A chip and a chair - all things poker

[????]

Inspired by one of East Dulwich's many poker players (you know who you are) let's see how we get on with a regular poker thread for all things poker. Tactics, local home games, internet poker, bad beats...this is the place.

Good luck at the tables.

[Narnia]

Quids, I used to play for fun on one of the poker websites. I can't remember which as it was on my old computer. Which one do you suggest for Texas Hold Em?

[giggirl]

Kamikaze bets - I went all all in with a pair of twos last Thursday night. It didn't go well. Left me with a chair but no chip.

[????]

Declan - It depends at what levels you play, for how long and wether you want to play seriously. If you want to progress then only Pokerstars and Full Tilt have the liquidity to get cash games or Tourneys all the time at higher stakes. If you want to keep it small stakes then any well known site ie Ladbrokes, Party, William hill, Betfair etc PKR is good for a different feel and look but serious online players almost all play Pokerstars and Full Tilt. Get rakeback too

[Mick Mac]

What are you all talking about. Did not follow a word of it. Whatever happened to 5 card stud. I understood that one.

Where and when do people play poker in ED? I would like to give it a go. Beginners stakes of course.

[DJKillaQueen]

I find most poker sites difficult to make any profit on and know a lot of live players who would agree. I do pretty well at live poker.....up and down online.

Last horrible beat.....having my Aover5s flopped full house beat by an Aover7s on the river. Pot ?72.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I can just about manage five card stud. I have my matches ready.

[????]

Another great poker quote

"If you don't know who the sucker is at the table after 20 minutes it's you."

[????]

last horrible beat a HORSE tournament obn Friday in Razz, dealt A24 next card 3 raising away all the time then 2 so still raise away then K K J:X from near the top of leaderboard to almost out

[DJKillaQueen]

Ooooh that's sick!

[????]

DJ on youe internet point. I agree, satndard is now really pretty good a few years back was terrible with the boom and before the US rule changes. But plenty of games and I like mixed games and especially Omaha/HiLo, which most home games won't feature. I also like action and play about 4 tables at a time. i find live games sooo slow.

[DJKillaQueen]

I like O Hi/low too and that is a game you can make money from online.

[????]

yup. Not infested with multi_tabling nits

[DJKillaQueen]

Don;t get me started on the multi tabling nits.....:X

[????]

A guy I work with won the Pokerstars UKPIT in Ireland a couple of weeks ago to add to the Edinboro title he won earlier in the year... ?100k tax free, nice gig.

[DJKillaQueen]

Well I just won $33 winning a single table sng (pokerstars) nah nah nah :))

[????]

Nice one. Not quite ?100k but a start ; )

[????]

Playing live tonight...a very rare occurence for me, Pro dealer and in a city gaff too. All set up by one of the more debonair forumites natch.

[DJKillaQueen]

How did you do?

[????]

1st in winner takes all turbo and 2nd.....Mr Ben beat me to 2nd in the 'Main Event' my a 9 lost to j 4 with two 4s on the Flop! A decent player and a great host. Brilliant with a pro cdealer running the ever more piss:)-Ded game!

[danmaitland]

I agree re online poker -0 very difficult for decent players to get ahead - as the software seems slanted to action and to the guy with trhe worst hand

[pk]

danmaitland Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I agree re online poker -0 very difficult for

> decent players to get ahead - as the software

> seems slanted to action and to the guy with trhe

> worst hand

i am not sure that i get this - are you saying that 'the software' doesn't deliver cards in a truly random way?

i know (and know of) a good number of very decent players who do consistently well, so i am surprised to hear some of these gripes

[katanita]

Ah Dan, the poker conspiracy theorist :P

I think it's pretty unlikely that the poker sites are rigged, especially the big ones, for several reasons. The data for millions and millions of hands is out there and available, I'm sure if there was a non random bias someone would have some decent evidence for it by now. All the big sites all have auditors for their random number generators, so it would have to be quite some conspiracy. Besides, they hardly need to. They are making a mint on the rakes from the huge numbers of people who are playing, getting busted for rigging the hands would lose them most of their custom, surely not worth it?

But I think the perception that this is happening is quite interesting. I suspect that it's a result of our human inability to really understand probability and statistics, confirmation bias etc etc (there are probably a ton of juicy cognitive biases that apply to online poker, check the terrifying list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases). Found a nice article here that explores some of the conspiracy theories in more detail http://www.onlinepokerfaq.com/guide/conspiracy.html.

That said, if anyone does have solid evidence for rigged sites I'd love to hear it. Though I wouldn't love to think I've been being conned by Party Poker all this time.

[????]

This....

is the place to read about online poker being rigged

...of course it's not. Most of the pro-online players have 10000s of hand histories so can do proper statistical testing...they know it's not (see the link), RGN's are audited, sites like Laddies show the number of times AA has been dealt since they startred ( a billion hands or whatever) and it's within a several fractional decimals point of where it should be by stats.

Finally, I've worked for two...and would I lie to you :))

[????]

online poker is hard to beat nowadys becuase

1) The standard of play is much, much, much better than during the boom a few years back and certainly better than live play. It's mainly TAG play rather than people not raising pre-flop and calling bets with crap.

2) so your edge is reduced significantly, even if your good

3) the Rake get's you

Most 'pro' players online are breakeven or just up but make their money largely through the loyalty schemes or rakeback...if you haven't got rakeback or aren't putting in the grind to get decent loyalt points it's tough.