What I don't know

I just wanted to outline how little I actually know about poker.

I roughly know the order of winning hands, roughly I say, sometimes I just have to guess and go on my gut feeling. And I don't know the names of anything after the flop - though from PKR I have this voice in my head going "Here coooomes the river!", but I don't know what the river is. At the beginning, I thought it was just a joke anyway but now I've found out that it's when the dealer turns over one of the cards after the flop. Don't know which one yet.

But it's the etiquette of the game that intrigues me most.

If I played in real life, would people still sit around smoking cigars? Probably not in a casino or anything, but at someone's house?

And do they say "I'll see your hundred and raise you four hundred"? Apparently that's not allowed, so I'm not sure exactly where that phrase came from.

Maybe once I understand these things, I can go to a real game.

Big game, big mistake

So my first big game started pretty well. I had $500 in the pot and after a three of a kind hand with Aces I got up to $1,190.

A few hands later, where nothing happened, I got a jack and ten, don't know what called but ended up splitting pot with an Ace high run, moved to another table giving me $1,485.

That's when it all started to go wrong, and I eventually got out I can't remember exactly how (good selective memory at work here). Anyway, then by mistake I pressed a button that said I would like to rebuy in and I found myself with $2,000 (that I paid 2 cents for) and under a lot of pressure because I'd never even managed to get this much before. But before long I went all in with a pocket pair of tens, and lost out at the last minute to a pair of kings.

I felt like a bit of a fool after all that so I thought I should at least play one more Ten Cent Giveaway and try and come second, to win back the 4 cents I lost when I did that stupid rebuy.

I managed that, it was a long and protracted process. There was a very angry Russian man just to my right, with long black hair, that slammed his fist on the table at every given opportunity. I wasn't sure if it was because my bare legs under the table were just out of reach, or if he was really taking the free game to win a maximum of 6 cents very seriously.

In the end, a French man won and I came second, and I think that'll be it for tonight. I'm all pokered out.

Oh and I'd like to add that I am very sad that I'm not watching Lady GaGa sing Poker Face live in London tonight. Completely irrelevant, but her song title has the word poker in it.

Starting out

Poker always made me think of old men sitting around a table, smoking and shouting things like "I'll see your fifty and raise you 400!!". So when my boyfriend asked me if I wanted to start playing I was slightly intrigued by the idea and said a tentative yes.

I'm ultra competitive by nature. Even when I was younger, playing tennis with my family I HAD to win. My brother was the same and you can imagine the arguments that caused.

So I thought, what the hell, I'll put my competitive spirit to good use and have a game of online poker.

I'm playing at www.pkr.com and entering the 10 cent free giveaways, so far I've won one game, and have a grand total of 6 cents. woooo!!! And the ultimate aim is to win $1,000.

It seems a long way off, and even the first few games I've played have caused great rage in my head.

But follow my progress here. First up tonight is a $5 Rebuy Freeroll. I play under the name SnowyA.