09-10-2001, 11:19 PM
Wanted to add my own thoughts to body of poker knowledge and concepts, so.... here are
POKER facts for REAL WORD PLAYERS!
Concepts, facts, general play expectations for Individual Players. A Realist's view.
Before proceeding please note.
The general poker playing populace will experience random card
distributions, standard deviations, and normal runs of cards. They will
mostly win with good cards and solid expert play, and when beaten in a
hand, will usually be beaten fairly, by good hands, and decent players.
Books are written about winning poker concepts, but ignore those books.
They are filled with strategies, concepts, odds, statistics, decision
criteria, etc. etc. ad nauseum, ad uselesseum. These books are SUPPOSED
to allow players with talent, skill, and discipline to become winners
whe the right strategies are put in play.
Please be aware however, that the concepts in such books DO NOT, and I
repeat DO NOT apply to YOU! The rules which follow below, contain
contrasting exceptions which DO apply. To you and ONLY to you.
The reason it is important that you understand that concepts below apply
to you, and you alone, is that this will prevent any unwarranted
confusion or silly thoughts of "unfairness" from interfering with your
enjoyment of the poker experience. So, forget all those bogus theory and
strategy books. Pot odds, schmot odds! Instead of pie in the sky
analytical concepts that will never do you any good, please read and
familiarize yourself with the concepts below, and then enjoy the game
accordingly!
************************************************** ****************************
1) A player holding pocket KK's against 2 opponents who hold an Ace,
will statistically see an Ace come on the flop, 11.3% of the time..
In your case, your pocket KK's will see an Ace flop at 8X the normal
rate, or approx. 90% of the time.
************************************************** ******************************
2) Annoying rude players who are maniacs, insulting, clueless, far too
aggressive, and deserve to lose, (and maybe even deserve serious jail
time for their starting hand decisions) .. will always win. If you
target such players for punishment with your AK suited, be aware they
will always beat you with a 3,7 offsuit that makes a pair of threes on
the river, when your AK never improves.
************************************************** ******************************
3) If you start telling a bad beat story to a poker buddy about how you
were knocked out of the WSOP 10K buy in, No Limit event last week with
pocket AA, his eyes will glaze over and he will emit a huge yawn while
looking at his watch.
Conversely, if you walk outside the card room for a much needed "alone"
break, and a breath of fresh air, strangers you have never met will
immediately mistake you for their new best buddy / personal therapist,
and besiege you with enthralling tales of the bad beats they just
suffered in a "no fold em" 2/4 game.
************************************************** *****************************
4) Most players who are dealt pocket AA in the final stages of a
tournament, will take down a huge pot that will put them well in the
money at the final table.
If you are dealt pocket Aces just prior to the final table you will
either,
a) Lose a huge pot after many raises to a player with pocket deuces when
a deuce comes on the river, or,
b) You will be in the big blind when you get AA, and everyone will fold
to you, or,
c) The dealer will catch a "hanger" to the small blind who will see 3
cards and a misdeal will immediately be called.
************************************************** ******************************
5) When another player holds pocket QQ's, an Ace or King will flop
statistically 43% of the time.
When YOU have pocket QQ's, an A or K will flop 92% of the time., and you
will have opponents with one or both of those overcards, 99.2 % of the
time.
************************************************** ******************************
6) Dealers will never make pre flop dealing errors and call misdeals,
except when they have already dealt you pocket KK, pocket AA, or AK
suited.
However, during later stages of play, dealers may make dealing errors
that result in having to shuffle up and "redeal" the river card when the
river card was improperly dealt before the last player on the button
acted.
Naturally, this rare event will only occur when the exposed "dead" river
card would have made you a nut flush, top set, a miracle straight, a
Full house, or some other huge pot winning hand. Yeah they'll put that
dead card back in the deck and reshuffle...but don't even DREAM about
the redeal doing anything but busting you!
************************************************** ******************************
7) If a loose, drunk, wild, and completely clueless opponent decides to
start playing every 2 cards all the way to the river, he will
consistently build huge stacks of chips and beat everyone at the table
with hands like 9,3 offsuit.
