As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
The [Poker] thread!
Spawnbroker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This thread is for discussion of all things related to poker. Interested in watching the World Series of Poker in the upcoming weeks on television? Want to know how to play? Want to find out why the Department of Justice hates internet poker sites? You've come to the right place!
What is poker?
The best way I know to describe poker comes from a book I read recently by David Sklansky. Poker is not a game of chance; poker is a game of wagering based on incomplete information.
The types of poker
Straight
A complete hand is dealt to each player, and players bet in one round, with raising and re-raising allowed. This is the oldest poker family; the root of the game as currently played was a game known as Primero, which evolved into the game three-card brag, a very popular gentleman's game around the time of the American Revolutionary War and still enjoyed in the U.K. today. Straight hands of five cards are sometimes used as a final showdown, but poker is currently virtually always played in a more complex form to allow for additional strategy.
Stud poker
Cards are dealt in a prearranged combination of face-down and face-up rounds, or streets, with a round of betting following each. This is the next-oldest family; as poker progressed from three to five-card hands, they were often dealt one card at a time, either face-down or face-up, with a betting round between each. The most popular stud variant today, seven-card stud, deals two extra cards to each player (three face-down, four face-up) from which they must make the best possible 5-card hand.
Draw poker
A complete hand is dealt to each player, face-down, and after betting, players are allowed to attempt to change their hand (with the object of improving it) by discarding unwanted cards and being dealt new ones. Five-card draw is the most famous variation in this family.
Community card poker (also known as flop poker)
A variation of Stud, players are dealt an incomplete hand of face-down cards, and then a number of face-up community cards are dealt to the center of the table, each of which can be used by one or more of the players to make a 5-card hand. Texas hold-em and Omaha are two well-known variants of the Community family.
Recent clash between the DoJ and online poker sites:
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/04/a-closer-look-at-online-poker-black-friday-indictment-10224.htm
Basically, the three major online poker sites were shut down on April 15th, dubbed "Black Friday" by the poker community. All three major sites were apparently involved in money laundering in order to allow US players to deposit and withdraw funds from their websites.
tl;dr Let's talk about poker!
What is poker?
Wikipedia wrote:Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually (but not always) hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown (in some games, the pot is split between the high and low hands), limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.
In most modern poker games, the first round of betting begins with some form of forced bet by one of the players. In standard poker, each player is betting that the hand he has will be the highest ranked. The action then proceeds clockwise around the table and each player in turn must either match the maximum previous bet or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all further interest in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also "raise", or increase the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either matched the last bet or have folded. If all but one player fold on any round, then the remaining player collects the pot and may choose to show or conceal their hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, the hands are revealed and the player with the winning hand takes the pot. With the exception of initial forced bets, money is only placed into the pot voluntarily by a player who, at least in theory, rationally believes the bet has positive expected value. Thus, while the outcome of any particular hand significantly involves chance, the long-run expectations of the players are determined by their actions chosen based on probability, psychology and game theory.
The best way I know to describe poker comes from a book I read recently by David Sklansky. Poker is not a game of chance; poker is a game of wagering based on incomplete information.
The types of poker
Straight
A complete hand is dealt to each player, and players bet in one round, with raising and re-raising allowed. This is the oldest poker family; the root of the game as currently played was a game known as Primero, which evolved into the game three-card brag, a very popular gentleman's game around the time of the American Revolutionary War and still enjoyed in the U.K. today. Straight hands of five cards are sometimes used as a final showdown, but poker is currently virtually always played in a more complex form to allow for additional strategy.
Stud poker
Cards are dealt in a prearranged combination of face-down and face-up rounds, or streets, with a round of betting following each. This is the next-oldest family; as poker progressed from three to five-card hands, they were often dealt one card at a time, either face-down or face-up, with a betting round between each. The most popular stud variant today, seven-card stud, deals two extra cards to each player (three face-down, four face-up) from which they must make the best possible 5-card hand.
Draw poker
A complete hand is dealt to each player, face-down, and after betting, players are allowed to attempt to change their hand (with the object of improving it) by discarding unwanted cards and being dealt new ones. Five-card draw is the most famous variation in this family.
