Poker Talk

phatmatt @ 11:26pm: CRAZY Omaha
If you are looking for a new poker game to play, you should try a new one that, we think, we invented. We call it "Crazy Omaha". You start out with 6 cards. After the flop, you discard any TWO cards. At the end of all the rounds, like all games, you can only use two of the four cards remaining in your hand.

phatmatt @ 8:13pm: Odds?
I am not good at figuring out odds. If someone could tell me, I'd appreciate it. If you are "four to the flush" after the flop, what are the odds of getting the flush on the turn? What about the river? Thank you.

vitaislade @ 12:21am: Does this happen to everyone or just me?



This is so sickening. Yea, yea, it's a penny-cap game. The amount of money is not the point. Just...watch. For those that don't know, before the flop, I had a 40.14% chance of losing, and after the flop, when all the money went in the middle, a 6.64% chance of losing.

deyna_otter @ 11:44am: Online Poker: A Donkey's Perspective
I don't consider myself a donkey, but according to online players I am. I who will play suited connectors for a small raise and flop a straight flush draw with two cards to go, then check and call with my draw, hit my draw, check, re-raise my opponent all in and win with a made flush when his Ace-King fail to pair. These are the same players who will call my raises with King-six offsuit and flop three Kings while I hold Aces and re-raise me 2,345 into a pot of 250.

I started an experiment with $30, or 300 big blinds in $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em, and was wondering if it indeed was possible to build a bankroll from nothing. I am very far from a casino, and the casino I play at is not an easy one to win at. The players all travel in excess of 40 miles one way to get to this casino, which results in players who are actually very talented and want to be in the poker room. I have found several games that are filled with not so strong players who are looking for a convenient outlet but sadly these games either do not run everyday or are raked and therefore illegal. With the sad state of police/poker player relationships, I'd much prefer to leave those alone. Too many times I hear of police busting up a poker game because it is gambling/illegal/dangerous/bad influence to good Christian children/etc./etc. So playing poker online is definitely in my favor, no? Seeing how I can play in my own room with my music as loud as a I want as I scratch my testicles through my boxer shorts, shouldn't online poker be an obvious choice? Apparantly not.

While it was my intention to tell you how well my experiment is going, it proves to frustrate me more than anything that I am a donkey when I play online poker. I do not believe anyone since large bets are just as easily made with Jack-five offsuit as they are with the nuts. And if you call with your measly two pair you are a donkey who doesn't understand pot odds and should'nt have called that bet because he was representing Quadruple Suited Connecting Aces and any professional would know that he had it. However if you call with your two pair, only to be beat by his runner runner straight/flush/full house, you are a lousy poker player who can't even tell when a player has the nuts and should just quit breathing all together since you are obviously a waste of skin and bones and brains. LOL.

I cannot deal with online players. The strategies they employ escape me. I have seen more min-betting and min-raising in a no-limit game online than I have seen at the limit tables at the casino. I see people three-bet with pairs of sevens and eights pre-flop and then flat call with Ace high to shove in 450 big blinds on the river when a scare card hits the board. I don't understand it. These moves are mathematically unsound in live play, what makes them special online? And the aggression level is off the charts. You better hope three connecting cards don't come down, or three to a flush, especially when you have a big pair, because someone will raise you for ungodly amounts no matter what their cards are.

The way I play poker is akin to martial arts. I prefer to be a Judo master, using my opponents aggression against him. When my opponent strikes with a punch, I block and roll his energy around and redirect it back to him. When I see a weak spot, I strike the point precisely to maximize the effectiveness of the strike. But when your opponent is a UFC Heavyweight who hammers on you with pure muscle and strength, technique is not going to save you from the blows you have to absorb in order to get your strike.

So, the moral of the story, I have lost that $30 after running it up to $113. The number of bad beats I took were enough to make me sick to my stomach. I am not suited for online play, as my aggression level is too controlled and focused and my hand selection to small and obvious. I have to date dumped nearly $900 online. I do not think I will put any more on. My experiment has shown me that while I may win for a while online, I just don't have what it takes to make it as an online pro. The live play experiment is still in ongoing, and the results to date are inconclusive.

(x-posted from Joker's Up - My Life as a Degenerate Gambler)

deyna_otter @ 12:49am: If this counts as spam, I'm sorry!
I know that some people are uninterested in my poker life/career but for those who are I've started a blog that I'm going to try to keep running with at least one post a week with tales from my childhood, games I've played in or philosophical/theoretical discussions about the subject of poker.

