I’m not an online gambler or anything, but recently I’ve been hooked on to this Online Texas Hold’em Poker variant at gpokr.com. Developed by Ryan Dewsbury (who just happens to be from Toronto), gpokr distinguishes itself from other online poker sites in that it doesn’t use flash as the platform for the game. Instead, it’s built using AJAX, which stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML, using the Google Web Toolkit SDK. Being run only on a Javascript based applet, this means that basically all browsers out there support the game and that no flash installation is required when you’re running on a public computer (*hint* say at work maybe?).

Having been released only for a little more than two months, the player population has already increased exponentially. I especially admire the efforts of Ryan in that the site is constantly, and very very frequently, updated with new features such as player social networking, win chart, different betting tables etc… improving the gaming experience for the users every single day, making the site very progressive in a sense.

While you only play with virtual money in the game, and can refill your chips whenever you go broke, the exhilaration of holding a straight in your hand and going all-in is as exhilarating as ever. While I don’t encourage online gambling, Gpokr is a fun, costless and addictive ajax game that will let you challenge your guts. So drop by one of the tables, in fact drop by MY table (the retrochronix table. Yup, it’s named after me cause I rock!), and check out my profile to compare how well your bluffing skills are against mine!