My online poker habit

Well, I seem to have caught a bit of the online poker bug. I started playing poker a few years ago on a monthly basis with friends from work, and had a lot of fun, but the frequency died down when the host's first child arrived and I found myself itching to play.

Obtuse as I am, even though I had helped out a customer who was running an online poker site two years ago, I never really thought about playing online... until about two months ago. I'm a regular reader of Wil Wheaton's blog, so after he wrote about an online charity tournament for Katrina relief that he had set up, something clicked in my brain (YES! a synapse fired!), and I signed up. I found that it was a very enjoyable way of spending some time for very little money, and started playing the occasional online game after that. The way I look at it, if I buy into a 27-player tournament for $1.50, I can usually get an hour's worth of solid entertainment--way better than going to a movie, say.

Last night I entered into a $2 tournament that had 1400 players. Five hours later, at 3:00 am, I found myself finally knocked out in 16th place. Fun? Yes. Financially rewarding? Well, considering that #1 took home $600, my $22 reward seemed small in comparison. But then, I don't really expect to win when I play, so that was just a nice bonus.

So... I play online poker. That's it, the truth is out there. I enjoy it -- 99% of the people are good-natured, at least in the ultra-low stakes games that I play, and it's good for a laugh more often than not. As a form of recreation, well, it's a little bit sedentary, but it does offer pure escapism, and sometimes you need that. In the last few months, we bought a new house, sold our current house, and have been preparing for a new life in a new city. I won't apologize for desiring an occasional vacation of the mind!

As a result, the volume of my contributions to the open-source community has dwindled a bit recently. Not that it was ever massive--mostly bits and pieces of documentation for the PHP Manual over the past year--but it is very satisfying, and I look forward to getting back to it... after I sucker this next clown into calling my all-in nut flush