A Poker Horror Story

[I originally posted this on ChipTalk in January 2006. Seems like a good addition to my new blog.]

This is not a bad beat story. Its much worse.

Several family members were in town over a weekend in late August to celebrate my daughter’s sixth birthday. My daughter also started kindergarten that week, so it was exciting times.

I have taught my family how to play poker over the last several years. When we gather, poker is now the game of choice in the evening. They helped break in the new Pharaoh [poker chip] set with long sessions on Friday and Saturday night. All had fun.

On Sunday afternoon, my Mom asked if she could play on a play money table at one of the internet poker sites. I said sure, and set her up on a play table at PokerStars through my account. My nephew picked up where she left off on the play tables, and they promptly blew through 1000 starting play chips and two 1000-play-chip reloads. Apparently, only two play-chip reloads is allowed every 24 hours, so they were done.

In the evening, while I was tending to kids baths and book reading, my niece wanted to play on an internet play table. My niece asked my Mom for help and, without my knowledge or permission, my niece started playing on PokerStars.

Can you guess where this story is going?

About 8:30pm, I went downstairs and saw my niece playing on PokerStars. I saw that she was at the $5/$10 no-limit hold ‘em table, playing with real money. She had about $44 on the table.

I froze in horror.

“You know you’re playing in my real money account, right?” I asked.

“No, I’m not. This is a play table,” she replied.

“No, see that dollar sign in front of the number? That means real money.”

“No, this is a play table. Grandma [my Mom] set it up for me.”

“No, that’s my real money. Move and let me show you.”

I sat down and closed the table, then opened the Cashier window. It said $44. I reviewed my records. The total damage:

$1,653 lost.

Aaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Learn from my mistake -- DO NOT let friends or family play on your account, even if its play money. I set only let my Mom and nephew play on a play table, and the whole debacle happened without my knowledge. My Mom thought she knew what she was doing when she helped my niece open the site and play, but she was horribly wrong.

Christmas Epilogue

To put this disaster in perspective, I made a single $200 deposit in early 2003, and have built up my entire on-line bankroll from that one deposit. The pain of the episode was partially the money lost, but more that I had carefully built up my entire on-line bankroll through careful, methodical, tight-aggressive play in ring games, tournaments and SNGs from that one deposit.

Luckily, I have my on-line bankroll spread around on several sites, and less than half was in my PokerStars account. So, I transferred some from FullTilt to PStars, and continued playing. My new goal was simply to win back what she had lost.

By the end of the year, I had recovered everything that she lost, and a good bit more. In the long run, it won’t matter – but I will always know that my on-line bankroll is short by over $1,600.

There was no one to really blame for this crime. My niece thought that she was on a play table. My Mom thought that she opened things up the same way I did. I didn't know they were doing it, while I was spending time with the kids.

In an effort to repay me, my niece sent me two checks in approximately the total amount of the loss. I declined her attempt at repayment. Instead, as a Christmas gift, I bought her “Zen and the Art of Poker.” I took the two checks, wrote “VOID” on the face of each, laminated them together (back-to-back), and slipped that in the book as a bookmark.

A $1,600 bookmark – my most expensive Christmas gift ever.