SkillBet sampler

Last night, my PokerStars session was short and sweet. On hand 17, I won a pot worth $51,300 with a full house, jacks full of tens. I exited stage left on the following hand. As is my custom, I'd been reading Card Player magazine online when not involved in the hands. An advertisement I saw there for another poker site had caught my eye, and I decided to check it out.

The site is called SkillBet, and it purports to supply a version of poker in which luck plays almost no role. You play against 5 poker bots, while at the the same time, at an adjacent table, another human (your actual opponent) plays against the same five bots. You each get dealt the exact same hand, and the community cards are the same at both tables. Everything's the same at the two tables except for the decisions the two human players make. You each play 30 hands (the same 30 hands), and at the end of them, whoever did better against the bots wins. Both humans could lose money, but whoever lost less money would be the winner.

Thankfully, they have a practice version where you can play with free tokens. I gave it a try. I played four different opponents; I won the first battle, but lost the remaining three. It was fun, but it didn't quite feel like real poker to me. I might play it now and again just for fun.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 18 hands and saw flop:
 - 1 out of 2 times while in big blind (50%)
 - 1 out of 3 times while in small blind (33%)
 - 5 out of 13 times in other positions (38%)
 - a total of 7 out of 18 (38%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 4 (50%)
 Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $30,603
balance: $6,279,699