker and PokerStars.com,
plays 35 to 45 hours a week and through it supports his
wife and four children. "I love the freedom it has given
me in terms of time and money," says Ross, who just
finished his first year as a full-time player and made
$82,000. The occasional losing streaks are tough to
handle, he says, "but I have confidence that they will
end."
If you don't want to be an easy mark for Bonomo or Ross,
then you should do a little studying. David Sklansky's
The Theory of Poker is a good primer, and you
might follow that up with Sklansky's HoldEm Poker.
You can also tap the knowledge of the poker community at
various message boards. Greg Raymer, who won $5 million
in the 2004 World Series of Poker, credits the message
boards at TwoPlusTwo.com for helping him improve his
game. Other good resources include the United Poker
Forum (unitedpokerforum.com), and the news group,
rec.gambling.poker.
|
