Roy Cooke is a renowned poker expert, longtime successful professional poker player, author of several poker strategy books and the Senior Columnist of Card Player magazine. Roy lives with his family amongst the glitter and glamour of the gambling world in Las Vegas, where he still plays poker regularly. Roy is also the Cardroom Manager for Planet Poker, the world's first online poker room.
How long has he been playing poker, and how did he first get involved? He first played poker when he was 13 years old at the paper shack with his fellow paperboys in Bellevue, Washington, where he grew up. Being the son of a champion chess player, he had much games experience by that age. He won $13.25 on his first play. Since he was making only $35/mo delivering papers, he thought he had found his calling in life! He started playing local public cardrooms at age 15 and was supporting himself playing poker when he was 17 years old. He moved to Las Vegas with my wife at age 26 in order to take his poker career to a higher level. Living in Las Vegas is great. The golf. The weather. The economy. The restaurants. The entertainment. The diversity of culture and people. I love Las Vegas!
Randy Blumer, the founder of Planet Poker, called him and invited him to work with them. He had always heard good things about Planet Poker and they were very serious about protecting their players and maintaining the integrity of their cardroom. That commitment from senior management, the potential of Internet poker, the fact that poker has been hi life, the fact that they were the first Internet cardroom giving him a ground floor opportunity, caused him to sign on. There he personally monitors the games to ensure and maintain high standards of integrity, handle customer issues, help with promotional events, and act as a poker consultant.
How does he go about investigating potential cheats? At Planet Poker, all hands played are saved and stored in the form of hand histories in a huge database. In any and all suspicious cases, the history of the event and all other interactions between the players has been recorded. He can track cash flow, analyze hand histories of any account or interaction between players. Program tests have been written to flag unusual circumstances and create leads which are personally looked at by me.
How does playing online poker differ from brick-and-mortar poker? They are very different. Online is so convenient. If you want to play for a short time you can without going to an establishment, waiting on a list, finding you don't like the game and coming right home. Poker strategy skills becomes more important, tells and people skills lose importance in the play of hands. You lose some of the social interaction. That can sometimes be a good thing, like not having to put up with smoke or rude players. New players are coming into the marketplace in droves. The fact that Chris Moneymaker, an online player and a newbie to the live tourney circuit won $2,500,000 at the WSOP the same year was also a huge boost for poker. Planet Poker is responding to the newfound popularity of tourneys by offering very affordable satellite events to these televised live action tourneys. There are daily opportunities at Planet Poker to qualify for million dollar televised events for only a few bucks. This gives the player the opportunity to become the second coming of Chris Moneymaker. And there are poker players out there for whom an extra $2.5 million would enhance the quality of their life!
There is a lot of poker advice on the Internet, but much of it is of dubious quality, and sometimes it's hard for those seeking advice to distinguish good from bad. There was a need for a site where the millions of new players coming to the game could get good advice from solid working World-Class professional players. It is also a place without flames, obscenities and wildly off-topic content. So far it's working like a charm. Planet Poker is coming out with a new software program that looks and performs "killer." We think it will revolutionize the industry. The future of poker looks bright. Network TV is going to get involved and the additional interest created will cause the poker industry to grow at an ever faster level than it is now!
Poker is a tough life. Learning the skills to become a professional player is the easy part. Maintaining those skills over the ebbs and flows of a lifetime is much tougher. It is important for young players to leave themselves an alternative opportunity in case they either fail or wish to change careers. If you ever lose your love of the game, and this happens to many players, then your days are numbered. That said, take the game seriously, study hard, maintain focus, keep emotionally balanced in your life at and away from the table, and don't get caught up in the fast lane of life that accompanies the gaming world. These days, it is much easier to learn to play poker than it was 20 years ago. The books and the Internet poker forums have an abundance of quality information available. Plus, the opportunity to be able to practice poker at online poker sites with access to hand history information makes the learning curve much faster and easier.
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