Where did you start?
12-23-2017
, 02:42 PM
12-23-2017
, 03:33 PM
12-23-2017
, 04:03 PM
I started playing on Paradise Poker before they even offered No Limit 
I Deposited $450 and was playing limit for a little while and then the news broke that starting that upcoming Friday, they would be introducing NL to the masses.
I went to Chicago for a Dream Theater concert with two of my friends, also Paradise Poker players, and we were excited to get back home and see what "madness" would develop in the world on online No Limit Cash Games.
Back in those days, I think the max tables was three. I would sit down, order myself a hotdog ( Long Live the Hot Dog Brigade! ) and start my session.
Playing with all the usual players like Gavrilo, Pope Rek, Elbagio, Hanswurst, Billiards, Puddingpris, Scott Texas, JDChance, Franchise, BaBaBoo, oldman ( I think that was his name ) and a slew of others......the games were so good.
I remember eventually running my roll up to $4400 and a friend of mine would tell me how I would never, ever see that money when it came to cashing out. Now remember, this was one of the first online poker sites and this was all new to me. I had no fear, I was 100% confident that I would get my money ( naive? )
Anyway, I made w withdraw of $2400 and the Fed Ex envelope arrived in 2-3 days! I copied that check, like a trophy and then took it to my bank. Same friend, then said, it would never clear.....waited, it cleared and then same friend, was now depositing onto Paradise Poker LOL. Sup " Tic Tac "
So I played there 100 NL, 200 NL Fullring (6 max eventually also made its way to Paradise but I was, at the time, strictly a fullring player )
Near the end, I even remember sitting with this new guy, Durrr and thinking ( this guy is fn crazy! Yet, he always was sitting on huge stacks and eventually played the 500NL ( or was it 600 NL....I forget ) I never played that game, so hard for me to recall. The guy was ahead of his time imo, looking back at when this was all going down.......epic.
Paradise Poker was also so much fun to play at. I had a couple times where players would stall to time out, when they were facing usually a huge river bet by me :P At this time, the default on the software was that the hand just went showdown and these players would be able to have a chance at the pot, without ever having to pay the big bet on the river. This sounds CRAZY by todays standards, but that was how it was.
I had to write, perhaps 2-3 times, to support.....I would have records of people who I had seen previously do this, and I would have it dated, etc etc...and so when it happened to me, I would fire off an email to support, with what happened in my hand PLUS the other situation I had witnessed between them and another player and Paradise Poker went 3/3 and always rewarded me what I would have won. This is just OUTSTANDING! Of course, I know they also did their investigation, before awarding me, but it was common sense. Made me very happy and I felt very safe playing there.
They also had these great Bowling shirts.....Black and White vertical striping, would say "Paradise Poker" on the breast pocket and have all the suits underneath the logo....then the back of the shirt, was the same but much larger. I remember getting one and I loved it so much, i wrote them back to see if they would send me a couple more " for my bowling friends " and they did, all three shirts....FREE! Again, now that is a website!! They also would randomly send you mouse pads with there logo, hats, key chains and I even had this pen ( I just remembered it, forgot all about it ) that was sweet.
You would turn it and flip it, and it had this picture of a poker table, and when you tilted the pen, the flop would appear ( it was like floating in water, so when you moved the pen, this piece would go from one end of the pen to the other, and reveal the board of a hand )
Eventually, they went more toward the sport book and I found myself playing FTP, UB, Pokerstars, etc etc....and slowly they just went away and I no longer went there.
I miss those times but it is great to see just how much the game has evolved since that era.
Thanks for this post OP....good time going down memory lane of where it all began.
I Deposited $450 and was playing limit for a little while and then the news broke that starting that upcoming Friday, they would be introducing NL to the masses.
I went to Chicago for a Dream Theater concert with two of my friends, also Paradise Poker players, and we were excited to get back home and see what "madness" would develop in the world on online No Limit Cash Games.
Back in those days, I think the max tables was three. I would sit down, order myself a hotdog ( Long Live the Hot Dog Brigade! ) and start my session.
Playing with all the usual players like Gavrilo, Pope Rek, Elbagio, Hanswurst, Billiards, Puddingpris, Scott Texas, JDChance, Franchise, BaBaBoo, oldman ( I think that was his name ) and a slew of others......the games were so good.
I remember eventually running my roll up to $4400 and a friend of mine would tell me how I would never, ever see that money when it came to cashing out. Now remember, this was one of the first online poker sites and this was all new to me. I had no fear, I was 100% confident that I would get my money ( naive? )
Anyway, I made w withdraw of $2400 and the Fed Ex envelope arrived in 2-3 days! I copied that check, like a trophy and then took it to my bank. Same friend, then said, it would never clear.....waited, it cleared and then same friend, was now depositing onto Paradise Poker LOL. Sup " Tic Tac "
So I played there 100 NL, 200 NL Fullring (6 max eventually also made its way to Paradise but I was, at the time, strictly a fullring player )
Near the end, I even remember sitting with this new guy, Durrr and thinking ( this guy is fn crazy! Yet, he always was sitting on huge stacks and eventually played the 500NL ( or was it 600 NL....I forget ) I never played that game, so hard for me to recall. The guy was ahead of his time imo, looking back at when this was all going down.......epic.
