Online Poker Articles

In 2003 I contributed a series of articles to Poker Europa magazine. My column (entitled Online Poker Scene) dealt with a different area of interest to online players each month. This page contains an archive of my articles, in reverse chronological order.

Book Review

Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games by Lou Krieger and Kathleen Keller Watterson (ConJelCo; $14.95)

In Internet Poker Lou Krieger and Kathleen Keller Watterson provide an engaging introduction both to the game of poker in general and to playing poker online.

The two authors are both highly-experienced players and writers. Lou Krieger is a Card Player columnist who has several well-established books to his credit, including Poker for Dummies and Hold'em Excellence, and Kathleen Keller Watterson is a journalist who not long ago took a year's sabbatical in order to play poker professionally. Together they have produced a well-written and nicely presented guide aimed at poker newcomers of all ages.

The first half of the book takes the reader from the standard hand rankings through to rules and basic strategies. It focuses on the five most common games found in online cardrooms: hold'em, Omaha hi, Omaha hi/lo, seven-card stud and seven-card stud hi/lo. The emphasis throughout is on limit cash games, rather than tournaments or pot-limit cash games, but that form of the game is far and away the most popular with novice players in the US.

One unique feature of the book is the fact that it comes packaged with a CD-ROM. Readers can work through 125 interactive practice hands on their computer, while following the authors' helpful step-by-step commentary in the book. The CD uses a demonstration version the popular Wilson Turbo software for these tutorial hands, and also contains hypertext links to some of the major online cardrooms and other poker websites of interest.

The second half of Internet Poker deals specifically with playing online. Here the authors explain how to sign up and buy in at an online cardroom, the mechanics of how you actually play a game, and how you should go about selecting the right game in which to play. They also address key concerns about Internet disconnections, cheating in online play and the legality of online poker.

There is one small blemish. An index is supplied at the back of the book, but unfortunately the page references do not correlate with the actual page numbers.

Overall, this inexpensive book will appeal to anyone who is new both to online poker and to poker as a whole. Perhaps someone who has watched poker on TV, or played with friends or family at home, but would find the prospect of visiting a real cardroom rather daunting. Essentially it is a beginner's book, but one geared towards those who want to start out online, rather than in a brick and mortar casino. Anyone with prior experience of limit poker, or who has already played online, probably won't find much that they don't know already, or couldn't pick up from a couple of evenings playing online. However, the book would make an attractive Christmas gift for a friend or family member who wants to learn the game from scratch by playing online.

September 2003

If any further proof were needed that online poker tournaments are booming, then the PokerStars 2003 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) certainly provided it. This event drew massive fields, and the resulting large prize funds were a powerful magnet for 'live-action' and online poker stars alike.

Leading up to the WCOOP, PokerStars had organised dozens of cash and frequent player points satellites for each of the 11 events. The site was guaranteeing at least $1 million total prizes, and their bold investment was never really in any danger. As it turned out, an incredible $2,716,600 was awarded in prizes, including $222,750 for first place in the $1000 buy-in no-limit tournament. Whereas the inaugural 2002 series had attracted 238 players for the main event, this year there were 891 contenders!

The curtain-raiser was a $100 buy-in no-limit hold'em heads-up knock-out tournament in which all 512 available places were filled. In a tough ten-hour event Dutchman 'batoelrob' managed to string together nine consecutive wins to take down the first prize of $12,800. This was followed by a $100 buy-in limit hold'em event, which drew an enormous field 1301 players. C.M. Burns from Davis picked up $32,525 first prize after a marathon 12-hour session.

The next event, $300 buy-in pot-limit Omaha hi/lo, saw a much smaller field of 368 players, but first prize was still $27,600. It was won by 'Lenny' from Downey with Paris-based 'cantona' finishing as runner-up. However, the no-limit $300 buy-in hold'em event on the following day then drew the highest entry of the 11 days. Ultimately the well-known Swedish online professional 'Erik123' (AKA 'King of Ding') bested 1357 other players to take down a first prize of over $100,000.

Hold'em is far and away the most popular game in tournament poker. Each of the six WCOOP hold'em events attracted over 500 players, whereas the biggest field in any of other events was 368. On the other hand, I doubt whether 'naya', 'Starkitty', 'Big Cy' and 'RatPack' were complaining about the $23,512, $39,750, $38,912 and $38,500 they received for winning the stud, limit Omaha hi/lo, stud hi/lo and pot-limit Omaha events respectively!

In actual fact, the stud hi/lo tournament was badly disrupted by the power cut which blacked out much of the northeastern United States. Dozens of players were disconnected and effectively blinded out of the tournament. It is very much to PokerStars' credit that they refunded the entry fees of those affected, whilst keeping the prize fund intact.

After 'jr50' and 'actiondonkey' had picked up $68,250 and $78,250 for their respective victories in the $500 pot-limit and limit hold'em events, it was on to the big one. With two players remaining, roughly level in chips, the biggest prize in online poker basically hinged on one huge pot. 'DeOhGee' called and then reraised all-in on the button with A9, and his opponent 'DOUBLEDUCE' called with TT. The latter's fate was pretty much decided when an ace hit on the flop, but he could take $124,740 in consolation for second place. Meanwhile, for 'DeOhGee', it was time to celebrate becoming the 2003 WCOOP main event champion.

All in all, this year's WCOOP was a huge success, but no doubt the 2004 series will be even bigger and better!