Conversely, if you should ever go on tilt and start playing looser than
usual, you will lose about 800% more than in any previous losing
session.
************************************************** ******************************
/images/glasses.gif In tournaments, when you have a small stack, blind limits will
always go up just prior to your big blind. Additionally, when you are
moved to a new table, you will always be assigned a seat directly in
front of big blind.
Corollaries to the above are that you will have a stack size of 2X the
big blind when you are seated, and the BB hand you are dealt will be an
8,2 offsuit which will be raised by the button.
************************************************** ******************************
9) When you are on tilt, all the following rules apply, NO EXCEPTIONS!
* You will make your miracle gutshot straight draw on the river, while
an opponent makes a runner runner flush to win with his 4 of hearts.
* You will make your miracle runner runner flush on the river, when an
opponent simultaneously improves his 9,3 offsuit 2 pair, with a 3 of
your suit on the river.
* Finally getting a decent hand during your wild loose play and holding
QQ's you will make your miracle set of QQ's on the river. When the third
Q falls and makes your set, it will make a gutshot straight for your
opponent who stood all your previous raises with his unimproved K,8
offsuit.
* All Ax suited cards you play on tilt, will always be beaten by an
opponent who holds Ace with a kicker EXACTLY one value higher than
yours.
************************************************** ******************************
10) Players who hold their cards 3 feet in front of them and wave them
carelessly for all to see, will always be sitting at the opposite end of
the table where three of your better opponents will always have the
advantage of seeing the exposed cards.
************************************************** ******************************
11) When you hold Q,J spades, and the flop comes 9,10 spades, giving
you a straight flush draw on the flop, your bets and raises, will go
unheeded by all, an enormous pot will initially build, but be aware you
will not improve your hand 95% of the time.
In the scenario above, if you have only one opponent left on the river,
and you have bet raised, and check raised all the way, you can bluff bet
this unimproved Straight flush draw on the river, into your lone
opponent. However, when you do this, 92% of the time you will be
called and beaten by an unimproved K,3 offsuit opponent who completely
misread the final board and thought he had a straight.
************************************************** ******************************
12) When you lay down an unimproved A,K suited on the river, your
opponent who bluff bet into you, will always be holding an unimproved
4,5 offsuit that had only a miracle gut shot straight draw possibility
going for it. He will of course flip his cards over and laugh maniacally
for ten minutes straight, making jokes in some foreign language you
don't understand. The entire table will join in this frivolity at your
expense, including your wife, best friend, and mother if they are poker
players sitting at your table.
************************************************** ******************************
13) When your "service" waitress arrives to ask you to pay your food
bill, you will be in the middle of playing the first hand you have been
in for 36 straight hands. While fumbling for money, you will make a
critical error in judgement like giving a free card when they all would
have folded to your pocket Kings, , and you will subsequently lose a
giant pot when a 9,J offsuit makes 2 pair on the river.
************************************************** ******************************
14) At a loose aggressive and wild table that generally has 5 or 6
players and huge capped pots in every hand, all your pocket AA or KK or
AK suited, will always occur on your big blind. On such hands, all
other players will suddenly fold to you with a sudden total disinterest
in the game. Be happy! You got the small blind. If any opponents had
called an inevitable raise from you with their proudly held hand of 4,7
suited, you can be absolutely sure you would have lost the hand to them.
The only exception to the above, is when you somehow find this hand in
late position. In this case, every player at the table will call, and
call your raise, and build a huge pot. In that case you can be certain
with 99.784 probability, you will be drawn out on and beaten. Why not
just fold those pocket Aces when they all call ahead of you? You'll lose
a lot less!!!
************************************************** ******************************
15) Table rules and etiquette. Be aware that table rules do not apply to
your opponents. They can string raise, take back chips from the table
when they see you are planning to call, bet out of turn to try and
induce folds, trap raise with their team mates who subsequently fold,
soft play the nuts to their friends, show each other cards, throw cards
at the dealers eyeball, string 18 profane phrases together, etc. There
will never be any consequences or reprimands to these players. If you
complain, you will be immediately branded a whiner, a loser, a
troublemaker, and looked on with great suspicion.
