I did a bad thing yesterday. I let my eleven year-old son play in an online poker tournament. My wife took my daughter shopping yesterday and left me home with my son. He’d been sweating me during some of my Pacific Poker tournaments and I jokingly offered to stake him for one of the 20-seat, $2+.2 tournaments. Surprisingly, he agreed, and sat down for his first taste of online poker.

And promptly cashed, beating 16 presumed adults for a payday of $6.

I don’t know if that says more about his ability, my coaching, or the level of play at Pacific Poker. I let him make his own decisions on checking, folding, or calling, only interjecting some advice when it came to raising. He learned something about the unfairness of poker in the first hand when he folded T6o and saw a flop of TT6. He was basically a folding machine for the first few orbits, and would chant “All-in, all-in, all-in” whenever someone took more than five seconds to bet. He was getting blinded down as he got closer to the final table, and I told him he was in the “all-in or fold” time of the game. Of course, he ignored me and limped with KQo in late position and had three callers. The board flopped Qxx, and I started chanting “All-in, all-in, all-in”. He relented and pushed in with one caller. When the board hit brick-brick, he was pretty much guaranteed making the final table.

Once at the final table, he continued his weak-tight play, only calling with two face cards or pocket pairs. I cringed at some of his folded hands (T9s on the button, QT in late position), but let him continue playing at his pace. He busted someone when he had KJ against KQ because he bet the minimum on a Jxx flop, and his opponent went all-in when a King showed up on the turn. Once it got down to six players, he was folding almost every hand and chanting “All-in” hoping to fold his way into the money, and whaddya know, it worked! He ended up busting out with middle pair when someone spiked their ace on the turn, but he said he had a great time.

Now, he wants to do it again… Sigh.