In short:

Please read my blog, Jokers Up.

phatmatt @ 1:30pm: WSOP Dealer Salary
While we were having our usual weekly home game Wednesday night, we got to talking about the WSOP dealer(s) and how much money they make during the WSOP. Does anyone know, or know where to go to find the information?

labrown @ 5:24pm: WILD hands
Saturday, I played two sessions, each about 5 hours long. Both were $.25/$.50 no limit holdem ring games.

First session was a $25 buyin and was 4 handed. First hand was see quad 9s. Less than 2 orbits later, we got royal flush. Within another 20 minutes we've seen another quads hand pops out. This is four handed play! Things slow down a bit after, that but we still see way too many strong hand over strong hand situations for 4 handed play, in my opinion. straights beaten by flushes repeated. Flushes crushed by full houses. It's crazy.

Second session starts out 6 handed, gets to 7 for a while before people start droppping out. It's a $40 buyin, same stakes. In this session we see 4 more quads come out and a straight flush. In 10 hours of play I saw quads 6 times, 1 royal flush, and 1 straight flush. Totally amazing.

Even more so, the majority of this good fortune landed on the shoulders of the same two people in both sessions. It was crazy. We were playing at a reasonable pace of hands/hour, but this seems like a rather rich reward of hands. :-)

andrewhime @ 11:26pm: a little bit of audio trip report
Hey folks. I went to BARGE this year and recently recorded a podcast where we discuss my Las Vegas experience - good and bad. I metquite a few of the LJ poker crew as well.

If you're interested in taking a listen, you can find it at http://www.valuecube.com/blog

phatmatt @ 12:52am: Gambling Online
Question I'm not sure of... Is it still legal for people, in the USA, to gamble for money on online poker sites? If it is, what are some sites that will you to deposit money? I know Neteller no longer works.

phatmatt @ 7:56pm: Pot Calculator
I can't believe I am asking this. Is there a calculator type thing that can automatically display how much money is in the pot?

darness @ 10:53pm: how would you play this hand?
Just curious what others would do -- I'm still learning the ins and outs of the game:

I was at the final table of a tournament tonight, blinds were 800/1600, action folded to me, I had pocket queens, I bet 4000. Big blind called, we were the only two in the hand. Flop was 3-10-A rainbow. I checked to her, she bet 5000, I went all in. She had one ace in her hand and won.

Should I have been more aggressive pre-flop? Should I have folded post-flop after her bet, assuming she must have had an ace? Or was it good to go in and play it out? Looking to become a better player and realized I probably could have done a few things differently on this hand.

Thanks!

andrewhime @ 9:50pm: how bout it?
Anyone loseriffic enough to be online tonight and want to do a micro-stakes 7-game on Full Tilt?

kipaji @ 5:55pm: Two weeks ago in Vegas...
... I was dealt A-K under the gun in a $1/$2 NL game at the Mirage. I've got $200 in front of me. To my right is the big blind. From the twenty minutes I've been at the table, I know that he's an aggressive European player in his early twenties, raising preflop and on the flop a lot. I've already noted he likes to raise preflop with suited connectors and one-offs.

I limp with the A-K under the gun, deciding I'd rather have some callers so I can make some money if it hits (and easily toss it if it doesn't), and I'm certainly willing to call a raise behind me with it. Two other limpers to the big blind, who--true to form--raises to $12. I call. Other two limpers fold. We're heads-up.

Flops comes A-7-2, rainbow. I've flopped top-top. Flop is very nonthreatening--no straight or flush draw out. So when big blind leads out with $16 continuation bet, I flat-call it, thinking I can use his aggression against him, let him bet into me.

Second heart comes down on the turn. He checks. This time I bet out for $50 (into a $56 pot) to deny the potential flush draw. He calls after ten seconds.

Third heart comes down on the river. He leads out for $100. I decide I can't lay it down and call, that with such an overbet he might just be trying to scare me off with the flush showing.

No such luck. He shows 7-9 of hearts for the flush, stammers something to me about too many outs. Fist clenched, I get up from the table with my few remaining chips, telling him he had no odds to call my turn bet.

So what did I do wrong? Did I get too greedy? Should I have reraised the flop? Bet harder on the turn? Could I have gotten away from it on the river given that overbet, recognized what he hit?

It's been eating at me for a while. I'd really like some other opinions.

temalyen @ 5:03pm: Did I play this hand correctly?
Just had a hand... biggest single win ever... and am not sure I played it correctly. I was nervous because I was playing at a higher limit, .25/.50 NL, than I normally do. I tend to rarely go above .5/.10.

