Some guys still think of poker as a man's game. A straight man's game. Women, while nice to look at, really can't compete because they lack the brute force that is so often required, and lisping fairies are similarly disqualified from getting much respect at the poker table.
This point of view. of course, is complete bullshit, but nevertheless an invisible cloud of homophobia often hangs over the green felt.
At the poker room last night two guys started in at each other. Both had come from the hockey game which the local team just lost and both had been drinking and losing money - prime candidates for turning into frustrated idiots. One was wearing a cowboy hat, prompting that inevitable Brokeback Mountain comment which led to the predictable reply of "you wish" and things quickly spiraled down until management came over and moved one guy to a different table.
I never see this kind of idiocy during the day, when the more serious poker players are around, but on weekends and evenings it is not uncommon.
The yahoos with the fag jokes are the idiots who really have no clue how the game of poker is played - they think it has something to do with manhood. They think drinking Jack Daniels will help them win.
They are fools.
Take their money.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
What did you learn?
A quick hand to illustrate the difference between good and bad decision making.
Tom, Dick and Harry are three guys I see in the poker room almost every time I go there. Yesterday I was sitting with Tom two seats on my right, Dick on my immediate left (Dick always wants to sit on my left. I wonder why that is?) and Harry sitting to Dick's left.
I was on the button when the action folded to Tom, who made it $15 to go. I fold. Dick raised it to $40. Harry called and Tom thought for quite a while before calling as well. The flop was A 9 4, rainbow.
Dick checks.
Harry goes all in with about $150.
Tom thinks about his decision, then says. "I should have gone all in preflop. If I had, then one of you would have called me and so then I'd be in exactly the same situation I'm in right now. So, I might as well call," and so, following this bizarre logic, he calls.
Dick picks up his cards, leans over to me and shows me he has KK. Then he throws his cowboys into the muck.
With no more betting possible, Harry and Tom show their hole cards. Harry has A J. Tom has Q Q. The turn and river are blanks and Harry scoops up a big pot.
"I knew I should have gone all-in preflop," mutters Tom angrily. "I let you see that flop too cheap."
Dick just chuckles and shakes his head.
Tom, Dick and Harry are three guys I see in the poker room almost every time I go there. Yesterday I was sitting with Tom two seats on my right, Dick on my immediate left (Dick always wants to sit on my left. I wonder why that is?) and Harry sitting to Dick's left.
I was on the button when the action folded to Tom, who made it $15 to go. I fold. Dick raised it to $40. Harry called and Tom thought for quite a while before calling as well. The flop was A 9 4, rainbow.
Dick checks.
Harry goes all in with about $150.
Tom thinks about his decision, then says. "I should have gone all in preflop. If I had, then one of you would have called me and so then I'd be in exactly the same situation I'm in right now. So, I might as well call," and so, following this bizarre logic, he calls.
Dick picks up his cards, leans over to me and shows me he has KK. Then he throws his cowboys into the muck.
With no more betting possible, Harry and Tom show their hole cards. Harry has A J. Tom has Q Q. The turn and river are blanks and Harry scoops up a big pot.
"I knew I should have gone all-in preflop," mutters Tom angrily. "I let you see that flop too cheap."
Dick just chuckles and shakes his head.
I Believe in a Powerful Force...
...and its called the law of averages. And the more poker you play, the greater force the law of averages will hold over your game. The funny thing is most poker players I know don't really understand what the law of averages is all about. They think things like "Well, I missed my last five flush draws, so that means I'm more likely to hit a flush draw here", and then they make a call they should probably not make.
If you are holding two hearts and the flop comes with two more hearts, your odds of hitting a flush if you stay in to the river are just under 35%, and you should play the hand accordingly based on pot odds and implied pot odds, and the likelihood you can get away with a bluff if you miss altogether. If you have missed the last five flush draws the odds remain 35%. If you have hit each of the last five flush draws the odds remain 35%.
The law of averages applies to a very large sample - if you play poker ten hours per week for twenty five years you might see a couple hundred thousand hands and you will have hit your flush draws 34.95% of the time. But a four hour session is far too small a sample size to start demanding that the law of averages must allow you to hit a flush after you've missed two draws.
You should apply the law of averages by trying to make the best play in each situation. Ask yourself, If I had to play this exact hand ten thousand times, what actions would be most profitable? When you think this way, you start thinking about "EV", which is poker shorthand for expected value, then you start putting the law of averages to work for you in a truly meaningful way that will, over the long-term, be advantageous.
If you are holding two hearts and the flop comes with two more hearts, your odds of hitting a flush if you stay in to the river are just under 35%, and you should play the hand accordingly based on pot odds and implied pot odds, and the likelihood you can get away with a bluff if you miss altogether. If you have missed the last five flush draws the odds remain 35%. If you have hit each of the last five flush draws the odds remain 35%.
