Betting Thread
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Duck Rodgers
Well-Known Member
I'm taking Matt winning by at least 5000 on Jeopardy tonight.
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I started playing Texas Holdem about a week ago. So I was doing well last night in a no-limit $1/$2 cash game. I drew a 9 and Q, and got 10 and J on the flop (third card was an Ace). I risked it and bet BIG, and a guy called my bid. I got an 8 on the turn, and no full house or 4 of a kind was possible with the cards on the table. I put it all on the line, figuring only way to get beat is if the other guy had a K-Q and beat my straight, but what are the chances of that? One in ten million?
And of course, he had K-Q, and won the hand with the higher straight. I lost $260 in one hand. I WAS ENRAGED, and I withdrew my remaining funds from Bovada.
I think I'll be taking a couple of months break from gambling. lol
And of course, he had K-Q, and won the hand with the higher straight. I lost $260 in one hand. I WAS ENRAGED, and I withdrew my remaining funds from Bovada.
I think I'll be taking a couple of months break from gambling. lol
Happens all the time. I've seen a straight flush over a straight flush. Losing on the bottom end of a straight is like one of those things
I bet the guy who lost this hand was wondering what the odds were, too.
candrew
Well-Known Member
Exactly why I quit playing on there, bad beat after bad beat....I know poker can be crazy but damn. (I'm aware that in your case it wasn't a bad beat)
So hold up. You're playing a $1/$2 cash game? You're relatively new to poker, yeah? Any reason you didn't opt for something like a $.10/$.20 or $.25/$.50 cash game. The quality of opponents goes up considerably at the $1/$2 level. Many of the semi-pro online players will be playing the $1/$2 game. Not so much the lower stakes games.
And what's their min/max buy-in for the $1/$2 game? I'd assume it's $20/$200 or so. So you were up in the game and you went "BIG" on a straight draw? You get called by a lot of people holding AX (ace and whatever) and definately get called by anyone with two pair. And you'd be a dog to those hands. Not to mention you could have (and were) drawing dead to the better straight that was already possible.
So let's say you are actually up on that hand. The other player is drawing to less and doesn't have a made hand. The big bet will not pay you off in the event you make your straight. Likely you don't get called in the first place, so you just pick up whatever was already in the pot (what was the preflop action? Did you call a 2x-3x raise? Were you in position on the other guy?). If you do get called then you need to hit your straight still. There's too much out there now to bet the other guy out of the hand. You've lost all your raise equity. So the big bet on the flop drawing to a open ended straight (odds of hitting are about 31%) was a mistake.
It's fine to semi-bluff (betting on a drawing hand) but not "BIG". You want to bet just enough to get someone with a better draw out of the hand, or someone with a made hand that thinks you might have a better made hand. The equity on that bet is that if the made hand calls and you hit your straight your hand might be concealed enough that you can get another bet out of them. Bet too little, so that anyone calls, then you don't get the fold equity. Bet too much, so that only someone who's beating you will call, and you're making a very very bad bet. In simple terms it's called playing to win small pots or lose big pots.
Not trying to be too critical, but you're extremely intelligent and you'd probably make for a fantastic poker player. There are some really awesome poker books out there that would probably help you immensely if you decide to get back into it.
For tournament poker the holy grail is "Harrington on Hold'em vol. 1-3" by Dan Harrignton. Bar none the best poker books I've ever read. I believe he also has one for cash games but I haven't read it. If you do read it keep in mind poker has changed some. He'll talk about 3x pre-flop raises a lot where people mostly go 2x nowadays. So some of the standard betting strategies have changed, but it's more about the concepts.
"Killer Poker" by John Vorhaus (there are several "killer poker" books) is good but focuses on limit hold'em.
Then there are books that help teach you how to figure odds and ev on the fly, like "Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker" by Yao. I think you'd really benefit from those.
Not trying to be insulting if you already know all this stuff and just made a play that didn't work.
I'm actually very new to poker, and I played my first game just over a week ago. So I really appreciate all of your thoughts and advice.
I had been playing for a couple of hours each night, as well as reading up on the game. I started with fixed limit cheap games, and I was doing fairly well, so I moved to no limit games. I played 0.10/0.25 games first, and I was up about around $90 by my third night. So I thought "hey, I'm really good at this. I should do higher stakes". I'm not all that good, it turns out.
I read The Theory of Poker, by Sklansky, over the past few days, and it was immensely helpful. I will give your recommendations a go before I start playing again. I'll also stick to the cheaper games for the time being.
Since you are an expert on the subject, is it realistic to actually become good enough to consistently make money? I'm not talking about making a living, but at least enough money to sustain the hobby?
I hated the cheap stakes. I started out at the typical .05/.1 and .1/.25, but the play was so awful it was hard to beat the rake. One night after several bad beats I jumped into the .5/1.00 and never looked back. After a month or so I was pulling in $2k/month playing 15-20 hours while working the phones doing collections.
It's hard to win at poker if everyone at the table is a donkey, and that's exactly what the lower stakes gets you. It's the same as playing the drunks for $1/2 limit in Wendover.
Very possible for a smart person who can remember damn near every hand they see an opponent play. If you are going the online route then find the stakes you excel at and dominate the league. Don't play a bunch of different stakes or websites. Get to know everyone at one place at one level and learn how to put them under your boot. This makes getting used to new players much, much easier, when they have everyone knew to figure out and will make dumb mistakes because of it.
I'm actually very new to poker, and I played my first game just over a week ago. So I really appreciate all of your thoughts and advice.
I had been playing for a couple of hours each night, as well as reading up on the game. I started with fixed limit cheap games, and I was doing fairly well, so I moved to no limit games. I played 0.10/0.25 games first, and I was up about around $90 by my third night. So I thought "hey, I'm really good at this. I should do higher stakes". I'm not all that good, it turns out.
I read The Theory of Poker, by Sklansky, over the past few days, and it was immensely helpful. I will give your recommendations a go before I start playing again. I'll also stick to the cheaper games for the time being.
Since you are an expert on the subject, is it realistic to actually become good enough to consistently make money? I'm not talking about making a living, but at least enough money to sustain the hobby?
It is entirely possible to make money (semi-pro) and for very intelligent people to make a good living (pro) off poker. As the saying goes in poker: "In the short-run it's all about luck. In the long-run, there's no such thing as luck."
I'm not an expert. If I had the capacity to make a living off poker I would have taken my shot a long time ago. I am very passionate about poker but for me I'm just very attracted to poker aesthetics. Which probably seems really weird, but I've just always loved decks of cards.
Poker is a tricky game though, it is very seductive in that when you're running good it's easy to think you're just a badass. Then you start running bad and poker is a miserable grind and you wonder why you ever thought you were any good at it. Unlike things like basketball, where none of us here could ever beat an NBA starter in a game of 1-on-1, in poker amature players can beat the best pros on any given night. But many of the celebrity pros have been making six figure incomes off poker for well over a decade.