I'm on BB with $29 on the table. I get dealt Kings. Everyone else folds except two players. One calls, the other raises $2.50. I call, the other player folds. I'm acting first, of course. Flop comes out 2 5 6 rainbow. I figure the other guy's hand probably didn't improve either, so I bet $2. He raises to $8.50. Yikes. I almost fold, but something seems wrong. That raise is too big even if he hit trips. A straight seemed unlikely. I've been watching this guy play for a while and he isn't an idiot. He's trying to scare me out. I call.

Turn comes out J. All right, that may have improved his hand, may not have. However, I still think I have the best hand so I bet $3 in hopes of him folding. He calls. River is another Jack. Now I'm nervous he has trips. I think until my time is almost up. Statistically, I'm a huge favorite to win. Finally, I bet $4 in hopes of scaring him out again. He insta calls. I'm screwed, I think to myself. No, I'm not. He had 9's. I win a giant (for me) pot.

Despite the win, in retrospect, I think I played this hand all wrong. What would you have done in this situation?

temalyen @ 11:49pm: So, i was playing some Omaha High/Low tonight. I switch to a new table and everything goes fine for a hand or two. Someone then decides (after bitching and complaining about everyone else) to "make the table slow" ... what does he do? He waits until the time limit on every hand and raised every time to keep the hand going as long as possible. He said this was to "punish" us for "cheating." Real mature. Interestingly, he was raising every time (in a Limit game) regardless of what he held. We were taking his money left and right, it was just a very slow process.

I gave up after 3 or so hands (which took minutes for each hand. Hands per hour when I left for that table was an astoundingly low 11.) ... I get people being jackasses, because that's the way some people are on the net. but this guy was costing himself money. This behavior completely blows my mind.

Anyway, that isn't even why I'm posting, it's just incidental. I've been really liking Omaha recently, but I'm still pretty terrible at it. Does anyone have any recommendations for decent books on Omaha? I've found a lot of books out there, but am not sure which one to get. There's a book that looks decent out there by Shane Smith and Don Vines called "Omaha High-Low Poker: How To Win at the Lower Limits." If I were buying one without any advice, that's the one I'd probably go for. Is anyone familiar with this book? I can't find any specifically geared for online play, though, which is what I really want. There's no way I'd play anything except Hold 'Em in a casino at this point, so advice with online play would be best. Anyway, any suggestions?

deadmonywalking @ 4:30pm: WSOP Cash Game Question
I've played in Vegas during the middle of the WSOP and found that most games were pretty good.  But this year I might not be able to get there until it ends. So:

Does the increased action in Las Vegas continue during the Main Event or does it pretty much cease the day the ME starts?  Would it be worth it to arrive in Las Vegas on say July 5th to play the medium stakes games?

myauntjemima @ 1:50pm: Interesting hand from Casino Montreal
I posted this hand on my blog too, but figured it might get some interest in this community.  To preface the hand, I am an online pro who occasionally plays live at Casino Montreal.  In this hand I was playing 2/5 NL.

I had just sat down and only seen two hands.  In both, a middle-aged big stack sitting across from me had cold-called raises preflop.  I pick up KK in mid-position and raise to 25, it folds to the middle-aged man who flats from the small blind.  We're heads up to the flop which comes A-J-6 rainbow.  The villain checks and I c-bet $40.  He flats again.  The turn is a queen.  He checks, I check behind.  River is a meaningless 4.  He leads with a $60 bet.  What now?

vitaislade @ 2:37am: Would it be considered gambling?
I have an intriguing question that may require a bit of thought.

Would a stake from another person be considered gambling on your part?

For those that do not know what a stake is, it is a specific amount of money given to you to play poker with. If you profit from it, then the staker gets 50% of your winnings and you take 50% (or whatever the cut is decided to be). If you lose the stake, then you are out nothing other than 'cake' if the staker stakes you again. 'Cake' pretty much means that if you profit from the next stake, you pay me back what money you lost the first stake and then cut any additional profits. If the staker does not stake you again, you are out nothing.

temalyen @ 1:30am: Ever have one of those nights where it seems like you should have held onto nearly every hand you folded? I'm having one of those right now.

Folded Q4 at a tight table. (Ring game on Absolute) What's the flop? QQ4. Turn was unimportant, river card was Q. I was kinda kicking myself over that, as I'd just thrown away the nuts. But, then again, seeing as I'm not real aggressive, getting rid of Q4 in early position was definitely the right call. As it turns out, I would have won on just the flop. Didn't even need that Queen on the river.

Few hands later, same table. I throw away an A4 as I'm not one of those players who thinks you have to see the flop any time you get an Ace. What's the flop? AAJ. Great. Maybe I should just play all hands that have a 4 in them. I would have won that hand also, had I stayed in.