The law of averages applies to a very large sample - if you play poker ten hours per week for twenty five years you might see a couple hundred thousand hands and you will have hit your flush draws 34.95% of the time. But a four hour session is far too small a sample size to start demanding that the law of averages must allow you to hit a flush after you've missed two draws.
You should apply the law of averages by trying to make the best play in each situation. Ask yourself, If I had to play this exact hand ten thousand times, what actions would be most profitable? When you think this way, you start thinking about "EV", which is poker shorthand for expected value, then you start putting the law of averages to work for you in a truly meaningful way that will, over the long-term, be advantageous.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
What the $%#@ ?
Playing a friendly game last night I witnessed what has to be one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Some beer had been consumed but not nearly had enough that the action could be blamed on it. The truth is that sometimes people just do crazy things.
We were playing no-limit hold'em with .25 and .50 blinds (note to keyboard makers - please put a "cent" symbol on the keyboard somewhere). We had been playing for quite a while when a player we will call Ms.X limped in. The action folded to a player we will call Ms.Y, who pushed all of her chips - a stack of $11.50 into the middle. This was a massive raise for the kind of poker we were playing where a bet of $2 was seen as ultra-aggressive. Everyone started mucking - everyone but Ms.X - and Ms.Y assumed the pot was hers.
"What do you have?" asked Ms.X. "Pocket aces?"
"Yes," replied Ms.Y. She turned over the two red aces, then tossed them in the muck and began pulling in the pot. Technically speaking, Y just killed her hand by mucking but this was a friendly game and she just assumed, naturally enough, that the hand was over.
"I call," said X. Everyone laughed and Y continued raking the pot.
"No, seriously!" X exposed her own hole cards, Kd Qh, "I have a feeling I'm gonna hit a full house! I call!"
It took several seconds to convince Y that X was indeed serious. Y fished her Ad Ah out of the muck and put another $11 into the pot.
"The odds have to be worse than 80/20 for her," remarked one observer. I disagreed, thinking X's hand had a 23% chance here, but calculating the odds now I see I was wildly wrong. In this situation, Kd Qh has only a slim 11.9% chance to win against Ah Ad, with a 0.5% chance the pot will split. It was, in short, an insane call to make.
"I feel good," said X. "I feel a full house coming."
The flop came Qc 9s 4h. As good a flop as X could reasonably hope for, but she was still a big underdog. The odds were now exactly 80/20 in favour of the aces.
The turn was very bad for X because it paired the four: Qc 9s 4h.4c. Now even if a king came on the river, Y's two pair (aces and fours) would beat X's kings and queens. The odds for X hitting one of the two remaining queens was a mere 4.5% but that was the only way she could win.
And, of course the queen hit on the river. Everyone shouted "OHHH!"
Queens full of fours. A full house. Just as predicted.
We were playing no-limit hold'em with .25 and .50 blinds (note to keyboard makers - please put a "cent" symbol on the keyboard somewhere). We had been playing for quite a while when a player we will call Ms.X limped in. The action folded to a player we will call Ms.Y, who pushed all of her chips - a stack of $11.50 into the middle. This was a massive raise for the kind of poker we were playing where a bet of $2 was seen as ultra-aggressive. Everyone started mucking - everyone but Ms.X - and Ms.Y assumed the pot was hers.
"What do you have?" asked Ms.X. "Pocket aces?"
"Yes," replied Ms.Y. She turned over the two red aces, then tossed them in the muck and began pulling in the pot. Technically speaking, Y just killed her hand by mucking but this was a friendly game and she just assumed, naturally enough, that the hand was over.
"I call," said X. Everyone laughed and Y continued raking the pot.
"No, seriously!" X exposed her own hole cards, Kd Qh, "I have a feeling I'm gonna hit a full house! I call!"
It took several seconds to convince Y that X was indeed serious. Y fished her Ad Ah out of the muck and put another $11 into the pot.
"The odds have to be worse than 80/20 for her," remarked one observer. I disagreed, thinking X's hand had a 23% chance here, but calculating the odds now I see I was wildly wrong. In this situation, Kd Qh has only a slim 11.9% chance to win against Ah Ad, with a 0.5% chance the pot will split. It was, in short, an insane call to make.
"I feel good," said X. "I feel a full house coming."
The flop came Qc 9s 4h. As good a flop as X could reasonably hope for, but she was still a big underdog. The odds were now exactly 80/20 in favour of the aces.
The turn was very bad for X because it paired the four: Qc 9s 4h.4c. Now even if a king came on the river, Y's two pair (aces and fours) would beat X's kings and queens. The odds for X hitting one of the two remaining queens was a mere 4.5% but that was the only way she could win.
And, of course the queen hit on the river. Everyone shouted "OHHH!"
Queens full of fours. A full house. Just as predicted.
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