ILX Poker Players Unite

omg and one of the girls from sky poker was there!

So I played poker for the first time (Hold 'Em) against a bunch of dudes, one of whom looked exactly like Tuomas and talked about politics and Rambo the entire time. I lost, but I lasted a while. I want to become killer at it.

Harrington on Hold 'Em, first 2 volumes, are very good in my opinion. Those focus on tournament play, but he has a new 2-vol. set on ring games that I'd like to get. (Buying poker books costs more than playing poker!)

Small Stakes Hold 'Em by Miller/Sklansky/Malmuth is also good, but its focus is limit hold'em, not No-Limit.

I've switched from .05/.10 NL to .25/.50 Limit, with better success. Apparently I just don't have the cast-iron cojones for NL. I'm okay with people who refuse to limp in, but if they're going to raise 10BB if they play at all, they're just freaking me out and they can play amongst themselves.

Been following this year's WSOP here.

hi dere

do you guys still play?

i have had an awful few months of just total losing streak on the online poker places. strangely it all started after I went for a real life tourney again - i was up about $400 on fulltilt and then somehow ended up losing it all.

but i think i'm finding my rhythm again - made $100 back from the beginning (the final $6 left in party poker lol), i think my mistake before was while playing tourneys I got overly obsessed with deceiving people and controlling the table with my bets, and totally overlooked the fundamentals i.e. looking at the value of each bet etc. getting better now and got some discipline back. there are still moments when i'm still a bit like OMG i will call you just to see what you have, but i put those down as payments for learning as i still have lots to learn i think.

I play free poker sites with prizes. I won $10 in a game of 316 players.

Where do you get to play for free prizes?

I rode Mark C's $5 donation on FT for a year before I got drunk one night and blew it all. But in the meantime, I've gathered a lot of FTPs, so I still have some capital.

My live games are doing pretty good. I only won $14 the other night, but I have been taking home between $30 - $70 a night recently.

In the meantime, I found this batshit insane site. I'd be real tempted to call up one of those games in my state, but being here in the Bible Belt, you'd probably later see me on TV telling a reporter "I knew this was a trap..."

Yow, I finally won a tournament! (9-player Limit Hold'em)

i play at turning stone sometimes when i'm at home (ie not at college)
here's a story from my last time playing cash there, a few months ago

blinds are $2-3 (kiddie tables, i know). the button's one seat to the left of me i believe. nothing much going around, but dude two seats to my right makes it $20. dude to my right calls. i look down at QQ. think for about two seconds and make it $60. folds around and they both call. flop comes T-8-3 or some shit, so i've got a huge boner. dude #1 open shoves the rest of his shit for like 95-100 bucks. guy to my left instafolds. i think for a minute, laugh out loud, say "you've got aces, it's obv, but i'm calling anyway". dude shows AA, catches an ace on the turn, and i laugh and go home. not my best hand.
not that much dough to drop i guess but i'm not a regular player up there by any means so it was kind of a downer

that's harsh - it's so hard when those happens, you feel shit either way even if you fold them and they show you the AA.

guys do you fancy another fulltilt game sometime soon (next week?)

Possibly.

OMG I won another one! Limit is definitely my game.

hurrah!

Possibly.

― a new Rock Hardy screen name because I can't find the old one (Rock Hardy), Monday, November 17, 2008 12:26 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

THREEPEAT

(this is kind of creepy...I'd only ever cashed three times before yesterday, and now I've won three SnGs in a row.)

jesus christ suckout city today

seriously this dude will just call you all in preflop with everything. QQ vs KT, and hits a K

then TT vs A5, two 5s at flop.

that made me angry

i think i need to be more careful as to what hours during the day i play

and adjust my game accordingly (or not play at all to save my sanity)

What hours are better to play than others?

Are you getting the sloppy aggressive players more at night?

it seems at the moment, folks are proper loose (you re-raise them pre-flop with a massive hand they will call you with shit like A 5)

so i guess whatever US time is equiv to around 18:00 GMT!!

on a sunday

i should write a program that measures people's betting pattern according to time of the day/day of the week

Those murrikans really need to be watching their football instead of playing games online.

I'm doing both.

lololol

take sides: fixed-limit vs. no-limit

No limit is to whiskey as fixed-limit is to wine.