Another few hands later and I get 64. Screw it, there's another 4. I'm playing. Flop doesn't help me at all and I fold. I knew that hand was garbage, but I played it anyway because I was frustrated.

This is in stark contrast to a few nights ago when I kept hitting these weird straights. On Big Blind with 8-5. I check to see the flop and hit a straight with 467. Next big blind, I check through with 10-7 and flop 89J and win the hand again. It's funny, because I never had another chance to check on big blind after that. One of the guys raised pre-flop every time I was on big blind, as if he expected me to keep making straights all night if I was allowed to check.

Anyway, no real point to this. I just felt like venting a bit about my luck tonight. Hopefully it'll get better tomorrow night, as last night was pretty awful as well.

_boppo_ @ 1:48pm: What's the best number of players for a game of poker in your opinion?

petrovich_ @ 11:34am: Events in London
Hello!

  Could smb advise a web site (or community in LJ) to view list of poker events in London next  two-three month ? I'm not looking only for major events ,  but any local tournament with buy-in >= 1000$ is enough.  

Thanks in advance.

diamondave22 @ 8:19pm: Poker Stars is out to get me
Anyone else ever feel this way? I've just started playing online at poker stars even though i've been playing poker for a few years now, I've had some pretty good success at live games but online is killing me. Just as an example this is what happend to me today.

I was playing in a 3.40 one table sit-n-go, the blinds were up to 75-150, I had 2600 in chips. I get pocket Ks in middle pos. and opened to 600. Player in seat next to me calls everyone else folds. The flop comes K, Q, 4 with two spades. Player checks, I go all in for my last 2000 (he had me covered). Player calls and shows Qs, 3h, long story short came runner runner spades to give him a flush and knock me out.

Then in the next tourney I played which happend to be a 2.40 2,000 guarantee, blinds were at 100-200 25 ante, I had about 1800 chips and I got Qs in late pos..Being short stacked I pushed all in and the one person that calls me (that only has about 200 more chips than me) shows 8, 3off, long story short he flops two pair and I'm done.

I know it seems like I'm just using this to rant about my bad beats but this seems to happen all the time on poker stars, there are many more examples I could give but I'll keep it to the two worst of the day.  Sometimes I think Poker Stars is out to get me.

ronsrants @ 9:04pm: Early levels of donkaments
Having ignomiously just busted out of yet another donkament (freeroll this time) with KK, I wonder if these situation warrant larger than 3x raises.

I was UTG with KK and the level was 15/30.  I had around t2500 and my RHO (BB) had me well covered with around t4000.  I make the bet t90 and a middle-late position limps.  The BB completes.  The flop comes 679 rainbow. 

BB bets 1/4 pot, I raise it, limper folds, and BB re-raises.  I shove and he calls me down with 85o.  Feel free to critique my post-flop play all you want, but the object of me posting this bad beat story is to try and grok if it makes sense in these early level/early blind situations to make larger than normal raises with premium hands.  Or am I just reacting to the bad beat with a -EV idea?

-R

spuriusfurius @ 7:58am: When to show 'em
Last night I played in a no-limit cash game on line in which there seemed to be a higher than usual incidence of players showing their cards when a hand didn't end in a showdown. This was great for me because it gave me a lot of insight into these players' strategies; that insight helped make it a very profitable session. I don't understand why they kept doing it, but then I don't understand why anyone would ever show cards they don't have to. But I'm admittedly new to seriously studying this game, so I ask y'all -- is there a good metagame reason to occasionally reveal your hole cards? If so, when do you do it?

kitsune1975 @ 8:38pm: Super Aggressive Online
I know this sounds a little weird, but from a tactics point of view I need to know.

Twice online this past weekend at FTP, I was playing Shootout Free Rolls and ran across Super Aggressive players, the kind that would go in on every draw pre-flop, no matter what. Now over the last month or two I have learned to be patient, you know, wait it out and be prepared to fold the hand, but seriously one guy was eating heavily into my chips until a pocket As chopped one of his legs out and AJ in the next hand took him down.

I thought this was a rather stupid strategy but after 20 hands of folding I was seriously panicking and contemplating just tossing it out there to see if I could catch. ( I should add I didn't get an A with a decent kicker once in those 20 hands either A2 which I am crap at playing, or A4)

- Have you guys run across this kind of play before?
- Have you tried it? Does it work?
- Is it a viable strategy?, a newbie tactic?, or is it used just played out to weed out the low end tables?

I am very curious only because I have started changing my online play and it seems when I go aggressive I get whallopped, if I am patient I can win up to the high level shootouts, but then crash to aggressive people....meh still learning ;)