Poker

[Chamber005]

Hey, so I'm a little new to the sport.

I was wondering if there are any other people here who play at all.

I just took second at a 350 buy in tournament (it was for charity so I figured what the heck? A friend from work asked me to). I had to beat out quite a few professional WSOP players as well as some decent semi-pros to grab second. That got me a 3K buy-in and invitation to the WSOP circuit.

I didn't have the best cards, but with the exception of a few big blinds and small blinds I only lost three hands the entire night (the tournament size was between 150 and 200 players and lasted about 5 hours with big blinds starting at $200 and ending at $60,000).

People were coming up to me on breaks (including a few Chicago Bears, AWESOME!) asking me how I did was I was doing, how long I'd been playing, and I told them that it was my first time ever playing Texas Hold 'Em and that I'd only played regular poker back when I was a teenager with friends but that I always used to win then as well. Some of them were telling me that I should be playing on the semi-pro circuit, that there's no way with this many players that I could make it to the final table if I wasn't really, really good.

So today I decided, just for the heck of it, to play a bunch of hands (about 50) by myself at the table and it happened again. I only lost one hand and two blinds and pretty much destroyed all of the other "players" I created around the table.

I guess I'm just confused because I don't understand how you actually lose playing this game. Like, I understand how you lose playing a against a single player, because that's odds. But when there are several people at the table, how do people lose?

I've never lost at poker in my entire life when there's more than two people playing, and I never even thought about playing it "professionally" because it was always "gambling", ya know, which is kind of trashy. lol

So why do people lose? Is there anyone here who plays? Why do you lose when you lose against more than a single player? What's happening? I just feel like I'm missing something -- maybe something that can keep me from losing even a single hand in a tournament. The only losses I've had have been "good" losses -- the bets were reasonable based on my chip holdings and cards.

Do people just not understand what their cards mean and what's going to happen next or what?

(This is all super exciting to me btw because there's stupid amounts of money to be made in these tournaments, and I don't even have to spend anything to play this season!)

 

[RandomHero]

Here's the thing:
When you're talking about Pro Poker, you're talking about people who obsess over numbers... Statistics, outs, odds, and so on. They toss away many hands that would be winners if they'd played, but generally people lose more hands than what you're describing. I know it might be a stretch to call what you're experiencing "luck", but luck is as big a factor in cards (especially with new people) as skill is. Couple that with the fact that pros are used to certain hands being played, certain hands being folded, and you'll discover that a new poker player can be the most dangerous at the poker table. People will fold or lose to you a lot because they have no idea what you have, what you're likely to call or bet with, and so on.
This can all turn on you when the luck swings, however, so be careful, and don't get cocky. These guys are pros for a reason, and none of them lose too much for too long...
Anyway, congrats on that, and hope you stay lucky!

 

[Chamber005]

Here's the thing:
When you're talking about Pro Poker, you're talking about people who obsess over numbers... Statistics, outs, odds, and so on. They toss away many hands that would be winners if they'd played, but generally people lose more hands than what you're describing. I know it might be a stretch to call what you're experiencing "luck", but luck is as big a factor in cards (especially with new people) as skill is. Couple that with the fact that pros are used to certain hands being played, certain hands being folded, and you'll discover that a new poker player can be the most dangerous at the poker table. People will fold or lose to you a lot because they have no idea what you have, what you're likely to call or bet with, and so on.
This can all turn on you when the luck swings, however, so be careful, and don't get cocky. These guys are pros for a reason, and none of them lose too much for too long...
Anyway, congrats on that, and hope you stay lucky!

Yeah, since the world series isn't until October (ugh) around these parts, I'm going to start playing weekly in the little 100 buy-in tournaments. The purses are only about 10K on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but as long as I place top ten consistently it'll be able to pay for itself. And hopefully the weekday tournaments will attract more professional players because they don't have to work an actual job.

What's pretty cool is that the first tournament I'll be playing in is about a $430,000 purse with the top 18 getting a percentage (with the same number of players as the tournament I was in). That's much better odds than I was up against to win the seat in the first place.

The best part, though, is I'm SO happy I didn't win a seat directly into the pro game, because at level two I'll be with semi-pros and amatuer rich people. Had I won first place the level of player would have been much, much higher. And since all of it runs concurrently (except for the final big game, obviously), people have to choose between a semi-pro spot and a pro spot and the purses are dramatically different, ya know?

Anyway, I'm taking a week off and then I'm going to start in the weekly tournaments to see how well I do. A hundred bucks a week, even if I lost it consistently, would totally be worth the awesome time of getting to play, ya know? I forgot how much I love (like, LOVE) the game. I hate gambling, I think gambling is obnoxious. But if it's between Paintball, Chess or Poker, I'll pay 100 bucks to hang out and play poker anyday! Just never thought of doing it before.