Twenty years ago.........

Tikay10

Actually, 20 years & 1 day ago - 1st January 1998 - the very first real money Online poker games were offered by a site called Planet Poker.

Tikay10

Remarkably, the only game available was Limit Poker, & it was $3 $6, quite a big game all things considered.

The site was available 24/7, but due to lack of traffic, games rarely ran at night.

Tikay10

A year or so later, along came Paradise Poker, with much better software. The week it launched coincided with a major outage on Planet Poker which lasted for several weeks.

Even now, some folks believe some skulduggery went off to cause Planet Poker to be Offline when Paradise launched. And so began the history of conspiracy theories about Online Poker.

Paradise Poker also offered something very few players knew of in those days, but which soon became the game of choice for almost all Online & Live poker - No Limit Hold Em.

Tikay10

Party Poker then arrived on the scene, they offered MTT's, & very soon they were the world's biggest Online Poker site by some way.

Tikay10

And then along came PokerStars, who soon became completely dominant, a dominance which has lasted until this very day.

They were the first site to really get the software right, and in fact they were so far ahead of their time, their original "theme" still exists to this day.

devil_tear

Wait, players willing to put money online and play?!! - it'll never catch on.

devil_tear

Question: What percentage of your net worth would you give to go back to 96' with what you know now? (The caveats are you're the same age -and you cant invest in bitcoin)

Tikay10

devil_tear said:

Wait, players willing to put money online and play?!! - it'll never catch on.

It would never have caught on if it had stayed like this, which was how it began (play money only) a few years earlier;

Tikay10

Type your comment

devil_tear said:

Question: What percentage of your net worth would you give to go back to 96' with what you know now? (The caveats are you're the same age -and you cant invest in bitcoin)

100%, for sure, though knowing me, I'd still have lost the lot.

devil_tear

Looks like a new Sky Poker update.

Tikay10

Type your comment

devil_tear said:

Looks like a new Sky Poker update.

Ooh, very good.

NoseyBonk

More like 20 years ago the phrase "it's rigged" was invented!

Interesting stuff though, thanks @Tikay10

MrWh1te

Party poker was started with mob money and very dodgy in the old days, amazing they kept going.

MrWh1te

Tikay10 said:

A year or so later, along came Paradise Poker, with much better software. The week it launched coincided with a major outage on Planet Poker which lasted for several weeks.

Even now, some folks believe some skulduggery went off to cause Planet Poker to be Offline when Paradise launched. And so began the history of conspiracy theories about Online Poker.

I would suggest that the likelihood of skulduggery was and remains very high to be honest. Even these days we are seeing big sites being hit with dos attacks etc when they have big games running. IT is an absolute fact that big sites were paying a lot of money out due to being attacked for ransom fees. That is still continuing today.

Dozza

Tikay10 said:

devil_tear said:

Wait, players willing to put money online and play?!! - it'll never catch on.

It would never have caught on if it had stayed like this, which was how it began (play money only) a few years earlier;

Goodness me - didn't realise @JohnConnor had been around for so long.

Itsover4u

Tikay10 said:

Party Poker then arrived on the scene, they offered MTT's, & very soon they were the world's biggest Online Poker site by some way.

I remember winning a freeroll on party poker on a dial up modem that cost by the minute as a 13/14 year old kid. The freeroll lasted well over ten hours and had over 16,000 runners more than any main event!

My prize for this glourious win ... $8. Did I care... not a jot I was so engrossed in the game I didn’t even notice the time.

When the bill came for the modem use I got an absolute bollocking from the mother!

Blackpuma

Itsover4u said:

Tikay10 said:

Party Poker then arrived on the scene, they offered MTT's, & very soon they were the world's biggest Online Poker site by some way.

I remember winning a freeroll on party poker on a dial up modem that cost by the minute as a 13/14 year old kid. The freeroll lasted well over ten hours and had over 16,000 runners more than any main event!

My prize for this glourious win ... $8. Did I care... not a jot I was so engrossed in the game I didn’t even notice the time.

When the bill came for the modem use I got an absolute bollocking from the mother!

Aye the good old days lmao

Tikay10

Ugh at the memory of dial-up modem.

That dialling sound you used to hear, & that loading bar creeping up oh-so-slowly....

EvilPingu

Tikay10 said:

Ugh at the memory of dial-up modem.

That dialling sound you used to hear, & that loading bar creeping up oh-so-slowly....

And having to disconnect the internet if somebody wanted to use the phone. 8 year old me was never happy about having to close whatever game I was playing on the internet...

Imagine waking up with AA and getting shoved on, then the mother-in-law calls your partner. Brutal.

H3nry

Interesting thread, to know then what we know now hey.
What about a brief history of sky poker Mr Kendall? Is there a screenshot of the first hand? Are there any players still here that were here right at the beginning?