Three words ...
... Five-card draw!
I have long viewed Poker Room as my "home" in online poker. Much of that is probably due to the fact that it is the first place I started playing, primarily because it was the only place I could find that supported Mac, which I was using at the time. Even when the owner of another site approached me about playing at his site as a prop for 100 percent rakeback, I still couldn't shake the Poker Room habit. Of course, I took the offer, but most of my hours are still played at Poker Room, even without any kind of rakeback deal.
Then Poker Room started doing like all the other sites and started putting out skins of their site, one of which is Hollywood Poker. After one of my many bustouts at Poker Room late last year, I decided to give Hollywood Poker a try, mostly because I could play the same players and software, but get another signup bonus. (It was 20 percent back then. Now all they give you are a ticket to the new player tournament, plus a ticket to a $10+1 tournament after you collect 75 player points.)
Anyway, to make a long story longer, this past May I was unstoppable at Poker Room. Sometime when I have more time, I will go into detail, but suffice to say I turned a $25 deposit into $500 by the end of the month. Unfortunately, May ended, and so did my fortune at the tables. I ended up losing it all over the first two weeks of June. Sucks to be me.
Having had several extraordinary expenses lately, I wasn't in any position to actually dig into my pocket to redeposit, so I ended up looking for other ways to play. I wandered into Hollywood Poker and noticed they now have hourly freerolls, but you have to spend 10 player points to enter one. After checking my account and seeing that I had 70 points from my brief stint there last year, I decided I might as well enter one. It only paid four places and the total prize pool was only $30, but there were also only 172 people in the tournament. (You see, these freerolls are Hollywood Poker-only events, and since the site is new, there aren't that many people there. However, in addition to the Hollywood Poker-only events, it also ties into almost all of the same games and tournaments at Poker Room, so there are always plenty of games available.) Anyway, I ended up winning the damn thing, which got me $14 and a new start at Hollywood Poker.
That's been less than a week ago, but I've managed to build that $14 into something slightly more substantial, giving me enough money to have a bad night and still have a little bit left the next day. And then, last night, I noticed something Hollywood Poker has that Poker Room doesn't -- five-card draw.
It has been a good 10 years since I've played five-card draw, and I never played it seriously or studied it. But one can only play so much hold'em, and quite frankly I think a lot of my slide earlier this month was due to the fact that I was somewhat bored by hold'em, and I was taking bigger risks to make the game more exciting. I even tried a few hands of Omaha, but it didn't provide me with the boredom fix it always has in the past. But five-card draw was a monster that wouldn't be boring, because the texture of the game was so much different.
Plus, I remembered back to my days in college, to the one time I played a daylong five-card draw binge with some friends and ended up pocketing $50 playing quarter-limit. And then I remembered when, early in my marriage, a weekend trip with the in-laws pretty much degenerated into a hotel-room marathon of five-card draw for penny stakes, and I ended up clearing about $10 that way. Neither of those examples are awe-inspiring, I'll admit, but given the stakes they were large enough wins that in the back of my mind I've always felt like I have a natural feel for five-card draw.
So, I sat down to play a few hands, just for old time's sake, just to break the boredom, just to see what happened. A few hands quickly turned into a few hours, and I was having fun playing poker again. I was a little bit of a fish at the table, but I was still able to apply what I've learned playing hold'em the past few years and ended up winning a little over $20 at the dollar tables.
Anyway, if you're like me and feeling a little tired of hold'em, you might want to head over to Hollywood Poker and give five-card draw a try. If you do, I'd appreciate it if you'd use my link or, barring that, my bonus code, which is HPfreerolls. You won't get anything more than the tournament entries and my undying appreciation. Of, if you're looking for a little extra cash for your deposit, I'd be happy to give you a refer-a-friend referral. which will net you a $25 bonus, if you email me at evilbilly@evilbilly.com.
I have long viewed Poker Room as my "home" in online poker. Much of that is probably due to the fact that it is the first place I started playing, primarily because it was the only place I could find that supported Mac, which I was using at the time. Even when the owner of another site approached me about playing at his site as a prop for 100 percent rakeback, I still couldn't shake the Poker Room habit. Of course, I took the offer, but most of my hours are still played at Poker Room, even without any kind of rakeback deal.
Then Poker Room started doing like all the other sites and started putting out skins of their site, one of which is Hollywood Poker. After one of my many bustouts at Poker Room late last year, I decided to give Hollywood Poker a try, mostly because I could play the same players and software, but get another signup bonus. (It was 20 percent back then. Now all they give you are a ticket to the new player tournament, plus a ticket to a $10+1 tournament after you collect 75 player points.)
Anyway, to make a long story longer, this past May I was unstoppable at Poker Room. Sometime when I have more time, I will go into detail, but suffice to say I turned a $25 deposit into $500 by the end of the month. Unfortunately, May ended, and so did my fortune at the tables. I ended up losing it all over the first two weeks of June. Sucks to be me.
Having had several extraordinary expenses lately, I wasn't in any position to actually dig into my pocket to redeposit, so I ended up looking for other ways to play. I wandered into Hollywood Poker and noticed they now have hourly freerolls, but you have to spend 10 player points to enter one. After checking my account and seeing that I had 70 points from my brief stint there last year, I decided I might as well enter one. It only paid four places and the total prize pool was only $30, but there were also only 172 people in the tournament. (You see, these freerolls are Hollywood Poker-only events, and since the site is new, there aren't that many people there. However, in addition to the Hollywood Poker-only events, it also ties into almost all of the same games and tournaments at Poker Room, so there are always plenty of games available.) Anyway, I ended up winning the damn thing, which got me $14 and a new start at Hollywood Poker.
That's been less than a week ago, but I've managed to build that $14 into something slightly more substantial, giving me enough money to have a bad night and still have a little bit left the next day. And then, last night, I noticed something Hollywood Poker has that Poker Room doesn't -- five-card draw.
It has been a good 10 years since I've played five-card draw, and I never played it seriously or studied it. But one can only play so much hold'em, and quite frankly I think a lot of my slide earlier this month was due to the fact that I was somewhat bored by hold'em, and I was taking bigger risks to make the game more exciting. I even tried a few hands of Omaha, but it didn't provide me with the boredom fix it always has in the past. But five-card draw was a monster that wouldn't be boring, because the texture of the game was so much different.
Plus, I remembered back to my days in college, to the one time I played a daylong five-card draw binge with some friends and ended up pocketing $50 playing quarter-limit. And then I remembered when, early in my marriage, a weekend trip with the in-laws pretty much degenerated into a hotel-room marathon of five-card draw for penny stakes, and I ended up clearing about $10 that way. Neither of those examples are awe-inspiring, I'll admit, but given the stakes they were large enough wins that in the back of my mind I've always felt like I have a natural feel for five-card draw.
So, I sat down to play a few hands, just for old time's sake, just to break the boredom, just to see what happened. A few hands quickly turned into a few hours, and I was having fun playing poker again. I was a little bit of a fish at the table, but I was still able to apply what I've learned playing hold'em the past few years and ended up winning a little over $20 at the dollar tables.
Anyway, if you're like me and feeling a little tired of hold'em, you might want to head over to Hollywood Poker and give five-card draw a try. If you do, I'd appreciate it if you'd use my link or, barring that, my bonus code, which is HPfreerolls. You won't get anything more than the tournament entries and my undying appreciation. Of, if you're looking for a little extra cash for your deposit, I'd be happy to give you a refer-a-friend referral. which will net you a $25 bonus, if you email me at evilbilly@evilbilly.com.
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