August 2003

When players look back in years to come, 2003 may well be regarded as the year that the tournament poker explosion really began. The highly publicised success of rank outsider Chris Moneymaker in the 839-player WSOP main event, together with the excellent ratings figures achieved by the World Poker Tour (WPT) TV programmes in the US, has brought a great many new players into the game. Although some of them may be attracted by the qualities of skill, character and courage necessary to win a poker tournament, no doubt many others are simply drawn in by the 'lottery syndrome', the fact that on a given day any individual player can emerge from the crowd to take home a massive prize for a small outlay.

It is hardly surprising that, on the back of these developments, the online tournament scene is currently experiencing unprecedented growth. Some of the daily multi-table events at PokerStars, PartyPoker, UltimateBet and other sites are now attracting 400 or more players each, and the PokerStars freeroll events regularly fill all 1000 seats. Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, the weekly Sunday $200 buy-in no-limit event at PokerStars has grown from a typical entry of below 200 at the start of the year to over 750.

As a result of this online poker tournament boom, players nowadays have a great choice of options and can find a game at any hour, day or night. Here is a brief rundown of what is currently on offer at the main multi-table tournament sites:

PokerStars
PokerStars was the first to develop fully the concept of online tournaments, and remains the leader in the field. With around 150 tournaments a week, ranging from freerolls and $1 buy-in events to the big $200 weekly buy-in events and the $1000 buy-in World Championship of Online Poker main event, PokerStars caters for all budgets and time zones. The site also covers the widest range of games in its tournaments, not only hold'em (limit, no-limit and pot-limit) and Omaha (both hi and hi/lo), but also seven-card stud (hi and hi/lo)

PartyPoker
PartyPoker has undoubtedly been the biggest online beneficiary of the WPT. Not only was the second PartyPoker.com Million event featured in one of the shows, but their host Mike Sexton was co-presenter of the series. Although the site is only offering eight multi-table events a day, they each attract several hundred players. In addition, there are also regular satellites for the third PartyPoker.com Million, the final of which will take place on a cruise ship to Mexico in March 2004.

UltimateBet
Like PartyPoker, UltimateBet has benefited enormously from exposure garnered from the WPT TV series (its Ultimate Poker Classic tournament in Aruba was featured on one of the programmes). Recently the site has greatly enhanced its tournament schedule, and it now offers hourly multi-table tournaments around the clock, including some re-buy events. The site is also running regular satellites for the next Ultimate Poker Classic, which will tale place in Aruba in October.

Although some of the other prominent online sites, such as Paradise Poker and Ladbrokes, still only offer single-table tournaments, there are many smaller sites that also offer multi-table events. For example, the Victor Chandler/Poker in Europe site offers hourly events starting late afternoon European time and running through into the small hours.

July 2003

Over the past decade we have seen time and again how quickly things can change in the dot.com world. Just as one company appears to have established market supremacy, almost inevitably it is not long before half a dozen new start-ups start snapping at its heels. So it is with the online poker industry too. Since becoming market leader soon after its launch in September 1999, Paradise Poker has enjoyed several years as the most popular site on which to play poker - until now. Finally, Paradise Poker has been usurped from its no.1 spot by one of its rivals, PartyPoker, which is now regularly attracting well over 7000 players at peak times, roughly three times that of its main rival. For the time being at least, the self-styled 'world's largest online poker room' has been forced to rebrand itself as the 'world's premier online poker room'.

From the very outset of its launch in August 2001, PartyPoker has been very effective in its marketing strategy. The site has always been very active in rewarding its regular players, while at the same time attracting new players through its highly popular PartyPoker.com Million tournament and various other enticing promotions. The recent boom in players at the site has generally been attributed mainly to the hit weekly World Poker Tour TV shows in the US, co-hosted by PartyPoker's own Mike Sexton, and featuring both PartyPoker commercials and the PartyPoker.com Million II itself.

However, the rapid expansion of PartyPoker this year has not come without a price. As with any business which experiences a massive increase in its customer base virtually overnight, PartyPoker has struggled to cope. Many players have experienced frequent software problems and disconnections, since the existing site infrastructure has struggled to cope with the influx of new players. PartyPoker has announced that its game servers are being upgraded, work that will hopefully be complete by the time these words are published, but for the present time playing on the site is, for many players, a frustrating experience.

Meanwhile, over at PokerStars, the second World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) promises to be a tremendously exciting event, if recent tournaments at the site are anything to go by. The WCOOP runs over 11 days, culminating in the $1000 buy-in main event, which boasts a guaranteed $250,000 prize fund. The full schedule is as follows:

Thursday, August 7 No-Limit Hold'em Heads-up Matchplay $100+$9 buyin
Friday, August 8 Limit Hold'em $100+$9 buyin
Saturday, August 9 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo $300+$20 buyin
Sunday, August 10 No-Limit Hold'em $300+$20 buyin
Monday, August 11 Seven-Card Stud $300+$20 buyin
Tuesday, August 12 Pot-Limit Hold'em $500+$30 buyin
Wednesday, August 13 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo $500+$30 buyin
Thursday, August 14 Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo $500+$30 buyin
Friday, August 15 Pot-Limit Omaha $500+$30 buyin
Saturday, August 16 Limit Hold'em $500+$30 buyin
Sunday, August 17 No-Limit Hold'em $1000+$50 buyin

Satellites are being held for each event. A report on the WCOOP will appear in this column in the October edition of Poker Europa.