Texas Hold'Em

Anyone play it?

I've played in a couple of live tournaments this week. Got knocked out early on in the first, but came 4th out of around 30 in a deep stack game on Friday night.

Don't really play online that much, certainly not for cash - but a night of card-playing has become my go-to night out lately. Not exactly expensive either. Think I spent £20 on Tuesday night and due to my finish on Friday, actually made money. Good fun, bit of banter and a massive buzz.

Does Southampton have anywhere that does a Texas Hold'Em night?

Slippery slope.

Slippery slope.

Funny you should mention that.

I said the exact same thing to my boss when he started playing online poker, adding 'within a year you'll be down on the docks wearing a cardboard sign that says "will w*nk for chips"'.

Used to play a lot online.

Played a few times down Grosvenor too but not for a while.

I have one friend who makes an actual living from on-line poker.

I have another with a gambling addiction and massive debts.

I guess its down to personality.

Online poker is a lot harder for me to play. I'm missing a whole range of information that you get in a live game. Half the fun of poker is trying to work out if someone is bullsh*tting you. Some of the best fun is had when you have the nuts and you know they are

My housemate (also a student) makes between 5-15k a month playing online, around five hours a day. Plus he will get around 120k of 'rakeback' at the end of the year. If you are sensible and know what you are doing you can make a very good living.

My housemate (also a student) makes between 5-15k a month playing online, around five hours a day. Plus he will get around 120k of 'rakeback' at the end of the year. If you are sensible and know what you are doing you can make a very good living.

The worst case of that is equivalent to a 100k a year salary and at the high end over 300k. Which would put him in the top 50 in the world

I am sure he has won some decent money, but he is not winning that every month. He will be playing for some fairly serious money to get close to even 5k winnings and there will be losses as well. On line is to unpredictable to have continuious month on month winnings

I used to play quite a lot, haven't had as much time for it recently. Last time out I was playing a 50p/£1 cash table at Grosvenor after a night out. I sat down at about 1am with £50, walked out at 8am with £410.

Played a £300 pot that night, flopped a set of 10s against AA and got all the money in on the turn. Was sh*tting myself despite the bloke needing to catch one of the 2 aces to beat me.

Quite enjoy watching it on TV. Have played with friends now and again but never bothered online or anything.

Played quite a few times down at the Grosvenor last year, although not so much in this one.

If you want to play live I will tell you now that luck will be a huge factor, variance in Poker (mathematical deviation away from the norm) can be brutal when your volume of hands is so low (as it will be in live play). By all means go and have a bit of fun though, you're really just burning money playing any other casino games so see what you can do with Poker and as I say have a laugh.

The whizkids making real money from poker are often going to be grinding out 6 tables for several hours a day taking things very seriously, with various computer programs tracking information and stats on their opponents (which are often far more reliable than live "tells").

The general recommendation if you want to make a serious profit from the game is to set aside a bankroll completely seperate from your day-to-day money so that you never play with more than 5% in any cash game. So if you have a roll of £5000, you can comfortably play buy-ins up to £250. You want to be able to think of your chips as playing pieces just like in chess or checkers rather than actual money. Being scared to lose money will cloud your judgement and really hold you back. Furthermore as I say mathematical variance in Poker can be so hideously brutal and you're never garunteed to make money. Any old idiot can spin £50 into £400 (no offence Jack - not implying you're an idiot). Likewise the best player at the table can burn through a couple of buy-ins through no fault of his own in 15 minutes.

If you get all in pre-flop with Aces against Queens for instance (or any underpair for that matter) - you're an 80% favourite. On average you'll lose such a race once in every five times and yes this can happen three or four times in a row. The key is to play enough volume and to stick to good bankroll management so that getting yourself into favourable positions will pay off in the long run.

As for online; ignore any idiots claiming that its rigged or unbeatable, a very small proportion of the poker playing population are solid winning players but it can be done, and on a fairly consistent basis to. I'm not saying its easy, but the vast majority of people are fantastically stupid and inept at games requiring patience, discipline and intelligence, so with practice and dedication, you can turn it into a very profitable hobby.

Keep your feet on the ground though. Have fun, discuss hands online and keep learning. If there's one brilliant piece of advice to live by when it comes to Poker, its that you're never as good as you think you are! No matter how well you're doing.

