My journey begins today ....

Okay.  That's not actually true.  My journey really began a little over a month ago, on November 4th, 2009.  That's when I decided to download 'Full Tilt Poker's (FTP) software.  And actually, it goes back further... so let's 'set the table'...

It was sometime in October.  I was channel surfing at a high rate of speed, clocking about 90 mph thru the '100s'.  I figured ESPN was broadcasting a second rate college football game, or perhaps baseball.  I zipped past channel 140 but something caught my eye.  I went back and found that the 'World Series of Poker' was playing.  It's this HUGE tournament where more than 60,000 people from 115 countries pay $10,000 each just to play.  Now, I've played poker before.  But that's about all I can say.  I didn't understand all the betting and when it was supposed to happen.  I didn't even know which hands were better.  But something made sit there and watch that night.  I've found that, in my old age, I guess I want to learn how things work.

So, I watched.  And watched.  And watched.  For 1-2 hours every Tuesday night.  I started picking up the terminology.  I started to see how players bet with certain hands.  I quickly saw that something I formerly viewed as 'something to do with the guys' could be much more complicated.  Could I do this?  It looked fun, but I didn't know.  At any rate, I kept seeing commercials for all these online poker sites.  All of them stated that it wasn't for real money (which is only HALF true, since you can either use 'play money' or 'real money' - go figure).  So I decided to take the leap.  I joined both FullTiltPoker.net and PokerStars.net.  Of the two, I've felt more comfortable with FTP so far.  Don't ask me why.  As I gain more experience, I'll try other sites (based on the promotions they offer, which will be a future topic).

So there you go.  I've picked some initial topics I'd like to discuss and will be posting them over the next few days.  Feel free to add your 2 cents!  As my viewership grows (certainly my intention), I hope to learn as much as you guys will.  So, until then, shuffle up and deal!