I'm sure there has to be a couple about, even for play money or with friends for a laugh, etc. What stakes and where do you play? Online/live, texas hold'em/draw/stud? For the record, I play $0.02/$0.05 and $0.05/$0.10 full ring cash games on Full Tilt, as well as the occasional $2 SNG. Currently I'm only playing no limit hold'em (NLH) for real money. Online play at that kind of level is pretty simple; fortunately most of the players aren't very good and it's quite profitable. In terms of live play, I run the college society, and we play weekly £5 tournaments and £0.01/£0.02 NLH cash games. We can usually get 9 players within short notice, and the games are pretty friendly. Everyone have a good time and it's cheaper than a night out, so it's all good. I find that a lot of people still think poker is gambling. As a poker player, it really isn't; as it's evident that over a sufficient sample, the good players will always come out ahead. Any thoughts on this?
I used to play a lot more often with a group of friends but it doesn't happen too much these days. Last proper game was about a year ago to raise funds for a guy to go away on a mission trip. I've played a bit online but I don't really see the point any more, certainly not for real money. I would love to get some real games going again, maybe when I get my work schedule smoothed out some. Never really thought about it being gambling, not sure it would make much difference if I did. Far as I'm concerned, it's a card game. Any time we play for money its a central prize fund and we play with chips, I've done the same with Monopoly before and it definitely not gambling. I think...
Poker is definitely a form of gambling, not sure how anyone could think otherwise. The issue has always been whether poker got classified as a game of chance or a game of skill. Here in the UK, a bunch of numpties on a jury managed to get it completely and utterly wrong.
+1. Unless you have x-ray vision and know beyond a doubt all of the other players' hands, you are banking odds, which is the text book definition of gambling. Some people may be better at the math, but they still don't have absolutes.
Of course, but so long as you're playing the odds (including pot odds), then in the long run it should start to be profitable. I play online most days. Tend to vary the game depending on my mood - last week I entered a 9000 player HORSE tourney and ended up 44th, normally I stick to NLHE though. I'm slightly in profit but really only play for fun so even if I were to be slightly down, given the hours of entertainment I've gotten it's still a very cheap hobby!! I tend to go with tourneys and SNGs rather than cash games and play on PokerStars. My bedtime reading consists of things like Harrington on Hold'em, Super System and The Theory of Poker. I'm quite into the theory/maths and the way that pro's play - Gus Hanson's book on the Aussie Millions is a very entertaining read! Unfortunately I'm rubbish at putting any of it into practice, but that won't stop me trying... and more importantly, enjoying it!
If you had to call it on %chance and %luck, how would you call it? Say I gave a world class player $100. Given enough time, do you think he could run it to $100,000 without ever busting out? ie, if a player was super conservative, do you think he could reduce his risk of ruin to below 0.01%? What about the guys in trading/FX/bonds/derivatives and even long term investment in the city? What about the investment banking sector in general? What about people in the real estate sector? Gambling too? Pretty much. As long as you have an edge, it's a guaranteed long term profit over a big enough sample size. Hence the existence of professional poker players. Harrington on Holdem is superb. It really teaches the basics of how to go about playing poker in a logical manner. If you liked the series, the Harrington on Cash Games series are pretty good too, and you may want to check out Sit 'n' Go Strategy by Moshman.
Yes. Well, maybe not real estate, since they aren't making any more of it any time soon. No need to get defensive about it, but gambling is gambling, no matter how much you want to think it's skill. It wouldn't be poker if you had no risk or there wasn't an element of chance.
I should probably stress at this point that I don't consider a gamble to be a bad thing when taken appropriately. We all make them throughout our lives, whether we are obvious risk takers or not. A gamble is simply anything circumstance in which you put something in for a non-guaranteed positive outcome. It doesn't even have to be fiscal. You take a gamble asking someone out.
I used to play quite a bit with friends where we would each pay a £5 get some chip and just sit and play and have a few beers untill someone won all the chips and the money.
Ultimately, unless you're getting the cards, you're never going to get too far. You simply can't bluff every hand as after the first showdown or two your table image is going to be ruined and the bluffs will stop getting through. Yes. This guy is starting with $5 and has given himself 12 months to reach $100k. He previously won a challenge making $10k from $10 in just 14 days. Daniel Negreanu (sp?) is also doing a similar thing, but has given himself 3 years! I'm actually reading the Moshman book at the moment. It's ok but has nothing on the Harrington books. I've not read the one on cash games, sticking to tournament/SNG play at the moment as I enjoy those more. I'm guessing that simple cash game advice is simply to play tight-aggressive, only really making moves with the nuts?
