On Christmas day my family went to my wife’s sisters house for a family gathering. I brought along my hold’em set. My wife has two sisters. I know both of their spouses play online.
I like face to face play better than online. So I hoped we could get a game going. I wanted to play against them to see how I matched up against them. After the turkey dinner, they readily agreed to a game and we got a small tournament started.
I set it up using the small poker tournament tips from the time I played before. It worked pretty well. About the only adjustment I’ll make for the future is get the blinds to go up a bit faster. I’ll do this by restarting the 10 minute timer for the blinds the moment it goes off. Don’t wait for the next hand to start to restart the timer. It’s too easy to forget to restart it. Plus restarting the timer right away will make the blinds go up quicker, which is what I want.
I did OK against them. I managed to win the first tournament. They were not bad players. They didn’t care for folding the preflop, so that tended to cost them some chips.
I still need to work on tells when I’m dealt a strong hand. One time I was short stacked heads up and I had KQo in the small blind. I went all in. My opponent said “I knew you were going to go all in” as I pushed my stack So I need to work on that. On this hand he called my all in anyway with KTo. He nearly formed a straight, but my dominant hand held up.
If you only play online, you should try out some face to face play once in a while. It’s good fun. I’m going to try to get some people together next month for a game at my house.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Monday, December 26, 2005
+1 for Yahoo poker
I started playing hold'em a few months ago. One night I was flicking channels on the TV and a replay of the 2003 World Series of Poker happened to be on. It was compelling to watch Chris Moneymaker win it and I decided to try this game out.
I started playing on Yahoo just because it was convenient. I'm already on Yahoo and hold'em was right there in the games section. Also it runs in Java off a web browser so there's no need to download or install anything.
On Yahoo there are three lounges: beginner, intermediate and advanced. They have exactly one game available, 2/4 limit, play money.
I started out in the beginner lounge with the standard $1000 play money. I hardly knew anything. When I started out it seemed blazing fast and I had trouble following the movement of the button and blinds. Over time it slowed down for me and I figured some things out and started winning.
When I got to $2000 I went to the intermediate lounge. That was a bit tougher but I continued to do OK. When I got to $3000 I started in the advanced lounge. The advanced lounge also went pretty well and now I'm at $4000.
Yahoo has a good user interface. Very user friendly and easy to follow what's happening. Unfortunately the good user interface is pretty much wasted by the horrible quality of players on that site.
The so called "advanced lounge", like the other lounges, is overrun with bad players who just aren't any good. People going to showdown 20 hands in a row without folding once, betting and raising all the way, usually with nothing. Bets and raises are not respected. Raising to the cap on the river with bottom pair only when there are four suited cards on the board and three others still in the hand. Never fold before the turn. Foolish stuff like that.
One in a while on Yahoo I'd get to a table with around 3-4 others where everyone was playing properly; folding preflop, respecting bets and raises, winning hands without showdowns, people winning at showdown with strong hands. However these sessions were infrequent and short lived. Eventually some clown would join the table and proceed to showdown 15 consecutive hands.
So winning on Yahoo poker is satisfying (like winning at anything), but hardly a great accomplishment. If you've never played Texas hold'em before then I recommend Yahoo as a great place to start out. I did learn a lot playing there and I've improved quite a bit since starting out.
At this point for me there's nothing left to accomplish on Yahoo, so I'll be moving on to a new site. I also want to try out some other types of poker games including no limit sit and go, no limit ring, and pot limit ring. I enjoy limit and I'll continue to play that too. I'd like to try playing for real money eventually, but there's no rush on that. I'm taking my time and enjoying the journey.
I started playing on Yahoo just because it was convenient. I'm already on Yahoo and hold'em was right there in the games section. Also it runs in Java off a web browser so there's no need to download or install anything.
On Yahoo there are three lounges: beginner, intermediate and advanced. They have exactly one game available, 2/4 limit, play money.
I started out in the beginner lounge with the standard $1000 play money. I hardly knew anything. When I started out it seemed blazing fast and I had trouble following the movement of the button and blinds. Over time it slowed down for me and I figured some things out and started winning.
When I got to $2000 I went to the intermediate lounge. That was a bit tougher but I continued to do OK. When I got to $3000 I started in the advanced lounge. The advanced lounge also went pretty well and now I'm at $4000.
Yahoo has a good user interface. Very user friendly and easy to follow what's happening. Unfortunately the good user interface is pretty much wasted by the horrible quality of players on that site.
