Internet Chess Club could teach internet Poker a few things

A long time ago in a galaxy ruled by Xenu before he even thought of blowing up the overpopulated citizens on Earth's volcanoes I used to play chess. This started before artificial intelligence was a common thing. Get this, you could actually play BY MAIL and still have some trust that it was your brain versus live human beings.

Long before my fanisification (real word) with internet poker, having acheived a USCF expert rating and getting a real job I didn't have the time to keep myself up to speed. Petting the dog and sleeping, sadly, became more important.

But I did buy a membership to ICC. In addition to blitz chess they have some cool instructional videos and coverage of grandmaster tournaments. There was something there despite the rigged blitz play. USCF (FIDE) rating in my prime over 2100. Let's assume that due to rustiness I've dropped to a humble 1500 Mr. Joe average.

Why, in years of play was I constantly met with ICC telling me I'm a bad 1100 player?

Because AI has no compassion, does not make mistakes and more importantly, I was blacklisted. ICC, and some other chess sites that used the same program had a post log-in screen showing your status. Intersting that one of these status points was "abuser."

Oh, yeah, you betcha I became an abuser. When I play 8 games against an alleged 1200 player that kicks my ass every game eight in a row when I'm trying, you will hear about it. My response was to purposefully throw games so when I'd meet a 1500 rated player I'd destroy his rating even with a draw.

Flash forward to last week. I shouldn't admit this, but the lack of competition on PokerStars is getting a bit tedious. I Googled ICC, grabbed my credit card and tried to distract myself with a new AND PAID FOR account.

The payment screen was ridiculously user not friendly. And my new account did give me a brief trial period where I could play against their computer and REAL PEOPLE. The computer thing was going nowhere. So as I clicked on playing against real people, imagine my surprise that Jennifer played the exact same if you're not Garry Kasparov you will lose way.

But take heart. I have a new target for poker. I'm sure lots of pretty pictures will ensue because they haven't met someone with my dedication to playing humdreds of hands at the weirdest hours.