Ain't nothing like the real thing

I played my first live game since my son was born June 25, and it made me realize how much I missed it. I love Internet poker, but playing with friends, reading players and seeing the real cards come down is a blast.
I learned a few things too:
• No, poker Web sites are not rigged for action. I was playing heads-up with a friend after I busted everyone else out, and took the following two bad beats in a row:
Had 10,3 os. Flop 10,3,2. Bet hard the whole way. 6 on the turn. Friend keeps calling. Q comes on the river, He bets hard.
He shows Q,6.

Had A,9 suited. Flopped an A. Bet hard. 9 falls. Bet even harder. 10 on the river.
He shows A,10.

Now, fairly rough anyway, but heads up? Ouch.
I eventually won my money back when I had A,A and he had a flush draw and gambled. The lesson here is bad beats happen all the time, in life as in the Internet. Deal with it.
• It's good to practice a good poker face, even when you are playing online. My friend said he couldn't pick up a tell from me, and he's played with me for months and could "read' me in the past. Sweet.
Or maybe I'm just tired from the baby.
• Real poker can make you better, or it can make you worse. You tend to call everything in a tiny ring game, making it much more difficult to read players and also you tend to just play cards instead of call crap. While this can sharpen your reading skills and make you look for tells more, it can also make you softer.
I need to get out to the bars and play some tournament poker.


I'm also reading lots of books right now. Sklansky, Harrington, etc. They are really helping.