Back in the heady days of the late nineties I was working a shitty job, Bill Clinton was porking a fat girl, and one of my old friends from junior high was hosting a weekly home game that featured all the crazy wild card dealer’s choice poker games that make home games so awful and fun. Anaconda and In Between would regularly put some of us in the hole for a marker or two, and the following week the poor sucker would return with his checkbook to make good on his debts. Playing poker was an excuse to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and talk shit. Then one day our intrepid host went and decided his life needed shaking up. Our weekly game suffered. Actually it coughed up a bloody phlegmy mess and keeled over.

Fast forward a few years and I was working a good paying shitty job, George Bush was invading countries, and I decided to get my old friends from junior high and college together for a weekly home game that would give us an excuse to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and talk shit. We started off playing all the usual stupid games, but as time went on we felt the urge to play “real” poker and called a lot more 7 and 5 card stud, even though we had no idea how to play stud. Hindsight is… well, you know.

At some point we realized that they were showing poker on TV; specifically the WSOP and the WPT. Gambling as sport. No. Hang on. Let’s try that again. Gambling is sport. We were hooked, and while we’d only rarely called Hold ‘Em during our dealer’s choice games, we decided to put together a little BBQ tourney and spend a Saturday afternoon pushing our chips in when we thought we had the best of it. Actually we probably didn’t do that. It was probably weak-tight city. Regardless, it was a blast, and even those of us who got knocked out in the early rounds of the tournament stuck around watching every hand. No profitable side games here. After that, our weekly game, while still dealer’s choice, quickly turned into pure Hold ‘Em.

Around this time I figured if some dumbass could play at PokerStars and go on to win the WSOP, well, hell, that might be a good place to buy in. And I always thought I was such a logical person.

Actually, here’s the truth of it. “Online poker? Sounds shady. But… if that guy played online and went on to a live championship event, that site must be legitimate, right?”

Whatever. From what I hear, Moneymaker is a dumbass. Then again, so was I. Underfunded and outclassed, I was one of the fish who swarmed PokerStars after every WSOP and WPT broadcast. Pot odds? Implied odds? Bankroll requirements? Big bets? It’s funny how difficult it is to unlearn something. (Like reading.) Right now I can’t imagine not having this most basic of knowledge bases. But back then I was a total noob. (God I hate that word.)

Yet there was something there that brought me back. Again and again. I knew that I was, that I could–fuck it, I’m just a degenerate gambler looking for the big score. And an obsessive. And a guy who doesn’t know when he’s beat. So I’d deposit $50 at a time, waiting the 4-5 days for the EFT to hit Neteller, then transfer the money into Stars where eventually I’d lose the whole damn thing. Six times.

StudioGlyphic blog came into being around the same time that I first ventured into the online world of poker. (World of online poker?) I, of course, read my friends’ blogs while pushing out my own inanities on an unsuspecting public. One day I noticed a comment on Cavebutter from some guy calling himself Iggy who kept shilling for a site called Party Poker. Actually I think he was trying to be helpful: “good god, none of you guys play at party poker?”

I won’t go into the long sordid history of me and Party Poker, but let’s just say Iggy was right about Party. (You got that, Iggy? You won’t hear it again from me. Savor this moment, you bastard. Bonus Code IGGY!)

I’ve long since climbed out of the hole I dug for myself at PokerStars by playing at Party and Paradise and bonus whoring diligently, and haven’t really gone back to Stars except for the one or two WPBT Online Events. The memory of those first half dozen deposits still makes me a bit gunshy, and after spending all this time on Party’s inferior software, something about the Stars look and feel makes me antsy. But from what I hear, it’s now almost as good as Party in terms of the number of players, the number of games, and the quality of play. I should consider going back.

Especially now that I’ve discovered money in my account! A miracle!

It is a sad, sad thing when you’ve made more money being a poker site affiliate than as a poker player. If you are one of the handful who signed up at PokerStars through my shill link, thank you very much! It’s clear that I don’t do this to get affiliate signups. There are better ways to do that. But it’s also clear that I am much better at getting people to sign up at PokerStars than I am at winning at PokerStars.

Of the many people who swarmed to California during the Gold Rush, the most successful were those merchants who sold supplies to the miners. I therefore present to you the StudioGlyphic General Store: the source for all your poker needs!