Nah, was just curious. When I asked my friends this question, someone of them consider poker to be gambling, but not investment banking, which I think is to do with an 'image' issue. In retrospect, you guys are right, poker is gambling, but with a large element of skill. Suppose any activity with a moderate amount of chance involved can be classified as gambling though? Absolutely! This is something I don't think is obvious to many people. With correct bankroll management, it is possible to reduce the risk of ruin to a negligible amount. Bill Chen, a poker mathematician, suggested the key is to maintain a bankroll that has at least 20 buyins of a given stake that you are playing; any lower and you simply move down stakes. As long as a player can beat the lowest stakes offered, it remains very unlikely he/she will bust out. It's pretty clever. That boku87 link is very interesting, I'll keep my eye on that. Another guy who did this was Chris Ferguson, who build $0 to $10000 Small stakes cash games are pretty straightforward to grasp, but to truly crush them, you'll need to have a good understanding of ABC poker. They are a completely different ball-game from tournaments. Tournament play puts emphasis on different things than cash games. You may notice that near the end of tournaments, the blinds will be huge compared to your chip stack. A lot of decisions will be made preflop, so preflop skill is vital (postflop skill is comparatively unimportant). Many decisions will be relatively simple (fold or move all-in) and a good player's postflop edge will be reduced as a result. However, it rewards players who can acquire a big stack early on and then bully/steal the small stacks with the treat of a KO. Cash games are the opposite. Since the blinds are constant and tiny, postflop play dominates. Pots on the river can be many times the size of a preflop pot, so a good river call/fold can make a big impact to your win rate. This also means you have much more room to play creative poker, pulling some elaborate bluffs and so on. So to play cash games, a good postflop game gives a big advantage. I've moved up from 2 to 5 and to 10NL, so more specific advice for microstakes: Play tight and aggressive. Loose and aggressive is more profitable, but damned hard to play at lower stakes. Try not limping so much, either raise or fold preflop. Understand the concept of position. Harrington kinda fires this point home, but a lot of players forget to implement it. For example, from UTG on a 9 player table, I would only open raise [22+, AQo+, AJs+], which is about 8% of dealt hands. Whilst from the button, I would open a much bigger range [22+, A6s+, ATo+, KJs+, KQo+, 45s+, 68s+] or about 35% of my range. Being out of position sucks, and if you realize this, you will have an immediate edge over 75% of the players at 2NL. Try not to bluff, unless under special circumstances. People call down with mid pair and all sorts of rubbish at microstakes. You have no fold equity in general, so bluffing is bad at 2NL. The exception to the rule is playing really tight multitabling players who fold if they don't have the nuts. Continuation betting is also an exception to an extent. I know Harrington said 1/2 pot bet on the flop = good, but no-one respects that anymore, so 2/3 to 3/4 pot is recommended (otherwise you don't have the fold equity to make the play profitable). Don't overdo it, cbet 60-70% of the time after you were the preflop aggressor is about right. This is because you connect with the flop 30-40% of the time with your raising range, so when you cbet, half the time you have the goods and half the time you've missed.Hence you've made it indifferent for your opponents to call or fold, which stops you being exploited. Learn to value bet. Once you know when you're ahead, take your opponents to value town and brutally squeeze every penny out of them when you are ahead. Never slowplay, simply keep betting 3/4 pot every street. The times you get paid off will make up for the times when slowplaying is the superior line. Try to work out what your opponent may be holding (ie look at their table image). This is 2nd level thinking. Most opponents at 2NL will only think about what they have (this is 1st level thinking) so your table image isn't actually as important as Harrington makes it out to be. Your job is to think one level ahead of your opponent. At high stakes, 3rd and 4th level thinking is required (ie, You think what your opponent thinks that you think of him, etc), which can get pretty mind blowing. Watch a video of a good 400NL or 1000NL player talking about his play during a session and you'll see what I mean. There's a good example of this going on during a hand on High Stakes Poker between Tom 'Durrrr' Dwan and Peter Eastgate, see here). However, this is not required at 2NL - never overlevel yourself, which is a mistake I made early on. Finally, when someone raises you on the turn, they usually have it. Just a bit of experience I've picked up.
I play, used to play more or less every week in a pub league and regional competitions, but not as much anymore, work and such prevents it, play in the casino ocasionally with my mates, and we also have a monthly game at each others houses, about 8 of us, tenner buy in, first and second pay out, usually 70 10 always a good laugh.
Likewise. We tend to go for a 15 quid buy in, of which roughly a tenner goes towards prize fund and the rest goes towards beer and food. With 9/10 people this gives a pretty good booze/food budget given I can brew 60 pints for £20! Everyone ends up completely smashed and even those that don't win the poker get a good night out for far less then they'd spend in the pub! The games can go on for a while though (we play deep stacked), with people having to either stay over or get one of the first tubes of the day. All good fun though.
Aye, that's what makes live games fun I think. Many of us realise it would cost more if we went out, since we play for low stakes. Online play is more about winning money though, unless you have a need for gamboooool!
I play occasionally, mainly fr on virgin, ive won a few dollars so sometimes play the low buy-in tournys but thats only if no ones playing any proper games lol. Only live poker games i ever play are at partys . Some good info in this thread btw
Well yes, a very high percentage of short term high return investments are actually spread bets. ALOT of gambling goes on in the city.
Its like any risk related investement, gambling, shares or toherwise; only put in what you're prepared and able to lose.
