Re: Texas Hold 'Em It's passion if you're winning money, an addiction if you're losing money. Also, PokerTracker is another similar program to consider. http://www.pokertracker.com/
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Truer words have never been spoken, I was just thinking this exact thought the other day. For beginners, I wouldn't worry too much about getting commercial software to begin with - that could be a little info overload to start with. I suggest putting in few hundred table-hours at microstakes to start with, then once you learn the ropes there you can refine your game by such means as software. I win about 2 big bets/hr average at small stakes (up to .50/$1) fixed limit HE without software (I did write a crude BASIC program to give me a few stats on the opposition, but haven't used it much lately, I probably will start using it more soon). IMO - play money tables are useless, people bet/raise/call with no discretion and I don't think you can learn much from it. I would recommend playing microstakes instead, even if the play is still a bit loose there is at least some discretion used by bettors and you will learn a lot more. Even freerolls are a better option than play money if you can't make a deposit. The two best pieces of advice for beginners are to play within your bankroll and to always look at the big picture. Pick stakes that are suitable for your bankroll. For fixed limit, I like to have at least 200-300 big bets available for the stakes I play - I don't like to lose much more than 10% of my bankroll on a particularly bad session (which I consider to be about a 30 big bet loss). Chris Ferguson recommends never having more than 10% of your bankroll at risk at one table in no limit cash games, or buying into sit and gos with more than 5% of your bankroll or multi-table tourneys with more than 2%. For me, the biggest lesson for newbies is to see the big picture. I've found poker to be an inexplicably streaky game - long stretches of being unable to lose a hand giving way to long stretches of getting swamped every hand. This frustrated me for a long time and I would go on tilt during the bad stretches before getting a feel for the ebbs and flows of the game. Track your play and see how much you win/lose over a couple of hundred table hours in cash games or a couple hundred sit and gos - luck should even out by this point and you'll have a good idea whether you're doing OK or if you need to tighten your game. It's been said that poker is just one long game until you die, doesn't matter if you're having a losing session if you're still up overall. As for me, I recently deposited back into Full Tilt to take advantage of the easiest $50 you'll ever earn in their Take 2 promotion (it's just for September). Up over $100 on top of that playing FLHE so all is good. Finished second in The Ferguson HORSE tourney a couple of months ago (of 673 people) and won $100 for a $1 entry. GL Bread Bin and other newbies!
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Personally I think that people who take NLHE seriously should be more conservative with their bankroll. A lot of good loose-aggressive pros keep at least 40 buyins for their bankroll. Even if you're playing tight you should probably have 20-30 buyins. Other than that, poker is a journey, never a destination. A beginning player should focus on making the most profitable play in any situation, regardless of whether or not he/she ends up winning the hand. One of the things I love about poker is the fact that it's different every time. There's always something to discuss, analyze or ponder. And you can make money doing it!
Re: Texas Hold 'Em The best comparison I heard of for a poker player was that your wins/losses are similar to a baseball player's batting average. You never take a batting average seriously until you are deep into the season and even then it may not truly be indicative of how good a hitter you are. And, as a batter, you definitely go through streaks where you are getting hits all the time then other streaks where you can't buy a hit. Both of those aspects of being a baseball hitter are similar to being a poker player - focus on the long haul and know that streaks, good and bad, are going to happen.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em I'll be starting in this on Saturday: http://www.sdsyndicate.com/ Should be real fun and possibly an entry in the WSOP!
