08-10-04, LearnTexasHoldem:
New Holdem Player Story
Top 3 Beginner Rooms
I have also played a lot of chess over the years and there are a lot of similarties between the two games. They both take a strong analytical mind, someone who can act under pressure and think long term. Also, if you like chess then you must like also becoming a student of the game -- much like poker. There is a lot to learn and most people never take the time to do any homework. Instead, they just spend their days losing money at the casino; chalking wins up to good play and losses up to bad luck.
So I surfed the net for web sites to learn about the rules and how to play. Finding the rules was easy but getting strategic info that was logical and useful was much more difficult. I didn't know any of the jargon either which made things a lot harder.
Anyway I signed up at Ultimatebet, and started playing for 'play chips'. They give you a thousand and if you have less than 100 they 're-fill' back to 1000. This turned out to be both useful and very, very necessary…..often!
I was like a lamb to the slaughter, not only had I never played the game before but also had to contend with the software and strange environment, it was really tough. Everything seemed to happen so quickly…..chicken with no head comes to mind as I am writing this.
Anyway after two days things started to 'slow' down as I made the necessary mental adjustments. Thus, 1000 play chips now lasted me about an hour before I had to 're-fill', instead of a couple of minutes. Progress!
This is when I got lucky, real lucky. I stumbled on to your web site. Strike! I struck gold, real gold. I couldn't believe my luck. The articles are great and have a good mixture of specifics and generality, they also promote understanding which is the most important thing of all. If you understand something then you can apply it to many different situations, as opposed to remembering numerous situations and waiting for one of the situations to apply it to! It save energy, time, memory and most importantly…money! The other thing that comes flooding out of your articles is your passion for poker, which is one of the main reasons your site is excellent. It's written and constructed with passion!
Awesome, thank you very much!
As soon as I found your site I read everything that was written. Took me about four hours. As soon as I'd done that I read it again! Then made appropriate notes.
The up-shot is that over the next few days my hold'em play improved beyond recognition. Instead of just hanging on with my play chips I began to win a few, then a few more, then a lot more. Three days after finding your site I had over 50, 000 chips! Real progress.
Now I know they are only play chips and I was playing with newbies like myself, but I was consistently winning. So after having been playing no-limit for a grand total of 5 days ( very experienced now! ) I moved on up to the big league…. $ 0.01 / $ 0.02 tables!!
p>Theses 'micro' limit tables are a god-send to newbies. They get you used to playing with real money and the standard is a lot higher. With the play chips, most people played it like limit, and always played drawing hand to the river no matter what the pot odds were.
This was one of the main reasons I got to over 50K, when I lost I lost small but when I won I won big. For the showdown there would usually be about 5 or six left in. On a hand that I had the initiative in I would often just raise by the pot each time and they would all call etc…it was like taking candy from a baby. I'm beginning sound like an experienced professional…Aruba here I come!!!
Anyway back to the micro tables. As I said the BB was $0.02 and the max by-in was $2.00. So I couldn't lose my shirt no matter how badly I played. Surprisingly did quite well and won every session I played over the next four days ( about 10 sessions). I had deposited $50 into my account and now had about $75. Showing a profit of $25 in four days at micro tables. I was feeling pretty happy and decided to re-invest my winnings by buying a couple of books ( Pot-limit and No limit Poker by Reuben and Ciaffone and Championship No-limit and Pot-limit hold'em by Cloutier and Mcevoy), they arrived next day and within two days read both!
Excellent! That was a good investment.
Since I was winning consistently, relative to how long I'd been playing the game! ( so far in the 9 days I had been playing hold'em I had clocked up eighty odd hours table time).
I decided to move on up. So on day ten I began playing at the $ 0.10 / $ 0.25 with a max by-in of $25.00.
This was a lot tougher with a lot less multi-way pots. As I am writing this, this is day fifteen. I have increased my account to $ 158.00. So far this makes a profit of $108.00! I think I will stay at this level for a couple of months before I move up to the next level, if I am still consistently winning that is.