Each has its own merit, and each will get you where you want to be if you use them right.

FUUUUCK!!

I just lost $50 on Full Tilt. My bankroll was $185, so I still have quite a bit left, but still. Here's what happened:

5 player cash game at .25/.50 blinds., max buy-in $50. I am 3 left of the dealer & check on pocket 4s. BB raises $1.50 & I call. Flop is A34. BB raises $3 & I call. Turn is a 3, giving me a boat. BB raises $6. I deliberate (for show) & then re-raise $14. BB re-raises again, I go all in & he calls. At this point, I'm scared of AA or 33, the only two hands that could beat me, but I decide to chance against it. I figure him for AK, a 3, a low straight, or, at best, A3. If I had lost to AA or 33, I wouldn't be so pissed, b/c I would chalk it up to not trusting my instincts against a possible nut hand, but dude had A3 & I had him covered. Well guess what: river was another A, giving him the better boat. Fucking goddam luck.

Aaargh! Oh well, at least I blew off some steam just then by typing really, really hard!

heh, last night at a live sitandgo.

it was like the 5th level or something BB was like 400 (2500 starting chips).. 3 limpers i had 8000 on the button and I put in a 2500 raise, all folded except one (he had like about 4000 left) flop J 4 7 or something crappy, he goes all in, instant call, JJ vs QK, running cards 10, 9. fucker.

actually hung on despite crippled for ages and got back to about 3200, when the levels were at 600/1200 one dude raised and same dude went all-in, I called with A 10 as it seemed the best opportunity i'd get. A 10 vs A 4 vs K Q (that dude) and fate would have it that I'd lose out to the same hand to the same guy again

boo hoo.

last hand wasn't so much a bad beat obv. but still

wow

today in one game i lost 5 hands calling the same guy all in pre-flop, him hitting his 3-outer each time (one was split pot).. works for full tilt??

My sympathies...I've been getting a faceful of variance lately. Can't afford to play at the stakes where people play poker instead of high-speed chicken, and getting a lot of ugly beats on the river.

Nothing more hilarious than NL players who accidentally get into FL SnGs and scream "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS PUSSY GAME YOU PEOPLE WOULDN'T LAST FIVE MINUTES PLAYING NL" until they bust out by level 3.

haha
it is annoying though when you get to the wrong game

ARGH. got to final table in a live game. first hand someone raised crazy amount i folded AJ as dude was fairly tight, and indeed he had AK - someone further down called A9 all in. 9 hit and J would have hit, made the right move but could have tripled through

about 6 hands later someone else raised and i went all in AQ, he reluctantly called with A5 and of course, 5 came and no Q. maybe i need to play crappier poker sometimes..

anyone free in london this friday and up for a game? might try and organise one

Wish I could.

Anyone else following the WSOP? Main event whittles down today from 27 to the November 9.

i haven't followed but will!

I keep a browser tab open here throughout the day.

ken! been meaning to ask if i could join you for a game for ages. def in.

this still likely/possible?

i would be up for another full tilt tournament at some point btw

hey n1ck - argh i just called it off as many people are away and i could only get 4 in (would have been 5 with you)

BUT there's been lots of interest so I'm going to do one in early august i think! i have your email don't i i'll let keep in touch there!

yes to a full tilt tourney

Would be up for full tilt tourney. Especially if i could hold of this AI which predicts bets to three decimal places:

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/07/ai_predicts_poker_be.html

had a game with friends last night, and it was one of those nights where one guy keeps getting cards. to an almost ludicrous degree. even hands he thought he'd lost he ended up winning. i've had those nights too, and it's always a weird feeling -- you feel chosen by god or something. but being on the losing end of it can be frustrating. the temptation is just to fold against him on every hand, but that seems superstitious, so instead you play your cards and ... lose. anyway, he's a nice guy so it was hard to begrudge. as long as he comes back and loses next time...

ha that's happened to me the time when i ended up playing poker with steve a1b1n1 at ATP this year.. first night there was one guy who just kept getting boats or hitting a lucky second pair on the river and ended up like £140 up. but next day went back i played sensible poker and fleeced a many a few (it helped that loads of groupies aka poker n00bs found out about this and joined in).