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Have to share - won my biggest pot ever at Harrah's St Louis tonight - $158 or so in 3/6 FL. Pocket 8s on button, straddle on, 7 see the flop of J-8-6, J on turn, 2 on river, 3 others all in by river (despite no flush draw) with 2 others in showdown, got in reraise on flop and raise on turn. Made about $125 on hand, felt nice tipping dealer $5 without a thought lol.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Congrats. I presume one or more of your opponents held loose jacks? I know I'd be shitting my pants that someone had pocket Js, but there's no way I'm ever folding there.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Folding was never an option lol. I don't know what anyone else had, they just mucked. Actually felt better with the J on turn - if I was crushed then I was crushed, but I figured it was less likely someone had JJ. Just didn't want to see a J or 6 on the river. Knew I had the last side pot won - they showed no strength when I raised on turn - but had to sweat out the three other pots and make sure none of the all-ins were sitting there with something like J2 or J6.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em I've played two tournaments so far, but plan to try and play in the remaining 13. You can follow me here: http://www.sdsyndicate.com/Results.html. I'm "Matt S". I got 11th (out of about 29 or so) in my first tourney. I bubbled the final table when my QQ ran into two AKs. I had the chance to nearly triple up and take the chip lead into the final table, but the bastards spiked a K. My second tourney, a rebuy, went much better and I ended up winning despite being short-stacked the entire tourney. Even when it got heads up, I was out chipped 4 to 1. It was a rebuy tourney and I didn't even bust once or rebuy! Sweet. So I'm in good shape so far, in 14th place overall but all of the guys above have played many more tournaments. I just gotta keep placing and winning!
Re: Texas Hold 'Em How would you describe the quality of play in these tournaments? Are you one of the better players?
Re: Texas Hold 'Em It's pretty good actually. I have yet to figure out where I rank, I guess the next 13 tourneys will do that. I would guess that with my internet experience I've probably played more tournaments than anyone there, but a lot of these guys have played more live tourneys than me. When I got to the final table there was some good players going out with weak holdings. Whether that was situational in their own mind or lack of patience I'm not sure. I would guess that there are at least 5 very good players, in addition to 10-15 very competent players. The blind formats have been excellent, which I love. If I win 2.5 more tournaments then I am paid for the entire season of buy ins.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Phil Ivey is a sick 5-1, but his stack is pretty short, so I'm not picking him (even though he is easily the best player at the table). I'm going to go with Shulman.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Shulman is my pick too, I like what I've seen from him on the telecasts and he has the stack to do it. Moon has enough chips to make the final 4, but I don't think he's good enough to shift gears at a short table.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em yeah he was short but still around 30 big blinds and 5/1 i put a 10er on him and also i put a 10er on shulman at 7/1........thats 20 quid i wont see again ivey out in 7th and shulman 5th, final 2 left Moon just under 60mil and Cada with about 135 in chips heads up wont be until tomorow, think Cada has this one. Ivey at one point got up to about 16mil but still a bit short compared to the rest, cada and ivey same chip level at a point, not watched it followed bits online.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em A sad day for all Americans has come, the UIGEA has taken full effect. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2010/06/uigea-goes-into-full-effect-8378.htm
Re: Texas Hold 'Em This is so stupid. If people want to gamble on the Internet, let them. This is getting to be like prohibition where everybody drank anyway until the government finally came to its senses and made it legal again.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Looks like the party is over. Our wonderfully hypocritical government has indicted the owners of Pokerstars, Fulltilt and Absolute. They have ceased allowing any and all US players access to real money games on their sites. This is the same government that supports/funds B&M Casinos, Lotteries and Bingo Halls, but seems to think that online Poker is evil and that it should not be available to residents of the US. Sad day indeed.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Indeed. I'm still wondering how people playing poker in the privacy of their own home cause any harm. Ugh.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em I'm guessing it's solely because none of the money is going to America - it's all going to the Isle of Man or elsewhere. Nothing like determining our ethics because of the economic impact it makes on the country. Here in Washington state, they made it illegal to play online poker (the first state to explicitly do so) and it is clear that it was done solely because of pressure given by the local Indian casinos in the state. No other reason.
Re: Texas Hold 'Em Actually, the history of this is more sordid than that. UIGEA was inserted at the 11th-hour into legislation designed to make ports safer that the authors knew was going to have wide bipartisan support. It was done by Sen Frist, formerly R-TN. Basically a small cadre of evangelicals used a parliamentary trick to take away the rights of all Americans. GG.
