Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would become as addicted to online poker as I had. If you are any sort of poker enthusiast at all, then you know that logging into a poker account is much like giving a kid a bag of candy after he gets his first taste. You can play heads up, 7 stud, no limit hold ?em cash games, limit hold ?em tournaments, sit and go tournaments, regular cash games. The possibilities are endless.



The very first site I played on had a cash, as well as free area to play poker. This is very similar to nearly all other online poker sites. Well, this one in particular had a free roll tournament, that if you won would put you in their ?big game? on Saturday for free. You need to understand that to me back then, the ?big game? was a top prize of $125.

At the time I was at a job that I did not enjoy very much, so I ended up playing in the free roll tournament when I was supposed to be doing data entry. After winning my seat, I received my confirmation for the ?big game.? The pressure suddenly sank in as I found myself up against 500 other players. And surprisingly most were actually pretty good. These were not the garden variety that I found trolling around the free poker games online likely calling with a 3-5 off suit, just as they would with pocket Aces. No, these were players, really good ones.

After playing tightly with the lower blinds and keeping notes (a function I absolutely love online) on certain players for several hours, I found myself getting closer to the money. The payouts after 3rd place were very minimal, so to me it was either ?go big or go home.? Having this attitude and playing as well as possible I was able to make some gutsy calls. The final table held 7 other players. And as luck would have it, I had notes on 6 of those 7. Using this to my advantage I was able to systematically take them down one by one and claim the first prize of $125.

Thinking I had found my new job, and being not the humblest person in the world, I shot an email to all my friends telling them of my big score online. After doing so, I headed back to the rooms to see what I could play. Only being familiar to the free rooms, I was unaware of the level of skill some players had in the real cash games. Needless to say, I earned my poker stripes and blew the whole $125 in less than an hour, after which I began to brainstorm how I could get more money to get back in the games, any game. I thought to myself - this is probably what a drug addict feels like. And to top it all off, people were starting to call after seeing my email to congratulate me and ask how much more money I had won. My response was ?I'm still up.? It was not entirely a lie; I was still up ? on my poker high that is.