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The official No Limit Texas Hold 'Em thread

Poker is 100% math, reading people is a secondary skill that is only tangentially related to poker, the results of the reads are almost always going to be less accurate than reading the cards and bets themselves. I'm always an actor at the table just to fuck with people i.e. I raise my eyebrows and get this huge grin if I get like J 4 lol or just dumb shit. I normally don't have a problem keeping a perfectly straight face.
My family is intense at poker....
 
online perhaps, but at the poker table in the casino, learning to read people becomes more important.

also, your logic is flawed - if poker is 100% math, then reading people can't be a secondary skill - by your math, it is 0% of the game.

what do you mean by "reading the cards and bets"? it's people who make the bets so reading a bet is reading a person.

alasdair
 
^Funny guy...lol
I'm just saying that thinking you can glean some crucial information based on the physical expressions or characteristics of a person isn't going to do you any favors that simply assessing the bets and the cards in play wouldn't be able to do more accurately.
I'm more addressing the "hollywood" notion of poker where it seems like psychology, and the utmost ability of James Bond to see through people's lies, is the most important thing about poker, when, in reality, you could have zero social skills whatsoever, yet if you know the correct strategies and ways of calculation, you could beat anyone. This applies more to people who actually play poker, though. "Correct strategies" kinda gets thrown out the window when you have people who have absolutely no idea what they're supposed to be doing, so in that sense the ability to read people does come in handy as a sort of short cut way to get the right bead on the guy, the math would still be able to get there, but if you know they're a moron, you don't need to analyze their every bet like you would a better player.
Like I said though, my family's poker nights are intense, and no one who doesn't know what they're doing wants to stick around very long.
 
CoffeeDrinker said:
I'm just saying that thinking you can glean some crucial information based on the physical expressions or characteristics of a person isn't going to do you any favors that simply assessing the bets and the cards in play wouldn't be able to do more accurately.
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when somebody pushes all-in on the river, are they firing a third time to try to buy their way out of a bluff when you kept calling or do they have the nuts? there is no way of knowing that from the bet alone.

alasdair
 
alasdairm said:
when somebody pushes all-in on the river, are they firing a third time to try to buy their way out of a bluff when you kept calling or do they have the nuts? there is no way of knowing that from the bet alone.

alasdair
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Not from that bet alone, but given a long enough history with a player you can begin to pick up on betting patterns and their tendencies on certain streets. Some players never make a big river bet without the nuts. And how large is the all-in shove relative to the size of the pot? If you are getting the correct pot odds, figuring in how often a player is to bluff a river, you can make the play that mathematically will give you the highest expected value over the long course of your poker career. Believe me, you don't have to look at your opponents physical reactions to be highly successful at poker no matter what Mike Caro says. ;)
 
i agree in part but saying that reading opponents is 0% of the game is as silly as saying it's 100% of the game (which nobody is saying).

alasdair
 
I miss FTP :[
At least they are building a casino no more than 20 minutes away from me

I see a lot more live play in my future
 
I've been playing on Merge since Black Friday... It's a shame what's happened to the online poker world in America. Any of ya play on Merge by any chance?
 
Droll said:
I've been playing on Merge since Black Friday... It's a shame what's happened to the online poker world in America. Any of ya play on Merge by any chance?
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Yes, mostly to get my PLO fix. Haven't tried my luck at cashing out though. Heard it can take quite awhile to get a check. Oh well, I deposited knowing the risk, caveat emptor, and didn't expect to see my money back. Just so happens I've run it up to a princely sum but I'll prbly just keep climbing stakes.
 
Max Power said:
Yes, mostly to get my PLO fix. Haven't tried my luck at cashing out though. Heard it can take quite awhile to get a check. Oh well, I deposited knowing the risk, caveat emptor, and didn't expect to see my money back. Just so happens I've run it up to a princely sum but I'll prbly just keep climbing stakes.
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I didn't deposit much either... My plans were the same as yours, just kept on moving up stakes when appropriate. However I"m a NLHE player. But I've just recently tried the withdrawal process. It was shockingly quick. In total it took 5 days for them to approve my withdrawal, and it arrived in a check via Fedex 3 days later. Much quicker than I had anticipated. This was all at the end of September. I've got my second withdrawal pending right now, so we'll see if that one is as smooth as the last. Merge is great for the time being... but I think its going to be nearly impossible for a small-mid stakes grinder to make a living until something like Pstars becomes available again. Did you play much before Black Friday?
 
