Just Poker Talk

Because this is my first post here at Just Poker Talk, I thought it best to introduce myself. (Pardon the length, but there is always a lot to say in an intro post!)

My name is David Macomber, but feel free to call me Dave if it so pleases you. I am a college student who attends St. Mary’s College of Maryland in Maryland as an English Major. I am not new to writing, or to writing blogs, as I have written for the baseball blog for 451Press among other, personal, blogs.

I am throwing my self full force into this blog now, so it will be the only one I am writing at, at least for the time being. I will also be throwing myself full on into the world of poker.

As far as my poker knowledge goes, I have been playing since I was a little kid and would lug my small container of spare change to my Uncle’s house for an occasional family game. I played poker while in high school, including while being physically inside the school. I started playing online poker (play money) while in high school when I ran across Pokerstars thanks to a friend showing me their site. I recently started playing freerolls (play money tournaments that allow you to win real money). I took a break from poker for a few months, and when I came back I tried out a few new poker rooms online including Doyle’s Room and Full Contact Poker, as well as my old tried and true Pokerstars.

I got sick of playing with play money and the poor quality players that are associated with it (People who go all in on every hand no matter what their hole cards are). Because of this, I decided to throw some real money on one of the online rooms. I debated between Doyle’s Room and Pokerstars(PS), and finally settled on PS. I had $100 added to my PS account today, and have been playing around a bit. I almost always play Hold’em, but know of and have played all of the games involved in HORSE. After having a bad run of early luck at the Hold’em tables, I decided to shift off to 5 card draw (a new addition to Pokerstars and one I love). My luck changed and I started to win a few bucks here and there. I decided to shift to a cheap $1 tournament, which I busted out of half way through. I then headed back to the 5 card draw tables where my luck in the game continued. I played two more tournaments later in the day, one for $4 and one for $10, both of which netted me $0 in return. I finished the night (assuming I don’t play more after typing this) back at the 5 card draw tables. I ended up with $144 on the day (a $44 dollar profit even with my tournament disasters) and 24 Frequent Player Points.

Frequent Player Points (FPPs) are awarded when a player is in a hand large enough for the rake (the amount of money that the online room takes from the pot) to reach a certain predetermined amount or at the rate of 5 FPPs per $1 in tournament fees. I need 500 FPPs in the next few months to get my first time buy-in bonus of $50. They also come in handy for special FPP tournaments or two purchase goods from the Pokerstars store.

I am happy with my decision of putting money on a site, and choosing PS as the one to use, as well as with my performance on the day.

My next post will be about what I plan to post in the future; a layout of future posts if you will. In general, I plan on covering any big poker news, whether about tournaments or the players themselves, and also covering my own experiences at the online tables and perhaps any live games I can dig up. I have recently discovered PokerXFacter, which will allow me to post videos of hands that I have played. You can check out the site for an example. I just need to learn how to use it! Plan on seeing some bad beats (hopefully not many!) and some nice wins/flops, etc. I really love the service they offer, and have seen it to great effect on other sites.

Please, feel free to contact me at any time, or leave comments to any of my posts. Share stories that are relevant to the post, or voice your opinion, etc. You can email me ideas for posts, or even you own stories. I know we all have some really bad bad beats we could talk about.

Here is too a long and healthy poker relationship!

Starting Funds: $100
Current Funds: $144
Current FPPs: 24

Poker, Online Poker, Freeroll, Doyle’s Room, Pokerstars, Full Contact Poker, Poker Blog, Play Money