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[the fall guy]

Ok, forget about it. It's the devils way to poverty.

[Scatty]

Because you've posted a link to a poker site, which appears to me a little bit like an advertisement, I hope you don't mind me if I report your post, just in case you know.

[dosraider]

I second Scatty fully here.
Gambling site links don't belong on a site with so much young visitors.
You even shouldn't be allowed to discuss this subject here.
And honetsly said: ALL gambling site sucks and are ripoffs.

[TheChosen]

My money goes to games, not to online gambling.

And If I want to gamble, Id like to do it old fashioned way: Las Vegas or a seedy poker table in a back of a bar/cellar of a friend which only light source is the lightbulb hanging above the table.

[the fall guy]

Originally Posted by dosraider

I second Scatty fully here.
Gambling site links don't belong on a site with so much young visitors.
You even shouldn't be allowed to discuss this subject here.
And honetsly said: ALL gambling site sucks and are ripoffs.

OOps! Seems like I stirred into a hornets nest here. Just to make a few things clear:

1. Sorry for the link. I am not affiliated with that site in any way.
2. It is for free. You pay nothing. You play with virtual money. No ripoff.

I thought for it is a gaming site here someone might like this sort of gaming, too. I guess I was wrong. My apologies.

[dosraider]

Originally Posted by the fall guy

OOps! Seems like I stirred into a hornets nest here. Just to make a few things clear:

Not really, you asked 'bout our thoughts, you got them.
I'm a granddad, and I simply would like that a gaming site visited mainly by young people wouln't turn into a gambling advertising site.
Gambling IS addictive, as you posted yourself, and online gambling is even prohibited in many countries.
THX for removing that link.

[the fall guy]

Originally Posted by dosraider

Not really, you asked 'bout our thoughts, you got them.
I'm a granddad, and I simply would like that a gaming site visited mainly by young people wouln't turn into a gambling advertising site.
Gambling IS addictive, as you posted yourself, and online gambling is even prohibited in many countries.
THX for removing that link.

Ok, ok. It was sure foolish of me not to think of the youngsters around here. I thought there were mainly adults around here that liked to replay the games of their youth - quite shortsighted.

I thought there might be people like me that used to play 5 card draw every now and then with their friends in the past, found that with increasing age, less spare time and friends spreading over the continents due to jobs etc. it is near impossible to do so nowadays and then try to find an alternative. (A friend of mine had a pretty nice offline-poker shipped with his MAC, I tried to find a similar one for Win98, but they all sucked.)

I also agree that poker can be highly addictive - but in the particular case I mentionend no more addictive than certain online rpgs - I may be otherwise foolish but I wouldn't pay a dime of real money for such a spare time activity.
Since no one likes it anyway (and btw I don't take that personally and think your critics on the way I posted my statement is absolutely justified - indeed it looked like an advertisement), I recommend to delete the whole thread. I can only repeat my apologies. I feel really bad about my 1st post and deleted its contents. Now I gonna get some sleep...

[the fall guy]

So now that I got some rest I think I can resolve the fuzz I created.

To me, poker is first and foremost a face to face card game that incorporates quite some math (eech) and elements of risk/rentability judgement and investment like you find them in strategy/economy games like monopoly, simcity, railroad tycoon etc, and outwitting your oppononents.

Then the second fun thing is the trashtalk that inevitably evolves while playing with your pals, sarcastic comments on their moves, desperate attempts to make them reveal their hands, and other silly talk just to drive them mad and do something stupid.

Furthermore, the poker I had in mind gets along without loads of real cash. Even when playing with some friends we used monopoly money as chip-replacements (once we even tried potato chips), and the payout was settled in liquid form at the local tavern.

If you can't play with your friends there are computer poker games like hosted on abandonia. With a decent AI you can use it to practice, but in the end it is always a bit stereotypic and totally lacks the talking.

That's why I thought "hmm, maybe playing monopoly-money-poker against humans on the internet could be fun". I had doubts it could be really for free since many things offered "for free" on the net turn out to be some sort of trial version or preview only to drag you into follow up financial transactions.

I therefore checked the site for things like this. I even made hardcopies of the pages to be able to prove there was no such clue. I printed the customer contract legal mumbo jumbo, read it twice and had my friend have a look at it to make sure there isn't anything in it regarding any kind of charges/fees, payment modalities etc. for I'm quite paranoid regarding financial transactions via the net. There wasn't even a $-sign, so I finally thought this could be exactly what I was looking for.

Then I gave it a try and yes you could chat with the other guys, but most of them played grave-silent. Only in the last game that there were several people that joined in the chant, and that made it enjoyable, but I wondered if there are similar sites where the players in general are a bit more talkative.

That was all I had in mind when I started the thread. I did not even think of the other kind of internet poker where you can sell home and wife to give your money away to some pokerbots or cheaters that team-up behind your back. I took it granted that no one who can google "abandonia" could be so stupid to go for that, and thus it was completely out of my mind. My idea was poker with fake-money like in offline games + online playing could be a fitting thread for a site related to gaming - nothing else.

Obviously some of you have had some bad experience with fraud attempts in online gaming. When you read my post the way I wrote it you simply had no choice but to come to the conclusion I tried to coax you into wasting your money for online gambling because I expressed myself so badly. English is not my native language and when I'm a bit out of my head I often lack the proper words to express things clearly. And I also didn't notice that my post could be interpreted that way before I had thought over your replies (My, even the title sounds like a spam).

That is all I can say. This is not meant as an excuse for my lousy way of posting, but an attempt to explain why it evolved that way.

P.S. I just had the thought to develop an e-mail based poker system allowing to play with my friends even if they are spread all over the globe and waste most of their time with jobs, families etc. You know, like chess by mail. I think this could work out and bring back memories of the atmosphere of playing in a cellar with a light bulb over the table like TheChosen put it. Maybe this would have made a less offensive thread...

[gregor]

Poker is ... well risky game and at least to me it doesn't involve much thinking. i win some, lose some (played it on airplane computer so that i wasnt' bored). and honestly (if there was no cheating with computer) i quickly picked up the system, but mostly made some lose some. in the end i didn't have much more than with what i started. so i switched to roulette.again it somehow taught me that in the end if you play too long you will loose more than you have in beginning.

luckilly it was all virtual money.

with real money i only play lotto from time to time and when jackpot exceeds 500.000 EUR. which is about 4 times a year here.

[the fall guy]

Originally Posted by gregor

with real money i only play lotto from time to time and when jackpot exceeds 500.000 EUR. which is about 4 times a year here.

I don't even do that for the odds are 1/14 Million (or was it even Billion?). And as I am a no-luck guy in such things I also wouldn't bet anything at face to face poker exceeding the equivalent of 1-2 tasty drinks - buying drinks for friends every now and then is something you can't get around anyway...
And another thing is that if you play with the same dudes for lots of cash all the time all the money would finally end up by a certain guy with supreme poker abilites and we others wouldn't tolerate that for long and rather play something else where he is extremely bad at