Community card poker (also known as flop poker)
A variation of Stud, players are dealt an incomplete hand of face-down cards, and then a number of face-up community cards are dealt to the center of the table, each of which can be used by one or more of the players to make a 5-card hand. Texas hold-em and Omaha are two well-known variants of the Community family.
Recent clash between the DoJ and online poker sites:
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/04/a-closer-look-at-online-poker-black-friday-indictment-10224.htm
Pokernews wrote:The charges of violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and the operation of an illegal gambling business are suspect because of the gray area regarding the legality of online poker. The money laundering charge also relies on online poker being considered an illegal gambling business. The most serious charge is bank fraud. The indictment alleges that the sites tricked U.S. banks into accepting Internet gambling transactions by disguising the transactions to create the false appearance that they were unrelated to gambling.
Basically, the three major online poker sites were shut down on April 15th, dubbed "Black Friday" by the poker community. All three major sites were apparently involved in money laundering in order to allow US players to deposit and withdraw funds from their websites.
tl;dr Let's talk about poker!
Steam: Spawnbroker
Spawnbroker on
0
Posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9fyOFefirQ
One night I was working late finishing something, so naturally the poker night started without me. When I was finally done I came out of my office, sat down at the poker table, paid my buy-in, and was dealt into the next hand. And right off the bat I was dealt a royal flush. A real one, no wild cards or anything.
It was my only real royal flush ever, but the fact it was my very first hand of the night made it so awesome
It might be your favorite but it's not the best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFF3E0Aqdlc&feature=related
It is a different game. And not a good one.
No-limit hold'em: I have a good hand, bid high, people with crap drop out, and it becomes a battle between me and one or two other players with good hands or good bluffs.
Limit hold'em: I have a good hand, but the limit is low, so I bid the limit and people with crap all match it, then one of them gets lucky on the river and wins.
This is dumb.
I should start up a game again sometime we used to have PA people games
Pay him. He beat me... straight up. Pay that man his money.
Limit hold 'em is terrible. I feel like whenever I'm playing it, it prevents the good players from taking advantage of the bad players. No Limit is much more fun, because you can tell a lot quicker who the bad players are and how to take their money.
Playing poker with your friends is the best thing on earth and a lot of fun.
Thinking you're good at poker because you win when you play with your friends, and going to Vegas and sitting in a poker room with professionals who take all of your money in 20 minutes because the game moves so fast and you don't have time to just chill and talk, is not.
That and Pot Limit 5 card draw.
Pot Limit Stud has it's attractions
Basically Pot Limit is how Poker should be played.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Is the glassy look the best? Or do you have to work the look?
but they're listening to every word I say
I just put my hand under my jaw and stare at the pot all day. It seems to work well. A good rule of thumb: everything you do at the poker table, make sure you do it the same EVERY time. Stack your chips the same. Rake the chips in the same when you win a pot. Fold your cards the same. Throw your chips in the pot the same. And no matter what, NEVER respond to an opponent who asks you a question during a hand.
Eh. Depends on who you're playing. That's probably a good rule of thumb to start with, but once you're more aware of yourself, I think the better rule is to make sure everything you do is intentional. A lot of guys will read too much into body language and are super easy to throw off with fake tells. There's a guy in my regular home game...every time I see him think about making a move when I have position on him, I can just drop a hand to my stack preemptively and he'll back off into a check or fold, unless he's on a monster or something.
Or they use a tell to show one player "bluffing" with something like two of a kind, so the other calls with something like a straight to win, both of whih are such good hands that a bluff or a tell advertising the bluff wouldn't come into the hand at all. Annoying.
--LeVar Burton
Also I've dicked myself out of money on 3 seperate occasions with quads because I didn't fully know the ever changing rules for the high hand bonuses at the poker houses I go to. Don't do this. It will make you very angry.
I got 2nd place (might have had 1st, but time constraints basically forced me to lose) at a tourney here in SD...I won a rifle. Of course, since I just recently moved to SD and am only here for school, I'm not technically a resident of the state, so that was a HUGE FREAKING HASSLE.
My friend went to Vegas and won multiple small tourneys, raking in $1000.
