O-Poker

I googled my screen name the other day and came across the usual stuff - blogger game hands, hands people post that didn't involve me but I was at the table, a random suckout, other blogs that link to mine, etc, etc.

A few pages in I stumbled across the following post I made on a poker forum way back on 7/16/03:

"I have been playing on Poker Stars for a while now. I just signed up for Ultimate Bet. I've only played a few hours so far, but it seems like UB is not as user friendly as PS. Maybe I'm missing something or haven't found all the features yet. Maybe you guys can help.

UB - Is there any way to view other tables in a tourney? Is there a way to make notes on players (other than my own pad and paper)? Is there a place where you can see the chips that each player has during a tourney?

Thanks for your help. I guess I might be spoiled by the features (or familiarity with) at Pokerstars."

I laughed on some many levels:

- It was over six freaking years ago. I had been playing since probably the end of football season - Jan 2003 (a few months prior to Moneymaker). I can't believe that I have been playing online almost 7 years.

- UB's early tourney lobby really sucked.

- Shortly after that post, UB became my favorite site and I rarely played anywhere else until FTP came on the scene. It could have something to do with me winning an Aruba package about 1 or 2 weeks after I made that post (It may have even been a couple of weeks before that post). I remember having no real clue about how to play tourneys when I won my Aruba package. I played my cards, my draws, and remember constantly asking myself "Will/can he call if I raise all in here." (Myabe that was my first clueless exposure to hand reading)

- Wow, how the mighty have fallen. UB lost their original market share and failed miserably to capitalize on their early entry into the online poker world long before anyone even knew the term "superuser" The main reason was piss poor management and customer service. They started having weekly and sometimes daily crashes and were horrible at sorting things out.

- I miss the early UB/online poker days. I don't miss UB, but I miss the "friendly" feel the site had back then. You were playing against the same people all the time and most of the regulars knew each other and chatted during tourneys. I enjoyed watching final tables because at least 2 or 3 of my online "friends" were at most final tables. Jack asses and abusive chat were few and far between.

- I miss the small field medium buy-in tourneys that ran regularly. My decision to play a tourney or not back then was sometimes based on whether or not it was going to be over 100 players. Between 50-99 players they paid 10 spots and 100-200, they paid 20 spots. I regularly played the $50 - $100 75-150 player tourneys during week day peak hours (8PM EST - 10 PM EST)

- I think a MBA class could use the online poker early years through the initial launch of FTP as a great study in online business launches in the early years. It would and interesting study of what was done right and wrong and how that translated into the poker site's current revenues.

Wow, this turned into a rambling post that could have probably been summed up as, "I'm old and I miss the early years of online poker even before I found Party Poker.: