Is there any hair left on my head after playing online poker?

[Alan Mendelson]

I just finished a free online poker tournament... I won... first place paid the giant amount of TEN DOLLARS. Yessiree... it was just like winning the WSOP but there were fewer zeroes.

But let me tell you it was no picnic. I almost pulled all the hair out of my head over the frustrations of playing online.

First of all, the tourney is run by Zen Entertainment and several brick and mortar casinos offer this poker site on their own websites. I signed up through the Hustler Casino site in LA. South Point in Vegas also offers the site. It's free to play, no buy ins, and the tourney prizes are small.

I've won the $10 tournament a few times, and they have several a day. Also tourneys for $25 and $50 and $100 and a few monthly tourneys that have a $2,000 prize pool.

But on Tuesday, Zen Gaming had a software update and the site had to be reloaded. Well about a dozen times I would get knocked off the site, would have to rejoin the site. Earlier in the night I lost several tourneys because of getting knocked off. I sent many complaints to support at Zen about it and they even refunded my "free points" that I used to enter the "free tournaments." (Yes you have to win tourney points in sit n go games to get into the big tourneys.)

Well, Im playing the late Tuesday night $10 tourney and in true form I get knocked off the site several times... including when I was heads up at the final table.

Here's the situation: I have about 93,000 chips and the other player has about 27,000. And BAM -- Im knocked off.

It took about five minutes for me to get back on the site. After about ten minutes I would have been disqualified.

I get back on and the chip count is reversed. I have about 27K and he is the big stack.

My first hand back AK. I go all in. He has KQ. I double up.

Next hand, J9. He bets pre flop, I call. A J 3 on the flop. I go all in. He folds.

Next hand... I dont remember what it was but I won it.

Next hand... Im now chip leader again. I get 22. He goes all in. I call. He has 10 3 and my deuces hold up.

WINNER. TEN WHOLE BIG DOLLARS.

Anyway, during the night a lot of other players were complaining about getting knocked off the site -- even when they had winning hands. And the question was asked: is this going to be the danger we will have if online poker for money is ever legalized?

[redietz]

It's funny you mention this -- I rarely play, but did last night to keep my hand in, so to speak. Anyway, I was literally the bubble boy -- 37 left; 36 got paid (out of 330-some). I was in 37th, and I got knocked off the site. Tried and tried to get back on, and evidently a bunch of people lost that hand, because when I got back on (seven or eight minutes later) I was 31st. Yay -- anyway, it does make you want to punch something.

[Alan Mendelson]

Online poker will have special challenges such as "connection protection." Of course there is a limit to what the online casino can offer. Sometimes the problem can be with the player's computer or player's Internet service and not the computer/program of the site. This really will put a cap, in my opinion, on the amount of money someone would want to risk when online poker is legalized. It's one thing to have to gamble on the cards -- and then to have to gamble with your internet connection too?

I think online poker will be limited to low stakes games. But yesterday there were a lot of hot heads over tournaments that cost zero to enter.