The worst case of that is equivalent to a 100k a year salary and at the high end over 300k. Which would put him in the top 50 in the world

 

I am sure he has won some decent money, but he is not winning that every month. He will be playing for some fairly serious money to get close to even 5k winnings and there will be losses as well. On line is to unpredictable to have continuious month on month winnings

Yep sounds about right. He made over 150k last year and is now playing higher stakes than before, leading to bigger swings day to day but also his best ever month last month. He reckons he's in the top 15 online players in the UK, hence why he has quit uni.

I play live once a week, or i did until the numbers started falling. Played in an amateur poker league, used to get between 30 and 40 runners each. Really good fun, league ran for 3 months then every quarter there would be an end of season tournament for the top players in each league. Best performance was 4th from a starting field of 220, quite happy with that. Only gets around 12-14 players at the venue now so dont play so much. Played a few times in Vegas, if you go to Vegas and you play Texas Holdem you cant not play!

Play pokerstars online, only small stakes. Cant aford to lose so dont stake a lot. Best result 1st from 630 runners at Christmas but only a 3 dollar buy in so didnt hand in my notice on return to work!

To the OP i'd recommend playing The Nuts League, although there's not a lot in Southampton by the look of their website, a few in Winchester though. Couple of mates play that league, they say its pretty good

I play... Poorly, knew several friends who played online and won quite regularly enough to make an okish living off the game but it does tend to consume their lives if they play unchecked. (All this was before much harsher online gambling laws were put into place and don't know of anyone who plays regularly online anymore due to being dicked on the taxation.)

Yep sounds about right. He made over 150k last year and is now playing higher stakes than before, leading to bigger swings day to day but also his best ever month last month. He reckons he's in the top 15 online players in the UK, hence why he has quit uni.

He made 150k last year and he lives in a student house-share? Something there doesn't quite sound right.

Played quite a few times down at the Grosvenor last year, although not so much in this one.

 

If you want to play live I will tell you now that luck will be a huge factor, variance in Poker (mathematical deviation away from the norm) can be brutal when your volume of hands is so low (as it will be in live play). By all means go and have a bit of fun though, you're really just burning money playing any other casino games so see what you can do with Poker and as I say have a laugh.

 

The whizkids making real money from poker are often going to be grinding out 6 tables for several hours a day taking things very seriously, with various computer programs tracking information and stats on their opponents (which are often far more reliable than live "tells").

 

The general recommendation if you want to make a serious profit from the game is to set aside a bankroll completely seperate from your day-to-day money so that you never play with more than 5% in any cash game. So if you have a roll of £5000, you can comfortably play buy-ins up to £250. You want to be able to think of your chips as playing pieces just like in chess or checkers rather than actual money. Being scared to lose money will cloud your judgement and really hold you back. Furthermore as I say mathematical variance in Poker can be so hideously brutal and you're never garunteed to make money. Any old idiot can spin £50 into £400 (no offence Jack - not implying you're an idiot). Likewise the best player at the table can burn through a couple of buy-ins through no fault of his own in 15 minutes.

 

If you get all in pre-flop with Aces against Queens for instance (or any underpair for that matter) - you're an 80% favourite. On average you'll lose such a race once in every five times and yes this can happen three or four times in a row. The key is to play enough volume and to stick to good bankroll management so that getting yourself into favourable positions will pay off in the long run.

 

As for online; ignore any idiots claiming that its rigged or unbeatable, a very small proportion of the poker playing population are solid winning players but it can be done, and on a fairly consistent basis to. I'm not saying its easy, but the vast majority of people are fantastically stupid and inept at games requiring patience, discipline and intelligence, so with practice and dedication, you can turn it into a very profitable hobby.

 

Keep your feet on the ground though. Have fun, discuss hands online and keep learning. If there's one brilliant piece of advice to live by when it comes to Poker, its that you're never as good as you think you are! No matter how well you're doing.

Great post from someone who knows a lot more about this sort of thing than me. Still not as good as he thinks he is, though

However, definitely right to point out the brutality of improbability. Probably played one of my best games on Fri - a couple of mis-steps, for sure - but certainly didn't get knocked out on a stupid hand.

