Texas hold 'em question (Now WSOP 2005 - Spoilers!) (1 Viewer)

[Mark Giles]

This went nowhere fast. Let's start over.




What do you guys think the one hand is that gets misread the most often?

I'm thinkin the straight:

Your holding: 4, 6 off suit

Flop: 5, (face card), (a different face card), on the flop (all unsuited)

and a 3 and 7 on the river and turn.



A boat would show pairs somewhere and a flush and strait flush are easy to see.



I was playing this guy with this exact same setup last night (i had the straight). He went all in thinkin his 3 kings were unbeatable. Seconds later, he responded with, I never saw that coming and took off

Opinions?

 

[Alex-C]

Dear fellow HTF online poker players, please shed some light on this:

I am considering getting back into the swing of things and playing some real money lowest stakes online poker.

I have a co-worker who plays in person often, not major stakes, but has a circle of comrades who enjoy texas hold em.

Anyway, he tells me the sites are not safe because several people at a table can be linked up via conference calls or at a single location and collude to win the tables and share the profits.

Is he paranoid ?

Thoughts ?

 

[Brook K]

There are lots of collusion type theories and even worse (sites manipulating their software) going around. People cheat constantly on X-Box Live games so you better believe they're trying to do it with real money at stake. However, plenty of people are successfully able to play online poker so it's really what you are comfortable with.

Personally I only play for money live at casinos, although that has more to do with my wife's preferences that I not gamble very often then to my fear of getting cheated on a web site.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Mark, I'm not a good poker player, but I was wondering how you got deep into the betting if you were holding weak cards vs a guy betting a pair of kings.

It's not like the flop gave you lots of hope to draw your way into a victory and you had to think that he had paired at least one of those face cards on the flop, right?

You picked up the win on the river, correct? How in the hell did you stay in till the river?

 

[Brook K]

All the poker talk and WSOP coverage had me antsy to play live so I went to a local bar tonight and played. (no limit, start with 5k in chips 100-200 blinds) Things started well, I won two of the first 3 hands at the table. Built up a nice stack as I continued to catch good cards and make a bluff or two. Then I went up and down awhile, before busting a guy out on a flush. Then I tried a repeat and missed on an inside str-flush draw, tried to limp on a couple pots I should have folded and then lost a lot of chips when I didn't back off QQ despite a K on the board.

Now comes my demise, and a question about what I should have done. I had recovered with a win or two by this time when I looked down to see 9-9 on the button. Blinds were at 300-600, I raised to 1200, the blinds folded, but a limper raised 3000 and another limper folded. I thought for awhile, thinking that this guy probably did not have a big hand, thought I was a weak player (he may be right ) and was trying to move me off.

Here's where my possible mistake was - after thinking for awhile, I went all-in for an additional 6300 after covering the 3000 raise. He called immediately and had me covered with 1000 or so to spare. He flips over A-6 offsuit! So my read was correct and I have a 70% advantage.

There were no dealers, we dealt on the button, so I was dealing. I shot myself down with an A as the 2nd card of the flop. I obviously didn't catch a 9 and was out.

So was I right to go all-in to try and double up with the advantage, or since this was a tournament situation, should I have simply called, then I could have got my money in after the flop if I felt it was favorable, or folded and had a decent stack still left?

I would say there were still 24-30 players still alive after starting with a little over 60.

 

[Patrick Sun]

After getting re-raised, even with the right read, the guy was mainly going for the "gamble" mode where going heads-up for all the marbles on a coin-flip situation (holding Ace and something else, vs. any pair), you got unlucky, but in a tourney situation, hanging around to move up by folding a mid-pair might have been the better move, but the guy had 3 outs, and hit on it. Unlucky for you.

Once you re-raised all-in, the other guy was pretty much pot-committed at that point, and you lost to an Ace on the flop.

Had you just called the 3000, and the Ace comes up on the flop, more than likely the other guy is going all-in (since you were the dealer), and you'd been able to lay down your pair of 9s to play another hand.

The youngest guy to win on the WPT this season had the strategy of trying to always go into a coin-flip situation when he was facing an experience pro at the table. That helped in avoiding to get bluffed by the pro's. He got out of little pots, and played bigger pots always in a race situation.

If I were playing, my decision would have been to either fold, or just call the first 3000 re-raise, would not have gone all-in with the re-re-raise. I hate playing mid-pairs, so I'd probably folded that hand on the re-raise.

 

[Kirk Tsai]

Just second guessing, but the 1200 bet might have been too small, just two big blinds. That could have made him thought that you were trying to steal the blinds, so he came over the top. I also dislike re-raising a re-raise with middle pairs.