The so called "advanced lounge", like the other lounges, is overrun with bad players who just aren't any good. People going to showdown 20 hands in a row without folding once, betting and raising all the way, usually with nothing. Bets and raises are not respected. Raising to the cap on the river with bottom pair only when there are four suited cards on the board and three others still in the hand. Never fold before the turn. Foolish stuff like that.
One in a while on Yahoo I'd get to a table with around 3-4 others where everyone was playing properly; folding preflop, respecting bets and raises, winning hands without showdowns, people winning at showdown with strong hands. However these sessions were infrequent and short lived. Eventually some clown would join the table and proceed to showdown 15 consecutive hands.
So winning on Yahoo poker is satisfying (like winning at anything), but hardly a great accomplishment. If you've never played Texas hold'em before then I recommend Yahoo as a great place to start out. I did learn a lot playing there and I've improved quite a bit since starting out.
At this point for me there's nothing left to accomplish on Yahoo, so I'll be moving on to a new site. I also want to try out some other types of poker games including no limit sit and go, no limit ring, and pot limit ring. I enjoy limit and I'll continue to play that too. I'd like to try playing for real money eventually, but there's no rush on that. I'm taking my time and enjoying the journey.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Young opponent
I don't get to play a lot of face to face poker. This is unfortunate because I enjoy that more than playing online.
One time I was getting my seven year old son ready to go to hockey. We were downstairs in the basement. I flicked over some channels and there was a Full Tilt sponsored tournament on. So I watched a couple of hands while I put my son's gear on.
My son grumbled about the poker at the time. But then while we were driving to hockey he said he wanted to play poker. So about a week later I got a basic hold'em set at the dollar store. It was only three dollars for two decks of cards, 200 chips, a dealer button, and a nice carrying case. Great value for the money.
We've played a few times since then. We started out playing 2/4 limit for the play chips. I figured limit would be easier to learn. I try to play properly so that he can learn. He likes to play, he has yet to fold a hand.
One time for a change we decided to try out no limit. On the first hand it was his turn on the flop. He looked me in the eye and confidently pushed his full stack of chips forward and announced "I'm all in". Notice he used the correct term. I didn't tell him that. I didn't have anything so I folded.
We played two more hands of no limit. Both times he pushed all in on the flop. Both times I had nothing and folded.
Since he's learning, we like to show our hands when someone wins without a showdown. He's brave. On the three no limit hands, he had a pair twice and nothing once.
One time I was getting my seven year old son ready to go to hockey. We were downstairs in the basement. I flicked over some channels and there was a Full Tilt sponsored tournament on. So I watched a couple of hands while I put my son's gear on.
My son grumbled about the poker at the time. But then while we were driving to hockey he said he wanted to play poker. So about a week later I got a basic hold'em set at the dollar store. It was only three dollars for two decks of cards, 200 chips, a dealer button, and a nice carrying case. Great value for the money.
We've played a few times since then. We started out playing 2/4 limit for the play chips. I figured limit would be easier to learn. I try to play properly so that he can learn. He likes to play, he has yet to fold a hand.
One time for a change we decided to try out no limit. On the first hand it was his turn on the flop. He looked me in the eye and confidently pushed his full stack of chips forward and announced "I'm all in". Notice he used the correct term. I didn't tell him that. I didn't have anything so I folded.
We played two more hands of no limit. Both times he pushed all in on the flop. Both times I had nothing and folded.
Since he's learning, we like to show our hands when someone wins without a showdown. He's brave. On the three no limit hands, he had a pair twice and nothing once.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Guys night out
I saw an old friend from high school over the past weekend. He e-mailed me that he was getting a guys night together. We met at his place for some drinks. Then we went downtown. We went to the Pogue Fadoe. That was a pretty good place. The band was good. They played rock.
It was a bit different visiting him. He's had some changes in his life, and he now lives in an apartment building. I haven't been in an apartment building in a while. It was a nice building. His place had a postcard view of the Halifax skyline.
I wonder what it's like going from a house to an apartment. It does seem a bit regressive. Still he's hardly down on his luck. He had a great time going down to Cuba last winter. I know I can't afford to do that. It's just about being in the right location with the right amount of space for the number of people living there and the stage in your life you're at.
Some guys cancelled out, so there were three of us there. Before we went downtown we got a game of Texas hold'em going. I brought a kit along. The others knew how to play poker, but hadn't played hold'em before. That was fun.
My wife's family has a get together over Christmas. I know some people there like to play hold'em, so I'll bring my kit there and hopefully we can get a low stakes tournament going. These are some things from the weekend that I'll keep in mind for the future.
