Poker travesties and whatnot...
August 12th 2007 23:18
I'm a decent poker player. I play on fulltilt usually, 'carpetlove' being my screen name if you ever want to hunt me down and beat me. I sometimes play razz (a strange form of poker that requires you to make the lowest 5 card hand possible), but mostly play NLHE, the form of poker that every Poker show is based on. If you're a big fan of watching such things, then youtube and pokertube are the way forwards. Some programmes will even teach you a lot about how to play if you've never got much experience.
I've been playing for about 2 years now, and i have been getting better and better, and as i'm in the UK, i can play online poker freely, something that Americans have much trouble with atm. Poker, in essence, is gambling. luck and skill. It can be argued that it is highly skillful in that it seems the best players in the world 'always' (i.e more than usual) make the final tables of the biggest tournaments. But it can also be argued that the best hand in poker, AA, will only beat the worst hand in poker (7 2) 80% of the time.
So there must be a lot of gamble involved. It's from this that i have to more or less give up online poker for the time being at least. I'm not the best in the world, far from it, i was totally outplayed in a $5 rebuy torny a few nights ago, and only made money from luck and survival. Even if i were one of the top players online, or even a lot above average i don't have the bankroll at the moment to gamble with odds like the above. I make a very small profit with cash tables, and a loss with tournaments.
Moreover, i get so angry with players who are clearly terrible, but time after time suck out. Ill give two examples of 'fish' (players who cannot play poker, but often get extremely lucky).
I was playing a cash game, i had 7 8 hearts in the big blind. There was a small raise and 6 callers. This gave me perfect odds to play. Infact, many of the pro's love to play connected suits (so 45 89 even 23), as there are plenty of ways they can win, and more importantly, it would be very difficult to put a player on a hand like 7 8 hearts. The flop in this case was unreal, as it came A59 all hearts, so i had a flush already, and was drawing to the 6 for a straight flush (something not seen very often and never beaten).
I was in a dominating position and first to act, so i checked, as there were 7 people to act. I wasn't intending to slowplay, there is a chance that someone could have a high heart to draw to, or even a higher flush, but i'd have to lose money in this case, i'd already resigned myself to the fact i wasn't getting away from the hand.
Sure enough, the people infront of me did the work for me, a bet and a raise. I didn't hesistate to move all in for $33. Instantly the player who made the original bet moved all in for $60, the other player folding. So the pot was about $80 and when the 'fish' turned over K5 of clubs, i was already loving it. I looked at an odds calculator, and i was 98.2% favourite. When the turn card came 5, i was still 91% infront. The river came another King, making his full house. I was disgusted, obviously. It was the worst bad beat i've ever seen, never mind being involved in (and that includes when i had a pair of jacks, and moved in against A7, the flop coming KK6QQ to make him with two pair and the ace kicker, me playing the jack high with two higher pairs).
It was a lot of money too, i didn't play online for a good few days after that. It made me really think ahout it all, and thats why i'm writing this i suppose. To win anything decent at poker, you have to be extremely lucky, and quite skillful with the higher stakes you play. There are people who make $1000 from $50 and most are now broke, as they keep going to higher levels until they eventually encounter someone who is lucky, or more likely, an absolute poker-shark.
Chris Ferguson, a poker pro, did manage to turn $0 into just under $10000 in under a year, playing freerolls to male the odd dollar, then playing a $1 Multi table torny (MTT), which he eventually came second in, netting £150. From there he was able to play a little higher stake, and continued to make a final table in a massive MTT and playing high limit games, made a bundle. The key is money management, something i'm not able to do yet, but one day. One day...
III
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