I use to be a big player of online poker. To a point it was almost addicting, then I gave it up. That was four years ago. I took on sports betting, until I gave it up. That was last year. I never won at either one. Well, I won, but eventually gave it all back and then some.

I am now back to online poker, but not to the extent you may think. I do not play for real money. I do not play at tables for what is called free play money, because that would be boring, but I do play tournament style free play. If you are in the top 65 out of a couple thousand you are entered into another tournament that pays out real money. After a couple dozen tournament since starting this, I have made it to the top 65 and am now at the next round.

I am not good a calculating my odds of winning, but I find it interesting to see if I could make money from it.

Why not just play for money?

I ran into a fella one day that just came back from a poker tournament at a casino and we got to talking. He had been an online poker player until one day, he had found out that there was software that would help your online hands. I am not sure how that could possible work, but I did not find that so hard to believe. I recalled the number of times that I lost with a 'runner, runner' on 'forth street' and the 'river'. These are the last two card shown respectively when playing Texas Holdem. Now most card players call that a 'bad beat'. I actually think that is something more.

When some players have no business going all-in and coming out with the winning hand on the last two cards, that is something more. I do not recall that happening too many time during live poker. Nothing like the amount of times it happened during online poker.

Why even play?

I figure if there are cheats out there, my chances of them being in free play tournaments is slim, and all I have to do is avoid those cheats long enough to place in the money. I do not expect to win the whole thing, just come away with something, and that something is going to be cashed out.

Why not buy software and take advantage?

That my friends is cheating. Taking advantage of someone that is already cheating is payback, but taking advantage of someone that does not know that there is cheating software is wrong. I cannot distinguise who know and who does not know. I can recommend that if you are a online poker player, than you should take your money out immediately.

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