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  • Sports & Gaming Moderators: ghostfreak

Cards Poker (Texas Hold'em)

thizzSantaCruz said:
I love showing to an unstable player when I know he is about to tilt. Playing with a tilting player can be very profitable.
sure - as ever, you have to adjust your game to the prevailing table conditions.

when playing kitchen table games with friends, i'll often bluff early and show a couple. later in the night, when one might expect players to loosen up a bit - especially heads-up - i'll wait to flop a monster and play it the same way.

perhaps the only thing better than bluffing is bluffing that you're bluffing :)

alasdair
 
alasdairm said:
the thing i love about no-limit is that i can win regardless of how good or bad my cards are. in my experience (and i undertand that's a limited thing) hands in limit poker always come down to the best cards. where's the fun in that?

I'm not a big bluffer, but I still prefer no-limit, because if I lose, it's either to a better hand or a good bluff. You don't generally get someone staying in on a bad hand, then hitting a straight or trips on the river and beating your top pair. It's too easy to do that in limit.

(Though I did take two players out of a tourney by calling 3-4 suited and flopping a straight. They were not happy at all....).
 
anyone here play on partypoker or paradise? I think it would be intersting to get a couple of bluelighters sitting at a table together.
 
Of course this may be old hat to some of you veterans, but a good strategy I've found for when you're heads up short stacked (but workable of course) against someone whom you've noted has previously been bullying you and others off the blinds...

Limp in sb a few times on marginal hands and let him push you off of them. Then, when you hopefully hit high pockets on sb, limp in just as you have been doing. He'll often take the bait and try to push you off with something marginal, hopefully with a 3x or more raise.

Then depending on the strength of your pockets you can either decide to push all in or smack him with a hefty value reraise to see if he calls you...with AA, I'd almost be tempted to go for the value bet to entice him not to fold, then smoke him on the flop since by then his mindset is probably pot committed. Of course you're taking your flop chances in doing that, but if it works and you really smoke him, I've found that that almost ensures you're going to close him out because at that point he's often cooked confidence-wise.

Btw, I noted earlier in the thread that some folks were reluctant to play the play money sng's because of the likelihood of idiots pushing all in in the beginning. I highly recommend Full Tilt Poker in that respect...I mostly play the 100k sngs, and the all in idiots are very rare at those tables. The quality of play is generally pretty decent at the larger stakes sng play tables there.


Does anybody play Razz? I've taken a liking to it lately.
 
I play poker a lot. I usually play on party poker. I haven't deposited money in a while, just playing the freerolls. A few nights ago I placed 7th out of 11500 players and cashed out with $7.50 for playing for free. Another time I placed 83rd I believe and cashed out wth 1.25. I turned that $7.50 in to $47, but with party poker you need atleast $50 to cash out. I couldn't get those last three dollars and ended up losing the rest of it :-( Easy come easy go. I love poker, because I'm very good at it.
 
I've wanted to learn how to play poker for a while now, when I say poker I mean Texas Hold'em. As this seems to be the most popular form here in the UK and also seems to be what they play at the local casino's and on TV.

The problem is I don't know anyone who plays it.

Does anyone know any free games I could download (PC or Android mobile) that are also training programs?

Another thing, is poker (Obviously electronic forms are more a game of chance if you're playing against a computer because of the way they're programmed) more than just gambling/a game of chance? Does the psychology/bluffing element make it less than just 'gambling'/a game of chance such as Roulette or Blackjack?

Thanks in advance!
 
there are a million online poker sites - you can't find a single one?

i used fulltiltpoker until the u.s. govt. decided i shouldn't do that. i liked the interface and the general level of play. the best way, imho, to learn is to play.

i definitely believe that poker is definitely more than chance.

alasdair
 
Pick up a couple books on texas holdem or google texas holdem. A famous player once said that there's 2 kinda poker players the once that play and gamble that there luck will show and strike big and then there's players that cash in on other players hopees of good luck.

What I'm. Saying is learn to count cards. Its actually a lot easier than it sounds w basic math and some practice you should do good. Also play online is a lot diff than real live play. Online play recycles decks I think every hand so you can't count and don't bluff online bcuz there will b someone to call yer bluff bcuz its fake chips and noone is actuallu losin any money.

I would recommend casinos. When you learn go and sit at a idk what they got like 5 to 10 small and big blind table so that way you get experience and yer playin w small amounts so a loss don't reallu hurt. Good luck and happy gambling:)
 
in what way does counting cards help with poker? what exactly do you mean?

alasdair
 
Well ya see if yer playin w a standard 52 card deck (and not in casino where I think they recycle n mix decks to throw off card counters) you count the same way as you would in blackjack. Basically you take the odds of what you have and the probability of gettn the cards or hand you want in the flop turn and river.

It dnt matter what the other players have when counting yer chance of gettn the hand yer after. Besides the cards you know any other card is fair game it could be in your opponents hand or deck. Trick is to count your % of winning and gettn the hand you need vs the other persons % of what they could be goin for depending on the cards that you know about and the cominations available after the flop. Bluffing won't even matter bcuz if ya can calculate % and have a higher % of striking the hand yer after than in the long run you'll win more than ya lose. Idk if that made too much sense.
 
i don't know of anybody who plays poker who would describe what you're describing (knowing your outs and the percentage chance of making your hand) as 'counting cards'.

alasdair
 
I'm a serious poker player - Have made over $13K playing online Texas Holdem at PKR.com (I can verify this easily by the way - as there are online tracking sites).

