Online Poker History
The game of poker may go back as far as 200 years, but the online version as we know it today is only a mere 13 years old. Online poker history started in the mid 1990’s and a couple of years later the first real online poker rooms saw the light of day. The first online poker room was Planet Poker launched on January, 1998. Planet Poker was founded by poker. The first virtual poker hand was dealt over the Internet on January 1, 1998 when the very first online poker site was launched, Planet Poker. Planet Poker was founded by poker pro, author, and legend. The Winning Poker Network reached for all-time highs with its currently-running $8 Million Guaranteed Venom tournament. The $8 million in promised prize money gives this edition of the Venom the distinction of offering the largest guaranteed prize pool of any U.S. Online poker tournament in history.
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- The act of playing aggressively with a small bankroll and turning it into much larger sums
While poker, even online poker, is a game of skill, there is an obvious element of luck involved at the tables. The smartest professional poker players began with small sums and gradually worked their way up to dizzying heights; some of them weren’t so gradual, though.
Next time you’re playing at the Bet365 poker tables, think of these five players and maybe you’ll be able to run up a huge bankroll yourself.
4. Jesus resurrects a non-existent bankroll
While he’s now rather scorned by the poker community thanks to his role in the Full Tilt scandal, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson used to be a very famous and respected TV poker pro. One of his greatest online poker feats was turning a balance of $0.00 into $10,000 playing on Full Tilt.
His long grind using a strict bankroll management system that many still recommend today began with freeroll tournaments. Once he had won enough to play in real-money games, he adhered to the following system:
- Only play cash games with a maximum of 5% of your bankroll.
- Only play tournaments with a maximum of 2% of your bankroll.
- If you have over 10% of your bankroll on the tables at any point, leave thegames.
3. Boku87 runs $5 up to $100,000 in 10 months
German poker pro Thomas “boku87” Boekhoff was well-known in online poker circles as a sit & go tournament regular, largely for his insane ability to regularly play up to 50 games at once. Having noticed he had a great ROI (return on investment) playing low-stakes games, he decided it would be doable to turn $5 into $100,000 inside a year.
Boekhoff began the challenge having already undertaken a challenge to turn $100 into $10,000, which he had completed in two weeks. This one would take considerably longer, but after two weeks he had already profited to the tune of $10,000.
He was up to over $25,000 three monthsin before hitting a huge downswing and being forced to take a two-month break from the challenge due to health reasons.
After this, he came back and made over $30,000 in consecutive months. He had to race to the finish line in May as the 12-month deadline drew close, upping the ante to play 71 simultaneous games before making his goal.
Online Poker History
2. Annette Obrestad goes from freeroll cash to WSOPE bracelet
Annette Obrestad is known as “Annette_15” online, because that’s how old she was when she started playing poker. Unable to deposit, the teenaged Norwegian began playing freeroll tournaments in order to build up her bankroll.
She has turned this into a lifetime total of $2.7 million in online poker tournament cashes, including several six-figure scores. She drew the attention of the wider poker community in 2007 when she won a 180-player tournament on PokerStars without looking at her hole cards (except once at the final table).
Two months after this, she really made her mark on poker. In September 2007, she became the youngest-ever World Series of Poker bracelet winner after defeating John Tabatabai heads-up at the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe, winning £1 million at London’s Empire Casino.
1. “Maratik” turns a few cents into $1,000,907
Online Poker History
The story of Russian player Marat “maratik” Sharafutdinov is short and sweet and incredible.
He qualified to the $5,200 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event on PokerStars via a series of sevensuper-satellite tournaments, beginning with just 40 Frequent Player Points.
The value of these FPPs was just a few pennies, so to even turn that into a $5,200 tournament buy-in is amazing. However, maratik went on to win the whole tournament, becoming famous for his final table negotiations; when the players were dealing out millions of dollars, he boldly stated, “I wont [sic] million.”
Ask and ye shall receive – maratik locked up $922,907.26 in the deal, with $100,000 extra set aside for the eventual winner. The Russian went on to win, saying that “this victory is the greatest you can achieve online. Together with the money, the prestige and the bracelet, this is a special feeling.”
Image credit: Alberto Masnovo / Shutterstock.com
While much of the online poker news of 2014 was promising, it also left a lot to be desired. Although polls and surveys tend to indicate popular support for online gambling, moneyed self-interests have apparently found ways to buy support where it counts, namely in the US Congress. As is often the case in politics, there's no guarantee the outcomes will have much to do with reason or fairness, despite both scholarly and law enforcement opinions siding with responsible adults having the freedom to make their own decisions about their entertainment. That's why it's important to make your opinions known to those who will ultimately make the decisions.
In New Jersey, online gambling revenues were 27% better in December of 2014 than in November, and a breath-taking 93% better than December of 2013. Numbers like that should make other states sit up straight and listen to the possibilities for important tax revenues. Caesars Interactive Entertainment's New Jersey's World Series of Poker site did it's part by teaming with 888Poker in an agreement to pool players, resulting in a noticeable 50% increase in player traffic, enough to shoot WSOP and 888Poker past PartyPoker and Borgata as the top New Jersey sites.
California Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer introduced bill AB167 that would make online poker legal in California. Its provisions are comprehensive, covering everything from player age to all aspects of licensing. It also does not explicitly prohibit interstate player pooling.
Although US Senator Lindsey Graham grilled Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch concerning her positions on online gambling, she held her ground with the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying she most likely would not reverse the Justice Department's previous decision that the Wire Act isn't applicable to online casino games.
In more plus column news, Delaware and Nevada took steps to share poker player pools, while Republican Representative John Payne introduced bill HB649 to legalize online gambling in the Pennsylvania. Payne's reasoning included both the sensibility of using regulation to make the online gambling experience of responsible adults as safe as possible, and the fact that state coffers would benefit significantly.
Online Poker Sites In Pa
Not to be outdone, brick-and-mortar casino operator Sheldon Adelson apparently greased the right palms to have what's being called the 'Restoring America's Wire Act' (or RAWA) bill positioned for a first hearing in March. This bill would reverse the ruling of the Justice Department that created an opportunity for online legal betting in 2011. The hearing took place on March 26th.
Witnesses used in support of the bill used mostly outdated arguments that have been refuted numerous times by studies from academic institutions. Witnesses used to oppose support for the bill emphasized state's rights and pointed out how states that have already passed legislation are regulating and monitoring online gambling very effectively, with the benefits over prohibition abundantly evident. Future hearings will continue to explore the pros and cons.
In humorous related news, anti-online gambling Senator Lindsey Graham admitted to having never sent email in all his life, causing many to wonder how someone with such lack of modern technology experience could be trusted to make sensible decisions about online gambling.
Online Poker Hand History
All in all, it's been an interesting year already for online poker, to say the least. Stay tuned to PokerSites.com for all the latest news and developments throughout the year. We want you to be the first to know when important decisions are handed down that could affect both your game and your freedom.