I was thinking about that during the Casino Royale scene. What are the odds that there would be two full houses AND a straight flush on the same hand? That's a once in a lifetime hand. And none of the people played that incorrectly either, except for maybe the first dude who went all in. He probably should have checked, then folded once he saw everyone else going all in.
I know bodog was still running, but word is they're in the crosshairs and will be gone within 2 weeks. If you go dig around at 2+2, there's probably a few more options of questionable legitimacy.
We had a full time game going at a friends place and it was fun until they started a house tab, which let some of the more well off players keep buying in until they could just basically buy the pot if you didn't have the cash to play against them.
Anyway, this one night a dude comes over and brings this friend, who is obviously hammered. Like beyond so. He's being a belligerent asshole, interrupting the game, and getting on everyone's nerves. So eventually he leans over and says "you guys got any coke or pot?" and without hesitation our friend, who was a cop, leans over and goes "no, do you?"
Well then the guy talks about how he doesn't have anything on him, and he's leary because he's been arrested twice so he doesn't want to be a three strike felon or some bullshit, and talks about how much cops suck. So the cop friend pulls out his badge, and the dude, drunk, under 21 but over 18, pisses himself and starts crying. (note, the cop friend didn't hassle him or act like an ass, just basically showed the badge to get him to leave. He wasn't going to arrest the kid and it was obvious he was mostly full of shit.)
So the kid starts to leave, crying and apologizing, and is carrying a full handle of jack daniels. The cop friend says "you're under 21, you can't take that with you" and the guy leaves it behind. It was a full handle of Jack Daniels, so we threw an impromptu party and the booze was catered.
The second story was regarding the house tab system previously mentioned. This one guy had racked up like six or seven hundred dollars on it and presumably skipped town. (not really, but he wasn't a student at the college I went to and wasn't really around much) So one night we get a phone call that he's at the local bar that the group I hung out with were regulars at. We knew the bartender, owner, doorman (who were all friends of ours) etc.
So we all loaded up and went to the bar and the guy that had the house game confronted him. He admitted fault, and bought us all drinks the rest of the night until the bar closed his tab because the credit card was up to like a $700 bill. He was cool about it and his debt was paid so we hung out with him the rest of the night.
Those would be the two best things I inadvertently won from poker, two good nights of drinking with my friends, and some slight humiliation of a frat boy type who thought he was a little cooler than he actually was.
sub note: the guy who was plastered and being an ass was not let go to simply drive off drunk. His sober friend had the keys. I just felt like adding that in.
Just make sure to be very very very well aware of your nervous ticks. If you notice you're reacting a certain way with a good hand, then make sure to do it with bad hands.
Ain't nothing in the rule book that says you can't mentally fuck with people or that giraffes can't play football.
I think I'm a very competent poker player. Despite me constantly putting my brother out, he always does better than me at casinos.
I'm in a $1/$2 game, sitting there holding Ace 5 of diamonds on the button. This guy raises to $12 in early position, I figure he's got a decent holding, like middle pocket pair, suited connectors, or any broadway cards. Flop comes A 10 4 rainbow, and I hear an audible "fuck" come from him across the table. I'm thinking to myself, is this guy serious? Did he seriously just do that, and if so, is he fucking with me? There are three people in the hand, and he bets 20 at the pot. Long story short, he bet over 100 dollars into that pot and I called it all knowing that I had him beat. He showed down Jacks, and my aces beat him.
I was just stunned that somebody could be THAT obvious, but most of the people at that parlor are really bad anyways. A really good friend of mine lost all his money when he went all-in, and a dude called him with nothing but a flush draw and beat him. He was so pissed.
The most fun I ever had at the table was when I was playing regularly enough to try to manipulate the table and my image at it. Making stupid plays for low pots seemingly in earnest. Creating rivalries with moderate players to draw them out. Finding the real talents and picking around them to clean up a table. Realistically as a money making venture it's a waste of my time, but the game is great.
--LeVar Burton
Small stakes poker is a lot of fun - I should brush up and play more.
A limit badugi tournament that started at two in the morning and ended around eight.
Steam: Chagrin LoL: Bonhomie
Not as fun as 2-7 Single Draw though. It really is the funnest of all poker games. I highly recommend it.