Maybe I have been lucky with my hands and flops? I don't know….as ever time will tell. One thing is for sure though if I had not found your site I would probably still be playing on the play chip table and losing all my chips.
Before I finish I would like to tell you about a hand I played last night( doesn't everyone have a big fish story? ). At the time I thought it was the worst hand I had ever played. After thinking about it for a while I thought my play perhaps it had some merit and guile …then again….What do you think?
It's a 10 player ring game BB $0.25 max buy in $25.00. The button is seat 1. The main protagonists are me in seat 7 ( $23.10 ), seat 3 ( $ 5.85 ) and seat 4 ( $18.95 ). I get dealt cowboys Ks Kh. Seat 4 opens with $ 0.75, I call and so does seat 3, everyone else folds.
I had been playing with these guy's for about an hour or so ( keeping notes on their play etc). Normally I would re-raise with cowboys but I like to vary now and then so I flat called.
The flop was 6c 9h 2d
Seat 1 checked, seat 4 raised to $1.50. Now I knew a bit about seat 4 and quickly checked my notes on him.
He was fairly loose bluffed now and again and like putting his chips in the pot and never like being pushed around, bit of a macho man! I had been waiting for an opportunity to play heads up with him. So basically his hand could be anything. The flop hadn't help me but I didn't think it helped him either. So I flat called to await developments. Seat 1 then went all in about $5 and seat 4 called. This was a bad turn of events. I knew seat 1 was a 'rock' so he definitely had a hand that could beat a pair at least, probably had two pair or trips. I was about to fold when I had an idea ( brain short circuit? ). My idea went something like this:
Ok, seat 1 has me beat but that is only for $5.00 since he is all-in ( if he had not been all-in would have folded for sure) but I can still make money from this hand! Yes, if I can get macho man in seat 4 to play I will still make money overall, as long as I get more than $6.00 from him and win the side pot. So I flat called knowing that seat 1 probably had me beat!
I figured because seat 4 is loose he could easily have A9, A6 or AQ, AJ etc even QQ I have him beat.
The turn card arrives the board now is 6c 9h 2d 5s
Seat 4 checks, I now go all-in ( about $18 ), hoping he would bite. If he folded I would look a bit foolish and have wasted $5 on calling the all-in bet when I knew I was backing a loser. I held my breath…finally he called. Now as long as the river wasn't cruel and drops an ace I am home free, and my cunning plan has netted me about $12.00 from the side pot. If he has a straight then good luck to him!
As it turned out seat 1 has deuces in the hole giving him trips and seat 4 had pocket rockets, American Airlines, the Eyes of Texas. I nearly fell off my seat. He had As and Ah. I never once thought that. So basically I had trapped myself…a dangerous game trying to be clever.
This fortunately, is not quite the end of the story, you see the river card was a cowboy ( Kd ) giving me trips!!!!!!!!! Fortunately, this was played on-line so they couldn't hear me laughing for about 5 minutes at my own stupidity and good fortune after the show down.
When I'd recovered I suitably chastised myself. I had never ever made a bet or played a hand that way before and was very lucky to make a profit instead of a loss. I vowed never to do it again. When I got to thinking about the hand the next day, it occurred to me that this type of play may not be that bad in general after all. What do you think?
I don't think that your play was wrong at all. I might have played it slightly differently but the you made the correct decision at the crucial point in the hand: when the first player went all-in. The move you made is something that usually takes a lot of experience to see. Most people would either call for the wrong reason or fold. You made the best play by correctly assuming the person would call you with a weaker hand if you went all-in. Him ending up having AA didn't matter since he would have just as likely done it with a lessor hand like TT or just top pair.
My advice for you is to stick with poker. Think long term and realize that playing $25 buy-in NL is just the start. Build your bankroll and don't let the occasional swings get you down. Poker is something you can make a lot of money from and your approach to the game already makes you a favorite over many people who have been playing longer. There is no reason why you can't eventually move up into the middle and upper limits where you'll be unhappy if you don't win a $1k/session. Just don't rush it. Take your time and you'll get there faster then you think. Let your bankroll set the pace.
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