For all you interested in poker

[standard toaster]

I see many many thread about how to play poker and this is one subject i can really help in. A lot of the game is expirence ive been playing for a long time and to tell you the truth i dont know why i count....

anyway one of the best books i have read was harrington on holdem. There are a few different volumes for tournament cash end game or whatever you need help with but he gives great advice, statistics, examples and some thories that are great

for a little fun cairos book of tells (think it was the name) is a good read and is actually very informative and applicable as well

 

[cardcounter0]

I concur. Harrington is great for tournaments and cash no limit. Caro's book is the standard for starting to use tells.

 

[FLASH1296]

I suggest reading the two (2) volume "The Poker Tournament Formula" by Blackjack legend Arnold Snyder, creator of the ZEN Count.

Vol. I concentrates almost entirely on low stakes events
Vol. II concentrates almost entirely on higher level events.

 

[Sandy Eggo]

Thanks guys, this is exactly the stuff I need to read. And I'm a reader so it will help.

 

[Guynoire]

OK I'm gonna come out and ask all you poker guys. Who do you win all this money off of? Poker is a negative sum game due to the rake, if people of equal skill play in the long run they all lose. When I play blackjack I can see all the people I'm winning money off of playing the slots, but how do you know this for poker? How bad is the average poker player?

 

[ekimlacks]

Who do you win all this money off of?

The other players.

Poker is a negative sum game due to the rake, if people of equal skill play in the long run they all lose

True, the rake does take a small portion of the winnings, but it won't ever leave you with nothing. Thats one reason why you have to be an aggressive player in Hold 'Em. You can't stand by and wait for A,A A,K or K,K or else the blinds will kill you in the long run.

When I play blackjack I can see all the people I'm winning money off of playing the slots, but how do you know this for poker?

I don't understand the question. Are you asking where your winnings are suppose to come from? If so, it's the person sitting across from you when you play. You go after the other players money, not the house.

How bad is the average poker player?

You'd be surprised. The people range in skill, just like in any other game. I've been absolutely slaughtered before, while other times I've came out with five times what I started with. It all just depends.

 

[FLASH1296]

Quality of opposition depends primarily on where the Poker Room is.

In resort areas with lots of tourists low stakes tables have hopeless dolts
spewing chips and some are actually drunk.

e.g. In Tunica MS there are no tourists to speak of.

The easiest games that I have ever seen were in Florida Poker rooms.

Minimal stakes have lots of poor players. Other games do NOT.

My comment ONLY applies to minimal stakes.

At some casinos where there are BIG "bad-beat" jackpots, I have seen hoards of retirees passing their days
hoping to catch a jackpot while sitting around hardly playing a hand all day.

I once needed to kill a little time and I wanted truly minimal risk of losing.

I was at Foxwoods.

There was "open-seating" at a $1-$3 Seven Stud Game. The players were ALL retirees in their 70's and 80's and were the worst poker players that I have ever seen. I saw people end the action at the showdown in spite of holding hands that were the nuts and they would simply call the final bettor.

If you sit down at a $2-$5 NLHE table (anywhere) where the buy-ins range from $200 - $500 you will be the fish.
It has been said, and it is seemingly true, that at all such tables there is one or more professional player.

 

[standard toaster]

If you sit down at a $2-$5 NLHE table (anywhere) where the buy-ins range from $200 - $500 you will be the fish.
It has been said, and it is seemingly true, that at all such tables there is one or more professional player.
[/B]

Id have to disagree here.... ive been playing for a long time and am not a pro, although maybe i could be, but more than not most of the players at your table will be pretty terrible.

Another thing is this is not a game like blackjack. Its not a game where you study and plays are fixed (not including indicies) but is a game of mostly expirence and learning how to deal with other players constantly. This game is more skill than luck and requires much more of an "introductory stage" than any other casino game. Its very tough and id have to say its taken me about 4 or 5 years to be a consistant winner. That is after playing for hours every day, online poker, reading, forums anything you could think of. It takes a long time and i would suggest against it unless you really have a hard drive for the game. Its not just a read a book and go game

 

[moo321]

I agree that Tunica's poker can be tough. Weekends aren't bad, though. There's people from Memphis.

The skill in poker games varies widely. For the most part, though, the books I've read grossly overestimate the skill of players at casinos. I've never seen a professional caliber poker player, and I've played a lot of poker.

Online poker is insanely hard to beat. You need to be selective about tables, and you need to use tracking software. It can be beaten, but it's nothing like like poker.

 

[glovesetc]

The only times I ever saw

" professionals " at a casino were when there was a poker tournament with a large prize pool as well . I have talked to many at the tables who said they were pros . There idea of being a pro was they could not find , hold , or get a job . Mostly younger kids as well in their 20's and 30's . I have played in many gamnes where the buy in were $1.000.00 min to $10,000.00 and there were no pros there . Most were business owners. executives or well off retirees . I find it hard a "pro" would waste his time in small games like that and $500.00 is really hard to believe as well . So many think they are " pros" and they are not ! WSOP is a good example that when you get to the last 50 or so there is not alot of pros per se lately . By the way the "so called pros " usually have limited bankrolls or access to cash as well unless they are ranked by "CardPlayer" magazine or somewhere else . In watching high stakes poker and you see the guy who founded Cirque de sloe and his net worth is 2 billion or jerrt Buss the owner of the Lakers with a net worth of 4 billion and the restaurant owners from Chicago and New York who play as well as assorted businessmen. Their BR's are just plain limitless and a good case is the Plastic surgeon who plays once in a while who owns a chain of clinics across all of North America and it is his relaxation . Tough to rattle people like the aforementioned and by the way tells are overrated as well .


