Punting on the pixels, without the poker face

Lucy Mangan
The Guardian

I start with 7 card stud on http://www.PokerRoom.com. I head straight for the 50c limit table and within 10 minutes I am down $5 (£2.60), feel sick as a dog and have a tension headache you could sell to science. Amarillo Slim can sleep soundly still. If I were playing with my own money, I'd be having convulsions. Fortunately, the Guardian has given me £100 (which translates as $188, as I'm using an American site) with the proviso that any profits should be fought over in an unseemly manner tomorrow.

I spend another 10 minutes alternating between cold sweats and endorphin rushes before deciding that

a) journalistic duty demands that I engineer some more dramatic results and

b) if I'm going to suffer such violent internal traumas, I may as well try to make some decent money.

The first attraction of online gambling reveals itself: no-one can see my shaking hands as I seat myself at a Texas Hold'em table where bets of - steady yourselves -$3-$6 must be placed. I've heard of the game before but never seen it played. But the second attraction of the online method is that you can sit in on the action without being intimidated by contemptuous looks and work out the rudiments before you start slinging money on the table.

Or you can get bored, pitch in and hope for the best. This results in an average loss of about $14 a hand, which is due partly to my inexperience, impatience and mathematical ineptitude and partly to my predilection for inventing backstories for other players instead of noting that there are three other kings already on view, rendering it unlikely that I will get one to pair with mine in the next round.

Cards are altogether too much for me, although again I can see that the sweet anonymity of the internet and a low-betting table could be the perfect way of learning the subtleties and dispelling that out-of-control feeling that is currently dilating my blood vessels and raising my adrenaline.

I cash in $10 at the roulette wheel. On the first few spins I win nothing but on the third - oh, frabjous day - I rake in $35! All of a sudden I am Bret Maverick, Beau Nash and James Bond all rolled into one. So it's on to Black Jack, where I lose $40 in five minutes.

Slot machines are boring, so I lose $10 there as fast as possible and return to the poker tables. I've never tried the Omaha version, so I pull up a chair and beginner's luck nets me an easy $50.

So I'm back, roughly, where I started. Another attempt to beat the bank at Black Jack fails miserably, and a few quick hands back at Texas Hold'em (for old time's sake) before I have to get back to work results in a final overall loss of $112, or £60, whichever is less galling. It's an expensive way to induce a migraine, if you ask me.