My Relationship with Live Poker

Live poker is a strange beast. Often I find myself craving a session of live poker - be it a low-stakes home game with friends or a larger-stakes pot-limit game at the Gutshot. The problem is that it often fails to deliver in the satisfaction department and more often than not leaves me feeling very frustrated.

It boils down to the fact that those of us who spend the majority of our time playing online are spoilt. Internet poker is just far too easy. In a matter of minutes one can be logged on and sat at a multitude of juicy tables. Playing two or three shorthanded tables online will allow one to see up to 10 times more hands in any given period of time compared with live poker.

My other gripe with live poker is putting up with the opinions of those I have to sit with. Occasionally you get a table where the banter is flowing and there are good jokes to be heard, but it tends to be the case that those who give the best banter or tell the best jokes are more intelligent and therefore harder opponents than the donkeys who offer their ridiculous opinions, berate the fish and fail to react appropriately to my sarcasm. I believe that I could cope with crap table banter and arseholes if I was guaranteed to be able to see plenty of hands, but that's simply not going to happen. The only way I'm going to see lots of hands is by playing all night and opportunities to do that are few and far between and besides, I like my sleep.

Home games are great fun, but they don't usually offer the same challenge that a decent sized game in a club or casino can. Besides, I rarely get the opportunity to play in home games. Games at other people's mean spending even less time with Mrs. Pink than I already do and I've been failing miserably to set up a regular game chez nous. Perhaps when we move I will try once again to start something regular.

In the meantime I will have to make do with short and sporadic visits to the Gutshot, which seem always to leave me disappointed and yet desperate to return for more.