:grin::laugh::cool2:

 

[callipygian]

Poker is a negative sum game due to the rake, if people of equal skill play in the long run they all lose.

But they're not of equal skill. Think about the blackjack table: are people there of equal skill, or even close to equal skill? Imagine if you could be the house whenever the stand-on-all-12's player puts a big bet out. That's what poker is about.

How bad is the average poker player?

Pretty bad, and if you don't think your table is bad enough, request a table change and find some worse players.

Low limit Hold'Em and small stakes no-limit Hold'Em are not about becoming household names in the poker field; it's about beating up children for their lunch money.

Thats one reason why you have to be an aggressive player in Hold 'Em. You can't stand by and wait for A,A A,K or K,K or else the blinds will kill you in the long run.

Just as a minor nitpick, that's the tight-loose dichotomy, not the passive-aggressive dichotomy. Most people have problems playing too loose (play too many hands), not too tight (play too few hands). Most people also play too passively (check/call with good hands) and not too aggressively (bet/raise with poor hands).

At LLHE, the majority of the players are loose-passive, with a significant minority being loose-aggressive. Only a few are tight-passive (which still won't win any money in the long run) or tight-aggressive (which is the basis of poker basic strategy).

 

[Canceler]

Back in Beginnersville...

I would think that anyone who can keep the count in BJ should be able to keep track of how many bets are in the pot, but I'm not doing too well at that, especially if I have to actually play my hand.
I'm really hoping this will get easier with practice and experience.

 

[cardcounter0]

Just look around the table. How many people have cards? That is how many bets are in the pot. Multiply by 2 if there was a raise. If someone called and folded to the raise add 1 to the (remaining people with cards X 2).
:eyepatch:

 

[Thunder]

You have to be pretty darn good to consistently make money playing poker in the casinos. Game selection is crucial. Just to give you an idea of how good you ned to be to play 1-2 NL Hold 'em in the casinos, try playing the Hubble Freerolls on Poker Stars. If you can't consistently finish in the top 10%, you have no business playing poker.

 

[moo321]

You have to be pretty darn good to consistently make money playing poker in the casinos. Game selection is crucial. Just to give you an idea of how good you ned to be to play 1-2 NL Hold 'em in the casinos, try playing the Hubble Freerolls on Poker Stars. If you can't consistently finish in the top 10%, you have no business playing poker.

I don't agree at all. I think there are casinos where you could easily pay the rent just by playing ABC poker. Be selective about hands, peddle the nuts, and you've got 4-6 bb/hr in a lot of these NL games.

 

[standard toaster]

You have to be pretty darn good to consistently make money playing poker in the casinos. Game selection is crucial. Just to give you an idea of how good you ned to be to play 1-2 NL Hold 'em in the casinos, try playing the Hubble Freerolls on Poker Stars. If you can't consistently finish in the top 10%, you have no business playing poker.

woahhhh hold on i would never judge players skill on a freeroll never mind an online one.

 

[callipygian]

woahhhh hold on i would never judge players skill on a freeroll never mind an online one.

LLHE for real money at a touristy B&M casino (e.g. Vegas) isn't all that different from LLHE online for play chips.

Dunno about NL though.

 

[Canceler]

Just look around the table. How many people have cards? That is how many bets are in the pot. Multiply by 2 if there was a raise. If someone called and folded to the raise add 1 to the (remaining people with cards X 2).
:eyepatch:

Thanks! I’ll try that next time. I was hoping there was some trick to that.


Here are a couple of rules from where I play…

l. Pushing bets (“saving” or “potting out”) is not allowed.

In case you don’t know what pushing bets is, they give you a couple of other things it might be called. Trouble is, I don’t know what ANY of those mean.

t. “Rabbit hunting” is not allowed.

Well, if I see a rabbit in the card room, I promise not to try to kill it. What does this really mean?

 

[cardcounter0]

l. Pushing bets (“saving” or “potting out”) is not allowed.

In case you don’t know what pushing bets is, they give you a couple of other things it might be called. Trouble is, I don’t know what ANY of those mean.

t. “Rabbit hunting” is not allowed.

Well, if I see a rabbit in the card room, I promise not to try to kill it. What does this really mean?

Pushing bets, saving, or potting out is the practice of two players agreeing to take some money out of a pot and using the money to buy food, drinks, make a side bet, etc. In other words, let's take some of this money we just won, and remove it from the table by spending it on something else. Poker is generally a "table stakes" game. That means you sit with a certain amount of money, and win/lose/draw you do not remove money from the table until you are done playing. If you win big, you can't remove half your winnings and put them in your pocket and only "plan to lose" the other half. You can do that, but you have to leave all the money on the table and then leave when you take the unlost half from the table. Pushing bets violates this "keep the money on the table until done playing" rule.

Rabbit hunting is the practice of "dealer, let me see what the next card would have been". Suppose someone is chasing a flush draw and everyone folds on the turn to a raiser. As the pot is pushed to the raiser, The guy with the flush draw who folded asks the dealer to see what card would have shown up on the river to see if he would have made his flush. Basically, this "would of, could of" looking thru the cards after the hand is over slows down the game. Plus, if you wanted to see if you made your miracle draw, PAY FOR IT. Eliminating rabbit hunting speeds up the game and might encourage chasers to chase more.

 

[cardcounter0]

I don't agree at all. I think there are casinos where you could easily pay the rent just by playing ABC poker. Be selective about hands, peddle the nuts, and you've got 4-6 bb/hr in a lot of these NL games.

Actually, you can place in the top 10% consistently in a Hubble Free Roll by simply playing ABC poker, being selective about hands, and peddle the nuts.
Hell, you can place in the top 50% by simply sitting out and never playing a hand. By the time you get blinded out, half the field will have "all-in'ed" each other and been eliminated.