Poker Players?

I was at a conference a few weeks ago where there was a big tournament. I played and had a blast. I made it to the third round but didn't win. I did win $100 worth of iTunes in a raffle though.

I became a fairly decent small stakes tournament player a few years back. I placed in the money a handful of times in tourneys ranging from 150 to 350 players. I haven't played much lately, but once things slow down I'll start back up.

Best of luck at Foxwoods!

I am good at poker but the last couple of time in Vegas. I just got no hands, or people have drawn out on me. Poker is a game of both luck and skill, and you need both

've never played in any kind of tournament, and I don't pretend for a moment I know what I'm doing but my friends and I get together and play quarter ante, dealer's choice poker games - much like the ones in the Odd Couple reruns, I guess - about three times a year. With $20.00 you can usually play all night, and we seem to alternate who's the big winner & loser fairly evenly. It's more about hangin' out and havin' a few laughs than any serious gambling. I'm not sure I'd enjoy it nearly as much if real money were at stake.

Agreed, Iggy. I don't mind dishing out 10 bucks to play a poker game with my buds. And I don't get pissy about it if I lose. It's 10 bucks. It's a goddamn Applebee's meal.

That said, I'm crappy at poker when I'm not stoned. I think it's because my opponents confuse my poker face with my stoned face.

While I think I've become pretty good at it, I wouldn't really be interested in trying out a pro tournament. It would suck all the fun out of it.

I haven't been able to play for the last year because of tight finances, and I miss it. I'd really like to get my friends together to do this again.

Yes, I could play for free online. But that has about as much to do with real poker as autoerotic asphyxiation has to do with sexual intercourse.

I love poker and think about it often. It was fun at first for the gambling and social aspects. Then it was tremendously frustrating, as I learned about the complex mathematic and strategic aspects of winning play. Now I've gotten comfortable with enough of that stuff that the game is fun again for me, and on a slightly higher level. I don't know if I ever want to put in the effort to improve further, though.

I played off and on a few years or so ago, but just haven't had time.

I love math and teach some statistics courses, so I'm all about the numbers game... perhaps too much. I'm the one calculating that after the flop I have an approximately 27% chance to get the cards I feel I need to win the hand, and thus I usually bet accordingly. In smaller, "friendly" tourny style games ($20-30 with 8-20 people played at someone's house) I was cleaning up pretty well, never finished out of the money and usually came in 1st... but I have no illusions about this, I completely expect that if I hit the tables with "real" players, I'd probably hit a ton of snags (maybe I'm too readable, maybe I can't read other people, etc).

Anyway, I like it because I'm hypercompetitive, and because it deals with numbers and probabilities which I love. I hope someday to try it out again, although it might be in an online forum, where I might have to worry less about reading other players and getting read myself (although you can, of course, still read people's playing styles by following their bets), because that might give my style a better chance at winning... but I did really enjoy playing in a large group of people, it really adds to the fun and stress.

My brother, however, started before me and still plays pretty avidly (online and in person), although I haven't asked how well he's been doing recently.

That trap has claimed a lot of victims. People find that they're the best player they know, and think that they're ready to hit the pro tables in Vegas, and they get cleaned out. I've read half a dozen books on poker and played incessantly, and I'm still nowhere near being in the league of someone who's made a life pursuit of it. It would be disastrous if I tried to convince myself that I was.

Don't worry about the professional players looking into your soul, though - most of the stuff about physical reading is just myth and intimidation. Skilled players do predict people's cards with great accuracy, but it's through analysis of betting patterns, past performance, etc.

There are a few classic tells, but you're mostly going to run into them when dealing with inexperienced players. People who know what they're doing have generally learned not to give anything away. Business like Malkovich's cookies in Rounders is fantasy.

I got pretty into it. Went out to Vegas by myself last year to try my hand at some very small tourns and 2/4 - 3/6 limit. I love it, but I'm currently not playing online. Concentrating on not throwing my time away on it.

I've only played poker for a few months online but I'm starting to feel a disturbing desire to play whenever my PC is on.

I only play on small tables (0,50/1) and is about even on that. But I have begun playing a lot of tournaments. On average I win a spot (satellites) to the big sunday games about once a week and this sunday I bagged my biggest win yet at 240 dollars.

It seems my problem starts when blinds go up to 1500/3000/600 antes and I have around 40-60.000 (or a bit above average) this is when people constantly go all in in every round to steal the 9000 dollar pot. I always find myself losing when I finally call these with an A/K or KK or similar but it's just so annoying to just play a game of pot stealing.

Maybe it's just been bad tables but it fucking sucks. Oh well 240 dollars is more than fine for 4 hrs gameplay and last night I won entry to next sunday's million dollar tourney so I'll see if I can break my record.

What are your favorite games btw.? I find myself playing Stud Hi/Lo more often than Hold'em.

Stud is a bit more entertaining to me than Hold 'Em. More skill needed on the part of the card player, in my view

I only play Hold 'em on Thursdays at my work and right now on facebook.

I've been playing the micro tables (.01/.02) on Poker Stars to get back into the groove. Great way to pass the evening on the cheap.

I don't get it.

I think she's calling us gamblers!

Pretty much all of the pros disagree with you.

The big difference is that stud is always played in limit format. No one really argues that no limit hold em is the ultimate "test" of poker skill, but then, hold em is pretty much the only game that is played no limit.

Both games have their own skill set required to play them well, but there just are not the kind of stud games available that make the skill differential so drastic and apparent. And that is down much more to the difference between no limit and limit than the difference between hold em and stud. IMO.