Obviously Hold 'em is where all the money is though...
Omaha Hi only?
Limit or Pot Limit?
Pot Limit is a clasic Pot Limit game - it is almost purely and totally about position. Limit is randomtasticvile. For both though you need to be playing cohesive 4 card hands that can hit the flop multi-way and then get value bets looking for the nut flush and occasionally straight draw and reel in player playing bad hands or drawing to non not flushes.
In my opinion in limit (which I play pretty much never) you've got to raise early with good hands to try and either get money in the pot to give you the value to go for the draws and to push out people with bad hands. 1 person with a bad hand is great, 4 people with bad hands getting to see the flop cheap is a recipe for folding on the river to the guy who made a full house.
In Pot Limit you've got to play good cards but you can play bad cards when you have position. Good hands are double suited and are running connectors with at most 1 gap, 9C 10C JH QH is a 'good' hand. AAKQ double suited is a hand you want to get all in pre-fop with. And for goodness sake - ditch hands with trips of anything in them.
EDIT: The general rule of pot limit Omaha hi or hi/lo is that of losing many small pots and winning a few big pots holding the nuts against an opponent(s) drawing dead.
DUBLE-EDIT: Do not read this page, it will make you better, http://www.playwinningpoker.com/omaha/
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Hold'em you have two cards, and you use two cards: you have one hand.
In Omaha, you have four cards, and you use two: you have six hands. You want as many of those six hands to be good as possible. 6789 double suited is better than AA48 rainbow: yes, AA is good, but you only have one hand in the latter.
Always know what the nuts is for a given board. There's a good chance that's what you're up against, particularly if it's straighting. Be aware of blockers: if the board has three spades, and you have the As, then you know nobody has the nut flush. Fear paired boards: flopping three pair is strong, particularly on flushing/straighting boards, and if you can stay in cheaply you're set up to do a lot of damage.
Don't get married to a hand: hand quality can, and often does, change drastically from street to street. Nuts on the flop isn't the near-guarantee of winning the hand it is in hold'em
In Hi-Lo, don't overplay Lo: pre-flop it's less than 50/50 Lo's even possible and nut lows are split much more frequently than nut highs, so don't play aggressively into a quarter-pot for Lo.
AA here wants to get heads up pre flop then walk away from the hand if the flop isn't friendly.
Pre-flop you're looking for hands that play both ways. Good lo hands should have the possibility of straightening or flushing up on the board. Playing High only hard pre-flop is risky business as when the flop comes you can find yourself playing for half the pot with non-nut draws. Hi/Lo Limit and Pot Limit are very different. In Limit paying 23xx is a guaranteed money loser. Limping in with 23xx in Pot Limit is a finess hand that can make serious money in Pot Limit games.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Question though, should I keep playing cash only, or should I buy in for tournaments as well? I don't seem to do as well at tournaments, but in the cash games it's like people want to give me their money...tournament buy-ins around here can range from $65-$300, if I did play in tournaments it would be the smaller buy-ins.
Yeah that's what I thought. I don't think I'll be comfortable at $1/$2 until I have about 4000, so until then I'll just stick with the 1/2 games.
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
They have Texas No Limit and Omaha Hi No Limit.
I've won at Omaha 4 times and Texas once....all 1st place.
I'm on a dry streak at the moment though and I'm starting to question my skills.
At Texas the other day I had 9 Q of spades in the hole and there was a fair amount of betting pre-flop and 9,9,K came on the flop. I slow played and checked...no one bet.
Ace came on the turn. Small and big blinds check, and I bet 200(we start with 2000, and this was the 2nd hand) and get two folds, except the small blind calls.
The river is trash, a 2, and the board is a rainbow. Small blind checks, it's only me and him. I push all in and get an immediate call.
Dude has 9 Ace in his hand...I obviously got suckered and I don't think there is anyway I could have pushed him off of trips....actually, reading it, it doesn't seem like I could have done much different except to NOT go all in.
Any tips? Something I could have done differently to sniff his boss hand out?
If you want a tip: Unless you have strong reason to suggest your opponents are bluffing, Q9 is not a hand you should be playing.