One hand was interesting. It was heads up, just me and one other person left. The blinds were up to around 6/12. I was on the small blind. I had King Jack offsuit. KJo is a pretty good hand in heads up, so I raised to 25, around twice the big blind. The other guy looked at me and folded.
The hand was interesting because then we showed our hands and he had Queen Ten offsuit. QTo is a strong hand, only slightly less than what I had. Definitely strong enough to play against the bet I made. The other guy said I seemed confident when I bet. He thought I had a high pair and he was beat.
In a way that's good, getting someone to fold QTo with only a 2 x BB bet, just by apparently projecting a strong hand. But in a way it's bad. If I look strong when my hand is strong, then I probably look weak when my hand is weak. I'd like to be more difficult to read and have fewer tells.
It was a bit different visiting him. He's had some changes in his life, and he now lives in an apartment building. I haven't been in an apartment building in a while. It was a nice building. His place had a postcard view of the Halifax skyline.
I wonder what it's like going from a house to an apartment. It does seem a bit regressive. Still he's hardly down on his luck. He had a great time going down to Cuba last winter. I know I can't afford to do that. It's just about being in the right location with the right amount of space for the number of people living there and the stage in your life you're at.
Some guys cancelled out, so there were three of us there. Before we went downtown we got a game of Texas hold'em going. I brought a kit along. The others knew how to play poker, but hadn't played hold'em before. That was fun.
My wife's family has a get together over Christmas. I know some people there like to play hold'em, so I'll bring my kit there and hopefully we can get a low stakes tournament going. These are some things from the weekend that I'll keep in mind for the future.
- Get a hold'em kit. They are only $3 at the Great Canadian Dollar Store. For that little you get two decks of cards, 200 chips, and a dealer button. Definitely money well spent.
- Use different coloured chips for different bet amounts. We used white=1, blue=5, and black=10. This worked well and kept the game moving and people didn't fumble with huge stacks of chips that were worth just one each.
- The starting stacks were 50 chips. This was too high. The next time I get a game together I'll go with 40.
- Set a timer for the blinds to go up. I used my digital watch set to 10 minutes. That worked pretty well. 10 minutes was about right for the small number of players. They went up with the progression 1/2, 2/4, 3/6, 4/8 .... By the end it was 7/14. So we weren't playing very fast. That's one reason I'll use 40 as the starting stack instead of 50 next time.
- I prefer to have just one person deal the tournament and move the dealer button. But the others wanted to take turns dealing so that was OK. However there were a number of misdeals due to the inexperience of the others. It was just for fun so that was OK. Still I prefer to have one good dealer dealing every hand than rotating the deal. I'll try to be more firm on this point in the future.
- One thing the others noticed was that I didn't look back down at my cards after the deal. They had to recheck their cards frequently. I think that made me look like a stronger player. The truth is I did have to recheck my cards during the occasional hand. I'll have to practice so that I don't have to recheck during the hand.
- Face to face play is fun. It is different than playing on the Internet.
One hand was interesting. It was heads up, just me and one other person left. The blinds were up to around 6/12. I was on the small blind. I had King Jack offsuit. KJo is a pretty good hand in heads up, so I raised to 25, around twice the big blind. The other guy looked at me and folded.
The hand was interesting because then we showed our hands and he had Queen Ten offsuit. QTo is a strong hand, only slightly less than what I had. Definitely strong enough to play against the bet I made. The other guy said I seemed confident when I bet. He thought I had a high pair and he was beat.
In a way that's good, getting someone to fold QTo with only a 2 x BB bet, just by apparently projecting a strong hand. But in a way it's bad. If I look strong when my hand is strong, then I probably look weak when my hand is weak. I'd like to be more difficult to read and have fewer tells.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
That's brave
Check out the Poker Pro Wannabe. He quit working for the man to try his hand at pro poker. His site is a good read, especially if you're interested in poker.
UPDATE: Feb 17, 2006. At the time of this writing, the Wannabe hasn't updated his site in more than three months. He may have given up his quest. If you haven't been over there I still recommend it as a good read.
I suspect his situation could be described in this PokerKai post. The Wannabe was successful beating weak players at low stakes. He may have been overconfident. When he tried to make a living at it at higher stakes, he wasn't very successful.
UPDATE: Feb 17, 2006. At the time of this writing, the Wannabe hasn't updated his site in more than three months. He may have given up his quest. If you haven't been over there I still recommend it as a good read.
I suspect his situation could be described in this PokerKai post. The Wannabe was successful beating weak players at low stakes. He may have been overconfident. When he tried to make a living at it at higher stakes, he wasn't very successful.
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