Nothing I said was silly, actually, and I don't see how your post challenges that. I never said reading people is 0% of the game, I said it's a skill only tangentially related to poker, but you can get by 100% of the time on math alone. You don't base your entire decision on one hand or bet, but on the history of the hands played, and it's hard to talk about because it IS also based on just the one hand too, obviously.

I mean reading people purely in the psychological sense, the poker face, the sunglasses, the table chatter, etc., not reading bets and their intentions and calculating odds, that's obviously integral to the game.
 
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Droll said:
Did you play much before Black Friday?
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Yeah, heads-up mostly. Started off way back when grinding 6max NL but transitioned to HUSNGs (and PLO for funsies). All on Full Tilt, never played more than a few hands on Stars.

The speed in which you got your withdrawal contradicts what I hear from a lot of players. Are you in the US? How did you deposit? I know some people who had to jump through a lot of hoops as far as showing identification only to wait months to finally get a check.
 
CoffeeDrinker said:
I never said reading people is 0% of the game, I said it's a skill only tangentially related to poker, but you can get by 100% of the time on math alone.
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lolirony. if you can get by 100% of the time on math alone, that leaves 0% for all other aspects of the game. you need to work on your math :)


alasdair
 
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Max Power said:
Yeah, heads-up mostly. Started off way back when grinding 6max NL but transitioned to HUSNGs (and PLO for funsies). All on Full Tilt, never played more than a few hands on Stars.

The speed in which you got your withdrawal contradicts what I hear from a lot of players. Are you in the US? How did you deposit? I know some people who had to jump through a lot of hoops as far as showing identification only to wait months to finally get a check.
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Very cool, I wasn't much of a Stars player either. Yes, I am from the US. I deposited via credit card back in May. From everything I heard, I was fully expecting the check to take 6+ weeks to show up. I've yet to do my ID verification either. So I'm really not too sure why my first withdrawal came in at such a fast rate. As I mentioned a few days back, I'm currently in the process of receiving my 2nd withdrawal. So far it has been just under two weeks and it is yet to be approved. My guess is that this one will be taking much longer :p We will see...
 
I'm curious, I was playing on Full Tilt before shit hit the fan, and I kept up to date with everything surrounding it for a month or two after it all happened, hoping it'd re-open, but eventually I gave up keeping track.

Did Full Tilt ever come back? Did anyone who hadn't already withdrawn get their money back?
 
^ nope. i've given up hope of ever seeing the cash again. thankfully, i had only $150 on there.

alasdair
 
Jesusgreen said:
I'm curious, I was playing on Full Tilt before shit hit the fan, and I kept up to date with everything surrounding it for a month or two after it all happened, hoping it'd re-open, but eventually I gave up keeping track.

Did Full Tilt ever come back? Did anyone who hadn't already withdrawn get their money back?
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Poker Stars was able to refund US players' money and continue to operate outside of the States. Unfortunately, Full Tilt did not enjoy the same luxuries, as the owners were accused of embezzling over 400 million dollars in player funds. This caused the Department of Justice to freeze all bank accounts related to the site and player refunds were put on indefinite hiatus pending new ownership. Recently, a French investment group has stepped up and has made significant progress towards purchasing Full Tilt. Charges are still pending against the former management, but there is still hope players will be repaid if and when this deal goes through.

There is also talk of online poker being formally recognized by the state as lawful by the end of next year. I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.
 
alasdairm said:
do you think there's any truth to suggestions that online poker is rigged?
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My dad has been playing online poker for a while, years, not sure how long tho. But he's met people who work for the site and their job is to find "cheaters" and such. He said that there are people who come in and use specific software which allows them to somehow find out your password, if you friend them. Then they can steal your money.

He also said there are people they have software that gives them winning hands all the time. It's bullshit and I've definitely seen it happen. People come in, play 5 or 6 hands, they go all in every time and they win, bad beat 5 or 6 times in a a row! It's ridiculous. I've seen it and heard about it

(sorry I didn't really read through the entire post, I just wanted to respond to alasdairm about this..sorry if it's been said already.)

And yes, @precision, I think it's a big scam too, which is why I only play for fun and maybe practice, I would never bet real money online or give it to someone I can't physically see! If you do, you'r just looking to get scammed. It may work for a little while, you might see a return, but be careful, a lot of scams start out giving you little money back, until you put in more and more, then that's when they clean you out!! Just be safe and be smart everyone!!!
 
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