Back At The Table, Digitally Speaking

I don't know what it is, but I'm back playing Hold'em at PokerStars again.

Every couple of months I just get this urge and all I want to do is sit down and play tournaments one after the other. The fact that it's all Play Money makes it a little easier to swallow.

So instead of getting any work done so far today, I've spent the past two hours playing poker and winning a tournament - 300/20 buy-in of 27 people. Got some good cards, but made some good plays too.

I think it's the competition angle of it - trying to outfox some random person on the other side of the world when you've got K-8 off suit and you want to make your stand.

The funny thing is that the competitive side of me wanes after a few hands of people sucking along and catching a flyer on the river. Sure this happens in real poker every once in a while, but the zero money invested aspect of PokerStars.net and those like it sometimes leads to really crappy poker being played.

Much like my writing - and pretty much everything else I do in life - I play poker to the best of my abilities and always want to do it the right way. For me, that means no sitting in with 2-7 off suit hoping to catch another seven on the river to beat someone. I know the money doesn't matter, but it's just bad gamesmanship really and I have no time for that.

Which is why I don't mind wasting some time over the next couple days bug-eyed at the computer, clicking away at the mouse. I know in two or three days I'll be so sick of bad beats and bullshit calls that I'll uninstall PokerStars once again and get back to wasting my time with Baseball Mogul 2008 and the 43-7 Toronto Blue Jays.

Or I could always just do some writing...