All the online poker sites (real money) allow for play chip play as well for practice. Although a better option is to play in "freerolls" they're massive tournaments that are free to enter and you can win small (real) cash prizes.

Another option is to take "No deposit Bonuses" sites that give you free (real) money to play with (once off only of course) - the only "catch" is you'll need to provide ID before you get the cash (to help stop people trying to commit fraud) and you'll need to play a certain amount before you're allowed to withdraw any winnings.


Anyway - ask me anything about it, I've played poker seriously online for over three years now.


Here is my tournament results (ring games not tracked here):

http://www.sharkscope.com/#Player-Statistics//networks/PKR/players/jessthehuman

Here is my PKR site profile:

http://www.pkr.com/en/community/players/3724620/tournaments/


Also - what xThexXtank is saying is total crap and literally doesn't make any sense.
 
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/ is a great site if it's still up and running. Back when I played they gave very useful information for beginners about how to play, but also if you passed a quiz they'd give you $50 on your poker site of choice (limited to 2 or 3 of the big names iirc though) to play with. You had to play a certain amount of hands to actually be able to keep the money, but if you learn up about how to play properly using their guides and various other ones across the net, keep your head focused and patient, you'll quickly come to the end of the amount of total money you have to play and be well into profit.

...If you don't, you lose nothing, so I don't see any problems :D

A few hints:

1) Play way below your cash level. For cash games for example 25 buy-ins is a good level that many people suggest, I'd recommend as far as 50 buy-ins if you're a total beginner and want more room to adjust in, and ~15-20 buy-ins if you're an old time player with experience under your belt. (By this I mean, if you deposit $50, and go with 25 buyins, you can only play in $2 NL max)

2) The same hand in the same situation should be played one way when played correctly. If you know you played the hand right but you lost a big sum on it, it can be easy to go on tilt and play the hand wrong next time - the opposite is also true, if you played a hand wrong but won big, it can be tempting to play similar weak hands that way in future, when in fact you just got lucky and doing so will quickly end your stroke of luck and result in an overall loss.

3) Play the stats, don't gamble. There are statistically correct ways to play a hand in each situation, that will over time result in an overall profit in the long run provided you have correct bank roll management and stick to playing correctly. This means long term profit. It's very easy to give in to simply gambling or to make mistakes though and quickly become another gambler, and lose your entire bankroll.

4) If you go on tilt, take a break until you feel completely better. Do not play even one more hand until you've become very experienced and can immediately get yourself out of tilt again it's simply too risky, even slight tilt causes you to make mistakes and your management of yourself going on tilt can make or break your long term game.
 
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5. focus on decisions not outcomes

if you get it all in pre-flop with KK and the guy who called you with 78 off hit 4 cards for a flush, that sucks but you made the right decision. focus on that and move on.

i just moved to sacramento, ca and haven't played in the casino for an age. i discovered a card room near my house called 'the limelight club' and they have a $45 tournament on thursday evenings. went down there last week and took first place. feels good man.

alasdair
 
Y'all talkin about playin real $$$ online must be outta the US bcuz I think they made it illegal here for online gambling with real money.
 
i don't know of anybody who plays poker who would describe what you're describing (knowing your outs and the percentage chance of making your hand) as 'counting cards'.

alasdair

What he said is literally the definition of card counting.

Theres a difference between knowing the "general odds" ie whether you should play the hand, and knowing the specific odds ie whether you should play a hand because you know EXACTLY how many of X card are left in the deck.

Its irrelevant anyway. You shuffle the deck every hand in poker and don't see your opponents cards anyway. So card counting is impossible as far as I'm aware. To count cards there needs to be no reshuffling.
 
pokerstrategy.com is a descent site, as is twoplustwo.com. these places are good for beginners. find a beginners book play a little at the lowest possible stakes and post some hands for advice. as you gain experience, fork out some money for tracking software and a coaching site membership. holdem manager and pokertracker have free trial periods i think. get one of those now if you can.

pokerstove is a good free calculator. but again, as you improve, you will want some combinotronics and EV calculators. a combinotronics calculator will show you exactly what hand ranges hold on particular boards, and an EV calculator will show you the value of your betting action across single and multiple streets. finding strong lines against assumed ranges is a key skill. accurate assumptions + perfect lines is the key to maximumly exploit your opponents. additionally, and this is a long way from beginnner strategy, you will want to find the perfectly balanced GTO lines to use against strong opponents. but this is getting a bit advanced. just focus on beating up bad players for now. there will be plenty of them at the nano stakes.

the online poker industry is a bit shady when it comes to player funds and regulation. im not sure if i can use names or not so pm me if you like. you will want to play at a well regulated site, such as publicly listed company.

nlhe is the most popular game atm, but dont be afraid to learn some different games. ime nlhe is one of the slowest and simplest games. games like shorted handed fixed limit omaha, 2-7 triple are a lot of fun. even fixed limit holdem is more fun imo.

beware of the rake. it doesnt seem like you are paying much, but you are. and it can destroy your win rate. tracking software tracks rake(and rakeback).
 
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