[pokerinsider]

First came Paradise.

They had such a head start on the rest it was absurd.

They dominated the marketplace with little competition. They advertised in poker magazines but didn't really need to, especially when their only competition (planetpoker) was caught with a faulty random number generator. Sophisticated players were able to know the flop and player's hole cards.

Others quickly entered the marketplace, but struggled.

The games at Paradise were good at first, but part of the problem is that the games go so fast. Good players were able to play 2 games or more. Between the rake and the rocks, the bad players got massacred. The "average pot size" reading and other indicators on the software let everyone know where the good games were. The better players with computers with 2 monitors were able to play in 3 full games at once. Its harder to "tilt" when playing in 3 games at once because there is always another hand coming so players that have a problem with steaming in a live casino game don't suffer as bad under these circumstances.

A full holdem game in a casino can get about 30 hands an hour with a good dealer. Online, 100+ hands per hour can be dealt. The bad players go broke so quickly.

Paradise realized this and began developing "bots" or computerized players that sit in the tables to make the games look full.

The better players got all the money, but the bots proposed a big problem.

Short handed games were very profitable for the better middle to lower limit players (Paradise only spreads 20/40 or lower). The higher limit games were dominated by good players and their partnerships.

Shorthanded games would last about 10 minutes and the seats would start filling up with computerized bits and bytes.

These bots weren't so good at first but got better quickly thanks to the programmers that work for Paradise. The best players at Paradise can still beat these mechanincal, cyber creatures but when a game is full of tough players and a few cyber-savants, it becomes a waste of time.

This is especially evident in some full games (even the 3/6) -- you might have a AA in the big blind and everyone will fold to you. This would rarely happen in a casino $3/$6 game but you see it all the time online. When was the last time you got your big blind back in a casino $3/$6 game because no one called? Happens all the time online.

A good player can play a tight, straight forward game and make about $12-$15 an hour in the lower limit games provided he can play 2 games at once and devote his full attention to each game.

While Paradise was getting all the money, others interested in the online poker boom were hard at work developing software and making plans to get their fingers in the pie.

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