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Comment by Jhsto | Hacker News Reader

Playing a poker can also be an interesting mental exercise. I occasionally play 3-4 tables concurrently online, of which I ultimately focus on a single one I always-eventually get lucky in (it might take a dozen games but the single one usually pays the rest off), and the amount of exhaustion you feel after 6-7 hours of that is surprising. Nothing like what programming gives me. I have heard similar experiences from ex-professional chess players.

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I used to do that towards the end of high school. I actually started out with "free rolls" where tournament winners would win ~10 cents and built up a 5 digit bankroll within a few months. It must have been weird for the site operators to see a user with a 5 digit balance that has never deposited money.

I eventually quit although I was making good money (especially for my age) because it was too time consuming and emotionally draining. Plus, online poker got banned in the US, meaning that the level of the game got higher. The good players found ways to play but the "fishes" mostly didn't bother. At least that was my perception at the time.

I used to play 16-20 tables of 6max ring in tiled format. It helped build my mental endurance and multitasking ability substantially. I was barely break even, but it was mostly a hobby (and a dream)

Just out of curiosity, where do you go to play online? I've entertained the idea of trying it out but then suffer analysis paralysis when trying to actually pick a platform to play on.

PokerStars. If you are based in the US, I have no idea what your options are. The format is multi-table tournament knockout games which heavily favors you having a bigger chip stack than anyone else.

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