 

[Doug R]

Yea I think the right play was to call, gauge the flop, then decide. You would have still had plenty of chips to do damage.

 

[Sami Kallio]

Damn, what games we had tonight. Tournament play at my house (not for money of course, that would be illegal here in TX), heads up on the last tourney and two players left. I have money left for big blind, $40, plus a raise for $10. My friend who is against me promises his both cars (996 Porsche 911 and VW Karman Ghia) to me if I manage to win. He at this time has about 50 to 1 chip lead so he was confident he would had no problem taking me out. They were mocking me for not going all-in with my poor hand and losing that $40 blind which was almost half of my pot at the time. What do you know, I get up to about 2/3 of his pot and he starts to get nervous especially after we start making fun of how we'll E-bay his cars...

I end up winning the tourney with a flush ace high but I told him I won't take his cars so he was pretty happy too!

 

[george kaplan]

It wouldn't be illegal unless the house was taking a cut of some sort. See here for a good summary

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

As George said, it is perfectly legal to play for money as long as you do not break any of Texas' gambling laws.

In fact, here in Austin, thanks to all the hi-tech millionaires, there are some cash games where it will cost you over $10K just to buy-in and are perfectly legal.

As it pertains to poker, the critical parts of the Texas' gambling laws dictate that games involving cash must be held on private property, and that no one can prosper financially from the game other than the players in it.

The games that get shutdown are the ones that rake the pot, charge a fee to play, and/or charge for liquor. Some 'card clubs' try and circumvent those laws by charging for a 'membership', but they are walking a thin line.

Several of the free poker tournaments that are played at several Austin restaurants and bars have been shutdown because while they are free to enter, prizes are awarded while at the same time alcohol is sold - thus breaking Texas' gambling and liquor laws.

Our country club used to have a monthly game that included a professional dealer, but when word got out that the dealer was being plaid, and quite handsomely, I might add, the game got temporarily shutdown. They brought it back, but without the dealer.

 

[Brook K]

This is apparently no problem in Georgia as tons of Atlanta bars run hold 'em tournaments with prizes running from bar tabs to multi-week points accumulation resulting in a final tournament for a trip or a big screen TV, etc. and they all serve alcohol. You could play at a bar every day of the week if you wanted to, though this was only the 2nd time I've done it. But several of the players I talked to last night said they go to that particular bar and play every Friday and Saturday night.

In August a sportsbar is having Layne Flack come in and emcee some kind of tournament.

 

[Blu]

There are a several free tournaments in town where I live.

You play for points which enter you into a bigger free tournament. The problem is that it is a free tournament and you can't run anyone out of a horrible hand.

No one will fold! It sucks, I was so frustrated I quit playing them.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Every state and county has its own set of gambling and liquor laws.

A few years back someone posted a link to a website that listed all the gambling laws for every state, but I don't remember who or where they posted it. I suspect a Google search might result in finding out what the different gambling laws are around the country.

 

[Stevan Lay]

Well congratulations to Joseph Hachem - a fellow Aussie - on winning it all. I'm sure now that many more Australians will take the journey across the Pacific and try their luck next year seeing how "Average Joe" took on the 5000+ field and came up trumps.

I think that a non-American winner is great for the game/sport. I'm sure that next year's event will host even more players. Imagine the total pool and 1st place prizemoney

 

[Sami Kallio]

When you're relying on odds in poker you have to remember that the ones used in the games are VERY simplified. Getting real odds would be very complicated.

 

[Jeff Blair]

I'm just waiting for them to make casinos legal here...But, I'm not holding my breath. :frowning:

How much was 1st place this year? Last I heard it was going to be around $10M. But, that was a while back.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I believe first place is $7.5 million in the main event this year...

Just found the payout schedule:

1st: $7.5 million
2nd: $4.25 million
3rd: $2.5 million
4th: $2 million
5th: $1.75 million
6th: $1.5 million
7th: $1.3 million
8th: $1.15 million
9th: $1 million
10th-12th: $600,000
13th-15th: $400,000
16th-18th: $350,000

 

[Steve Stogel]

You think there's any chances of poker rooms somehow becoming legal with the explosion of hold'em? Nils, you're always up to speed on this kind of scuttlebutt. Anyone hear anything on whether states are even considering this? I know they have some sort of poker rooms all over California. Are they all Indian casinos?

 

[Stevan Lay]

Yep, first place was a cool $7.5 million, but converted to Australian dollars... it's around $10 million.