We sat around the elongated green felt table. Nine other gamblers and myself in a duel to the end…the end of our bankrolls. I knew their names, at least their aliases, I even knew how much money was in their pockets to the very penny. The atmosphere was relaxed, hell, more than relaxed, it was downright like being at home. In fact, that's exactly what it was…Texas Hold'Em over the computer on an online poker room.

It began as a conversation at the Las Vegas Arena Football game when the guy sitting next to me handed me what looked like a typical black and yellow $100 casino check, except on the front was the name Poker.Com and on the back the suggestion to check out the Pacific Poker room. Just the idea of calling it a poker room when all you're doing is sitting at home on the computer as usual, playing what amounts to no more than a computer Texas Hold 'Em poker program. The online poker room offered Texas Hold 'Em, Seven Card Stud and Omaha Hold 'Em. They also offer these games with a Hi-Lo split games. The limits ranged from a 10 and 20 cent limit game, a 25 and 50 cent game, 50-$1.00, $1-$2, $2-$4, and so on up to a $15-$30 game, which I can tell you is way beyond my limits. They also offer a Heads Up game in which two individuals can play one-on-one against each other player for what I believe amounts to a Pot Limit game.

The site offers a demo mode where you can sign up and play for an imaginary $15 bankroll and try your hand to get used to the games and the pace of the games until you're comfortable enough to start playing for real money, which I can tell you will come shortly after your first win. When you realize it isn't real money, you'll be reaching for your credit card to make sure the next pot gets into your bank account. However, as I played a couple of sessions in the demo mode, the people at Pacific Poker invited me to keep my demo winnings that now amounted to around $25, if I wanted to join the real games and put my money where my poker mouth was.

I accepted their offer and cautiously deposited another $25 into my actual account, but this wasn't as easy as it sounds. After trying to deposit money out of my Visa Gold card, the offer was denied by the Visa people. I was astonished at first that my credit card company which would allow me to charge anything from a whore out in Pahrump to extra $1 bills to stick in their g-strings, wouldn't allow me to put a measly $25 into an off-shore online poker room. They decided to take it upon themselves to decide my moral limits even though I could drive over to Caesars Palace, which is 2.5 miles from my front door and in ten minutes get a $2,500 cash advance at the Baccarat tables. So I opted to try my ATM card and sure enough, Wells Fargo decided that, if it was alright to charge a round of drinks and lap dances at the Palomino Club, it was alright to play in a 50 cent to a $1 limit Texas Hold 'Em game with the low-down, low-life likes of probable scuzz balls like Shirley with her $12.56 bankroll to L-H-M (I later found out stood for Lord Have Mercy) with his $8.05. When I sat down with my $50, I was lord of the fifty-cent game with my huge bankroll. I could raise, re-raise, re-re-raise and never be bet out of a pot, and all of that for what amounted to a Krispy Kreme donut and a cup of Starbucks coffee, and all from the comfort of my living room couch.

Before we go any further, we have to address the legitimacy of the site itself. How safe is your banking information, how safe is your account money, how are disputes handled, and how are cash-outs handled? You have to first understand that I have no affiliation with Pacific Poker whatsoever. I also can tell you I don't condone casino gambling even though I make my living dealing in a casino. I think playing against a casino "house" with their game, with their bankroll, with their time and patience is more or less an attempt at futility. However poker is a different story. Walking into a poker room and playing against the other players is like walking into a pool room and renting a table and playing your skills and bankroll against the other players' skills and bankrolls. One of the advantages of being able to see their bankroll on the screen gives you a window into their betting strategies rather than skill, since you don't know how much they've bought in for. The monies I've deposited into my account has so far been safe from anyone except myself. No one has drained my bank accounts or stolen my identity. The games themselves have been legitimate also. How do I know this? I've deposited a total of $100 and so far ran up winnings of $400 and cashed out $200. Whatever monies I've deposited from my ATM card has been re-deposited back into my account, and the balance remitted in the form of a bank check after a short wait, since the "casino" has many cash outs and so has a lot of check writing and re-depositing at no cost to the players.

However they do take a "rake" from the jackpots of each game. The "Rake" is a small compensation for dealing the games and keeping everything legit as well as paying for the site and writing the checks and doing the paperwork. The rake is a small percentage never amounting to more than $3 for more than a $30 or higher pot. Every casino poker room takes the same rake as the cost for doing business and every poker player will tell you it's a small compensation for keeping order at the tables and making sure the winners get paid and the losers pay up.

Here in my poker "room" (my living room couch) the clock on the game gives me 30 seconds to bitch, moan and groan, grab a drink and decide to fold the hand or call, check, or raise the bet. I can do it in my underwear, feet up on the coffee table with my girlfriend on the phone holding on while I make my decision, click on my play, and go on drinking my iced tea and continuing the conversation while I flip through the basketball tournaments on ESPN TV and raise Daisy Mae on seat 3 that I'm putting on a pair of Kings while I wait out my flush on the river as Duke loses by 2 points to N.C.State.

The traps are also obvious, just like in real poker. The first time you're holding a pair of Aces and the flop comes A-K-3 you bet your car and raise your house, the next card comes a 6, you can't possibly be beat, you bet the ranch and raise you're kidneys, then the last card comes another 6, giving you Aces full of 6's, you bet both your lungs and raise your 401K and the schmuck sitting in the corner will throw the other two 6's at you. The difference is you won't see him jumping off the couch jeering at you and cheering himself on, you won't see him sweating when he's got nothing on the flop and has to call raises and re-raises with a lousy pair of 6's, you won't hear his wife hollering how much he's going to lose with those goddamn 6's when there's an Ace and King already on board and people are raising and why the hell is he calling all that money with 6's. The only thing you can do when you see the pot being pushed to his seat is to scream at the computer screen, swear someone's cheating, pound the couch and yell at the dog, but this is the real thing kids, this is what happens at a real poker game. Some asshole will hold a 2-6, you can have Kings in the hole raise and re-raise before the flop and the three cards that come down will inevitably be a K-3-5 and I'll guarantee you before you get your full house the asshole will bet the inside straight and for sure a 4 will fall before a pair comes down for you. Don't get upset, this is the world of Texas Hold 'Em, this is the poker game of real gamblers; this is the game within a game and will test your poker skills to the max. But I can also tell you, when you get this format down, you can walk into any poker room in the world and buy in to a live Texas Hold 'Em game and feel at home (not quite as home as you'll feel with online poker), and be able to keep up with the big boys. The game is run exactly as a Las Vegas poker game.

The only two complaints I get is that at home you have to pay for your cocktails and instead of a cocktail waitress with a nice ass and big tits bringing you a Jack Daniels in a gold and blue thong cocktail uniform with a smile, you'll get your wife bringing you a Budweiser in sweatpants and a t-shirt reminding you that in between hands there's plenty of time to wash the dishes and mow the lawn. If she does that, just remind her you're trying to make money so you can afford to buy her that gold and blue thong cocktail waitress uniform for her birthday.

p.s. If you want to give this a try go to the Pacific Poker room at pacificpoker.com

-Ken Pearlman