Paradise Poker was also so much fun to play at. I had a couple times where players would stall to time out, when they were facing usually a huge river bet by me :P At this time, the default on the software was that the hand just went showdown and these players would be able to have a chance at the pot, without ever having to pay the big bet on the river. This sounds CRAZY by todays standards, but that was how it was.
I had to write, perhaps 2-3 times, to support.....I would have records of people who I had seen previously do this, and I would have it dated, etc etc...and so when it happened to me, I would fire off an email to support, with what happened in my hand PLUS the other situation I had witnessed between them and another player and Paradise Poker went 3/3 and always rewarded me what I would have won. This is just OUTSTANDING! Of course, I know they also did their investigation, before awarding me, but it was common sense. Made me very happy and I felt very safe playing there.
They also had these great Bowling shirts.....Black and White vertical striping, would say "Paradise Poker" on the breast pocket and have all the suits underneath the logo....then the back of the shirt, was the same but much larger. I remember getting one and I loved it so much, i wrote them back to see if they would send me a couple more " for my bowling friends " and they did, all three shirts....FREE! Again, now that is a website!! They also would randomly send you mouse pads with there logo, hats, key chains and I even had this pen ( I just remembered it, forgot all about it ) that was sweet.
You would turn it and flip it, and it had this picture of a poker table, and when you tilted the pen, the flop would appear ( it was like floating in water, so when you moved the pen, this piece would go from one end of the pen to the other, and reveal the board of a hand )
Eventually, they went more toward the sport book and I found myself playing FTP, UB, Pokerstars, etc etc....and slowly they just went away and I no longer went there.
I miss those times but it is great to see just how much the game has evolved since that era.
Thanks for this post OP....good time going down memory lane of where it all began.
12-23-2017
, 07:28 PM
12-24-2017
, 12:01 AM
Quote:
Of course there were people who abused this and disconnected intentionally in a situation like you're describing. Sites allowed it because Internet connections could still be pretty spotty then and they didn't want to penalize players for that, but the abuse became more common; first sites had "no disconnect protect" tables, and then they started doing away with disconnect protect altogether.
Used to love Paradise bonuses. I remember they ran some where they had different bonus codes that were numbered sequentially, so if you got one, you could figure out what the others were and deposit for them all, and they stacked with some great multipliers.
Used to love Paradise bonuses. I remember they ran some where they had different bonus codes that were numbered sequentially, so if you got one, you could figure out what the others were and deposit for them all, and they stacked with some great multipliers.
Those Bonuses were awesome! Yes, they would stack and it was like SunnyDays1, SunnyDays2, etc etc.....those were the good old days
Not me my friend...if you look at my post, I said that I would order myself up a hotdog and then start playing. I always had a hot dog sitting on my table when I was playing...sometimes, we would get the whole table to order them, so every player had a hot dog and we called it " The Hot Dog Brigade " :P
12-24-2017
, 05:45 AM
12-24-2017
, 10:25 AM
cool thread.
party poker ~2002
deposit $100. run it up to ~$500 playing limit, small 36man SNG's , or anything else
Then immediately move up in stakes $100 SNGs, $5/10 limit.... always quick path to busto. Bankroll mgmt was not a thing yet
Lather, rinse, repeat. Never cashed out but absolutely loved it.
One night entered a small (~$40) satellite into a mega for 25K WPT Championship seat at Bellagio. Won my seat to the mega , then BINKED a seat in that with two others in phase 2.
So there I was playing the WPT 25K at Bellagio. ABSOLUTELY no idea what I was doing. Somehow made it pretty deep into day 2, but around 10 before the money. I was on button, mid position raised, cutoff 3 bet (both had me covered). Being the noob that I was , decided that shipping it with AQ was the right thing to do (probably had 25BBs). Rem that back then a 3 bet actually meant something.
Didn't end well for me, but was awesome experience and was hooked from them on.
PS. rem for a time was sitting to the left of phil gordon. We started chatting and he was telling about this new site he was working on where you could play online with alot of the known pros. I thought it sounded pretty dumb at the time.
party poker ~2002
deposit $100. run it up to ~$500 playing limit, small 36man SNG's , or anything else
Then immediately move up in stakes $100 SNGs, $5/10 limit.... always quick path to busto. Bankroll mgmt was not a thing yet
Lather, rinse, repeat. Never cashed out but absolutely loved it.
One night entered a small (~$40) satellite into a mega for 25K WPT Championship seat at Bellagio. Won my seat to the mega , then BINKED a seat in that with two others in phase 2.
So there I was playing the WPT 25K at Bellagio. ABSOLUTELY no idea what I was doing. Somehow made it pretty deep into day 2, but around 10 before the money. I was on button, mid position raised, cutoff 3 bet (both had me covered). Being the noob that I was , decided that shipping it with AQ was the right thing to do (probably had 25BBs). Rem that back then a 3 bet actually meant something.
Didn't end well for me, but was awesome experience and was hooked from them on.
PS. rem for a time was sitting to the left of phil gordon. We started chatting and he was telling about this new site he was working on where you could play online with alot of the known pros. I thought it sounded pretty dumb at the time.
Last edited by PTLou; 12-24-2017 at 10:32 AM.
12-24-2017
, 04:56 PM
12-24-2017
, 04:59 PM
12-24-2017
, 07:15 PM
12-24-2017
, 07:25 PM
