The poker tips and bragging thread - Page 7

in my line of work they are the cardiothoracic surgeons... even the surgeries they do are high risk to begin with, so it bleeds right into gambling problems (along with alcoholism/drug addiction/general stupidity) with them... but doctors in general suck at poker (there's a tip! find a doctors house game and proceed to laugh at the donkey play). in medschool it became like playing golf with the boss so i actually had to tank some nights for my consultants to save face. eventually i found other games that i could just play anonymously thats where the real fun began.

Sam Farha says that if hold'em is the Cadillac of Poker then pot limit Omaha is the Porsche. O/8 is a much more interesting game. Some of the hitters in the world of poker have predicted that Omaha will eclipse hold'em in popularity. I think that will happen, but only after the fad of online NL hold'em tournaments on TV slows down.

IMO, hold'em is a flawed game because so few hands are playable. I can profitably play LL hold'em (Sit n Gos mostly), but there is not enough action in it for me. Full Tilt has an interesting format for Sit n Go which is called Matrix. It involves playing 3 simultaneous SNG's with the same 9players. Matrix tournaments can only be played online, but they go a long way toward making the game interesting.

There is another level to "other games" which has not been discussed in this thread. In home games you may encounter oddball games which are never spread in any casino. The older the players, the more likely you are to encounter this. Think about Omaha played with 5 or 6 cards in your hand rather than 4. How about Omaha/Padooki? Wrap your mind around that one.

Hold'em is just a game which someone dreamed up and dealt in a home game one day. It caught on and has become hugely popular. People still play 32, Padooki, endless variations of Omaha and Stud.....the list goes on. Most of these games are consistently winnable for a good player, probably even more so than hold'em. But they are more interesting to play because you can play more hands.

These are the two main reasons I play pretty much exclusively PLO8 on the internet. I have a competitive advantage, because at the stakes I play, I know the game better than most of the other players. That doesn't mean I'm particular good. It just means the other people don't have an understanding of the game. For instance, AA in hold 'em is a great starting hand, but AA9Q is an awful starting hand in O8, particularly if unsuited. I've watched so many people lose a lot of money in O8 overvaluing AA, because they play with a hold 'em mentality. I also just find O8 more interesting. There's more action. I see more flops. I'm not patient enough for hold'em.

Something that isn't often talked about... when you venture into the highest stakes tables, you find yourself playing against a team of players. Most of the regulars have a piece of each others action. The amount of total hands played at these stake is relatively low, so players have to pool their risk to survive the variance. The idea is to take money off of tourists and fish, not each other.

Think of going it alone alone at the big game at the Bellagio, where you might have $500k in play. A winning player in $100-$600 buy-in games need a bankroll of 20-30 buy-ins to avoid the risk of ruin from variance. As you go up in stakes, variance explodes as the average skill of your opponent increases and the style of play becomes more aggressive. 50 buy-ins is probably the target in $2,500 tables and beyond (at least online.) To to be properly rolled to take yourself in the Bellagio game you'd need a $20 mm poker bankroll. I am pretty sure most top pros don't have this. The exceptions are the guys with equity in Full Tilt like Lederer, Ivy and Ferguson- who I think pull down about $1mm per month from their ownership.

For a couple of years, Guy LaLiberte of Cirque du Soleil was almost single-handedly funding the nosebleed action online. The $50-$100 table is empty, Guy sits down, and suddenly you have 5 pros sitting in within a minute and a long wait-list.

OK - everyone shut up about the pros. I feel like playing a little poker. Im setting up a table in a few minutes on pokerstars and Ill sit there for a bit if anyone wants to play. Ill do a $50 buy in, no limit. Anyone who wants to join either respond the thread or PM me.

ah shit - I just realized you can only start a private tourney. im online now if anyone wants to find an empty table and go en masse, let me know.

Nobody?

Would have to be FTP for me man. Pokerstars claims I owe them several thousand dollars and I have no intention of ever paying.

i've got $2.94 on stars

Haha i got you beat.

Just downloaded it...I reformatted over 2 years ago so it's been that long since i played it...and I have $6.20

While I was waiting for someone, I took $100 to a $2/4 NL table. Posted my BB, 1st hand AK offsuit. call call call, button raises to $10 I reraise to $20. fold fold, heads up, flop is K 7 4. He bets $6 I raise to $12 he calls. turn is another K (2 diamonds on board), he bets $35, I reraise all in, he calls. Shows pocket 7s for 7s full of kings over my trip kings A kicker. ONE FUCKING HAND.

your fault for rerasing 2x preflop lol

i got money on fulltilt if you wanna play heads up

I think the new breed of pro poker players is different.

I played poker for a living for a few years in my late teens, and ive never played any other form of gambling nor would i. Went to vegas a couple of times and didnt put a dollar on roulette and craps and slots etc...

Serious poker players study the game and play it because they know it has a positive expectation for them. Yes some are degenrate gamblers who want the action and happen to be good but a lot of young poker players have made very calculated and disciplined steps and made a lot of money.

ummm no its not.

Thanks for your expertise, alan. As I said: I knew this thread would turn into guys puffing their chest about how much more they know more about poker than others and talking shit about about why they think others are stupid. As I said,"starting hand." Is it the best hand in terms of becoming profitable? No. Not at all. Is it the best hand to start with in terms of percent chance to win? Yes. Thanks for being an ass and proving me right about this thread, though.