Kudos to PokerStars

Things actually weren't too bad tonight.

I prefer Omaha Hi-Lo. I've discovered that straight up Hold'em is kinda of boring for me. But I am proficient in all forms of poker. And since I want to spread the love around my first table tonight was a 200/400 7 stud Hi-Lo game.

Now, the danger of these tables is that you don't get the inevitable all-ins and see the showdowns on what completely stupid hands people are pushing their chips on. And you never get to know exactly how good your hand was if you fold since you haven't received all your cards. So that reminded me to "bump" old posts regarding how to survive 7 stud Hi-Lo on internet poker.

Still keep in mind the rule about not playing seriously until you've folded a good hand that turns out to be a winner. Again, harder than Omaha since you're already deep into it before you find out you screwed up. New rule for this game - play for the low hand. If you're first three cards don't have at least two or three 8 or under unpaired, it's just not worthwhile.

And why I give the kudos to PokerStars tonight...yeah the early chat was a little nutty, but you didn't do what I expected...every single position going all in every hand. It was so unusual I finally had to leave after a modest gain.

The Hold'em sit and go I was in on next was a little bit more to my liking. A six player table where not surprisingly I ed up seriously short stacked, and being conservative and not having had a pocket pair in over thirty hands I HAVE to push all in with my pair of ACES. Not too long after that, still short stacked, I push in with KQ and the table bully calls with pocket queens. Magically, a K shows on the board, and I'm not just in the game, I'm the leader.

After a lot of unsuccesful "playing to make me lose instead of playing to win play", I eventually secure all I wanted - second place in the money. The final spot other than me played very badly after that, and I took first.

This doesn't change a thing about my opinions.

I have only been here for less than three weeks. My experience has been that there is a courting period to allow you to do well to entice you into switching to the real money tables. The "Free Trial Period." I suspect for now I'm in that. Instead, I'm now darn close to 40k free money chips, and when I get to sit in on the bigger tables, that's where all the really weird stuff happens.

Expect me.