Lately, I have been playing poker at some of the free online rooms. To be honest with you I kind of missed the boat on poker, sure I would play a few hands here and there but nothing like the craze that was sweeping the globe over the last 5 years. Having now found my game, I have decided to play in a tournament next time I go to Sin City.

It occurred to me though that this may be easier said than done. There are a lot of questions that remain un-answered before I can actually play. Such as who, what, where and why.

Who

I fancy myself as a pretty decent card player but, if Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Negreanu, or Annie Duke are at the table, I ‘m thinking maybe not this time. I will be looking to try my skills against the casual player not a pro.

What

This is really important. Although most players only play Texas Hold’em there are so many variations of poker that it is easy to mistake one for the other. The last thing I want is to buy in and find out that I am playing a game I am not as familiar with, strictly Texas Hold’em for me.

Where

Ok, this is the hard one. There are so many events that it makes it hard to choose. Seriously, after doing some research I found that there is literally a tournament scheduled nearly every hour of every day. There are so many that I will have to devote some more posts just analyzing each one. For now I would like to keep my buy ins to around $100. Arnold Snyder has put together a nice list of tournament and rates them at his website, definitely worth looking at.

Why

Why am I playing? Good question, I guess the ultimate answer is I want to see how good I am. It is pretty easy to read players after seeing them a few times, so the weekly games with the boys (or girls) are not much of an indication of where my skills lie. Vegas is, and probably always will be, where the real players go to play. There can be no better measuring stick.

Have you played in a tournament? How did you do? Your comments are welcome.

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