Party Poker

Something strange and wonderful happened the other day. Pokerstars had a software glitch that caused the wait list feature to stop working. What's supposed to happen is that when a player leaves the table, the program alerts you and allows you to take your reserved seat. The glitch prevented you from sitting down, but left the seat reserved, blocking all other players from sitting there either. Most regulars play many tables and the easiest way to do this is to join a lot of waiting lists. When the glitch came up, the regulars mostly quit for the day.

But not the fish. They kept happily plugging away at one or two tables. So while finding a seat was more of a challenge than usual, it was well worth the effort. Over the past year I've worked my way up from $.05/$.10 to my standard game now, $1/$2. But after the software glitch the $1/$2 games played like $.05/$.10. It was a nostalgic throwback to those early days and a reminder of how far I've come. Back then, even when I knew my opponents were playing badly, I was often unnerved by the chaos of poker and unsure of my own plays. But now I felt confident, almost giddy. Whatever money they had on the table was mine, it was just a matter of time. As poker players say, it was like printing money.

It's hard to describe the difference between playing against fish and playing against regulars. Most regulars are going to play mostly the same as you do. They're familiar with the math of the game, with all the typical situations that have been endlessly discussed and analyzed. Getting an edge is about making subtle adjustments and counter-adjustments, tweaking your game here and there. But fish often make plays that donate large chunks of money with little effort or adjustment on your part. A typical thought process against a regular: "He's probably noticed that I'm 3betting him a lot, so he's probably adjusting by 4bet bluffing. I'll add some small pocket pairs to my 3betting range with the intention of shoving over his 4bets." A typical thought process against a fish: "I have a good hand. He never folds. Bet bet bet!"

Pros who have been playing for a long time look back fondly to the days of the poker boom, when the games were flooded with fish. They often call those the Party Poker days. Party Poker was the name of the most popular site then (which was later crippled by changes in US online gambling laws, but that's a different story), but it also refers to the general atmosphere of the period. Poker was easy, fun, and lucrative. I missed the Party Poker days, but I got a taste of them when the software broke. It didn't last long, of course -- they fixed the software within an hour. But it was fun while it lasted.