You're also right to point out the lack of patience. Seen it so many times - people wanting to deliver quick knockout blows and getting utterly destroyed. In many ways, less experienced players will do you more here - they'll call anything and for emotive reasons - whereas the seasoned card players will be warier about sticking their stack out there in marginal situations.

Have to say though - absolutely love the game. The sort of sums I play for mean that it's never really about the money ( unless you like playing for sub-minimum wage! ). As I said before, the buzz is awesome - and unlike anything else.

I went to uni with this guy:

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/ukipt/2010/ukipt-brighton-jamie-burland-wins-the-uk-071644.html

We both started playing around the same time. I hardly ever play these days and he's now making a decent career for himself!

Was at a live game last night. Finished in the top half of the main game, but well out of the money.

Won the side game, which was interesting. My mate (and lift home) had just won his side game and was ready to go home, so for his sake, I started to play a bit looser. Latvian dude went all in pre-flop with pocket queens, I called with A-2. He never made his set and I caught an Ace on the river. Feck me, what a riot. He flew out of his chair, punched the wall, started screaming "I cannot f**king believe you called with Ace-Two!". Every other table in the place was looking at the chaos unfold, rapt in attention.

We had a small time out to ease the tension, and he apologised to me for losing his rag. Then, when we got back in, he's still going on about it - shouting across the room to his Latvian mates about the A-2. I don't know much Latvian but I'm a quick learner Extremely funny - knocked the other guy out a couple of hands later.

Great night, and wore my Saints replica shirt throughout. Represent, yo!

Was at a live game last night. Finished in the top half of the main game, but well out of the money.

 

Won the side game, which was interesting. My mate (and lift home) had just won his side game and was ready to go home, so for his sake, I started to play a bit looser. Latvian dude went all in pre-flop with pocket queens, I called with A-2. He never made his set and I caught an Ace on the river. Feck me, what a riot. He flew out of his chair, punched the wall, started screaming "I cannot f**king believe you called with Ace-Two!". Every other table in the place was looking at the chaos unfold, rapt in attention.

 

We had a small time out to ease the tension, and he apologised to me for losing his rag. Then, when we got back in, he's still going on about it - shouting across the room to his Latvian mates about the A-2. I don't know much Latvian but I'm a quick learner Extremely funny - knocked the other guy out a couple of hands later.

 

Great night, and wore my Saints replica shirt throughout. Represent, yo!

Was this a cash game or sit'n'go (one-table tournament)? If you were playing cash and 100 big blinds deep I'd have a degree of sympathy for the Latvian, but if you were playing a S'nG, in the BB and the BTN open-jammed for 5 or 6 blinds its a standard call on your part.

Either way, it can be quite incredible how mental people can go when you bust them (even if you don't suck out!).

I remember once playing in a cash game, stacking my opponent for a £400 pot. Nice and everything but the guy kept on making rude, snide comments towards me all game. Furthermore this guy was a regular at the Casino and must have been wealthy enough (cos he sure as hell couldn't have been a winning player from Poker). I on the other hand was a baby-faced 19 year old kid! Pretty harsh!

Easy enough to ignore but annoying all the same, which is why I mainly stick to playing on the net.

For me, nothing beats a night playing for a fiver with friends though. I love playing live, but when you play in a casino full of aholes you end up wondering whats the point?

Nice catch

Bad call but like Raz said its part of poker, take the bad beats with the lucky calls. All part and parcel of the game.

Mate of mine was bubbled with pocket queens, called by 6-2 off. She hit her straight on the river. This daft bint had brought her husband along, he was meant to be looking after their 3 month old who they'd also brought along but he was too busy getting lashed at the bar. She looks after the little chavvy and is calling with everything. To my mind if you dont have the time to play the tournament in full either forfeit your chips or dont play in the first place.

I want to play now!

He is a very peculiar human being. Still gets his mates to cut his hair. Likes living here for student nights out, also shares a house in West London with a group of lads who all play poker. I have literally no reason to be making this up.

He made 150k last year and he lives in a student house-share? Something there doesn't quite sound right.

He is a very peculiar human being. Still gets his mates to cut his hair. Likes living here for student nights out, also shares a house in West London with a group of lads who all play poker. I have literally no reason to be making this up.