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.
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