However, while your opponents can engage in these behaviors without
being called on it, YOU will be immediately challenged and humiliated if
you should inadvertently bet out of turn once during your session
because you didn't see an opponent's hand which he was hiding.
************************************************** ******************************
Summary:
In general, the theories of random distribution in cards is a myth
designed for the gullible.
It is ONLY the lucky players that will win. Repeat this mantra many
times before each poker session. "Only the lucky players win, Only the
lucky players win, Only the lucky players win".
YOU, on the other hand....if you are the best player at the table, and
skillfully play your "A" level game, will not be so foolish as to
believe you are either lucky OR that your skills will save you from the
lucky. You will either win a small amount in your session, or lose a
large amount. Depending of course on just how bad your luck is running.
But be happy! Remember, if you didn't have any "BAD" luck, you wouldn't
have any luck at all!
Major poker/philosphical concept. Life is divided into the horrible and
the miserable. Therefore, if you suffer a miserable session of bad luck
and bad beats, costing you say, 10% of your bankroll....be GLAD it was
not a HORRIBLE session that took your WHOLE bankroll! See, you always
have something to be thankful for!
So keeping all the above in mind, quit your damned bitching and moaning
and enjoy the poker experience!!!
POKER facts for REAL WORD PLAYERS!
Concepts, facts, general play expectations for Individual Players. A Realist's view.
Before proceeding please note.
The general poker playing populace will experience random card
distributions, standard deviations, and normal runs of cards. They will
mostly win with good cards and solid expert play, and when beaten in a
hand, will usually be beaten fairly, by good hands, and decent players.
Books are written about winning poker concepts, but ignore those books.
They are filled with strategies, concepts, odds, statistics, decision
criteria, etc. etc. ad nauseum, ad uselesseum. These books are SUPPOSED
to allow players with talent, skill, and discipline to become winners
whe the right strategies are put in play.
Please be aware however, that the concepts in such books DO NOT, and I
repeat DO NOT apply to YOU! The rules which follow below, contain
contrasting exceptions which DO apply. To you and ONLY to you.
The reason it is important that you understand that concepts below apply
to you, and you alone, is that this will prevent any unwarranted
confusion or silly thoughts of "unfairness" from interfering with your
enjoyment of the poker experience. So, forget all those bogus theory and
strategy books. Pot odds, schmot odds! Instead of pie in the sky
analytical concepts that will never do you any good, please read and
familiarize yourself with the concepts below, and then enjoy the game
accordingly!
************************************************** ****************************
1) A player holding pocket KK's against 2 opponents who hold an Ace,
will statistically see an Ace come on the flop, 11.3% of the time..
In your case, your pocket KK's will see an Ace flop at 8X the normal
rate, or approx. 90% of the time.
************************************************** ******************************
2) Annoying rude players who are maniacs, insulting, clueless, far too
aggressive, and deserve to lose, (and maybe even deserve serious jail
time for their starting hand decisions) .. will always win. If you
target such players for punishment with your AK suited, be aware they
will always beat you with a 3,7 offsuit that makes a pair of threes on
the river, when your AK never improves.
************************************************** ******************************
3) If you start telling a bad beat story to a poker buddy about how you
were knocked out of the WSOP 10K buy in, No Limit event last week with
pocket AA, his eyes will glaze over and he will emit a huge yawn while
looking at his watch.
Conversely, if you walk outside the card room for a much needed "alone"
break, and a breath of fresh air, strangers you have never met will
immediately mistake you for their new best buddy / personal therapist,
and besiege you with enthralling tales of the bad beats they just
suffered in a "no fold em" 2/4 game.
************************************************** *****************************
4) Most players who are dealt pocket AA in the final stages of a
tournament, will take down a huge pot that will put them well in the
money at the final table.
If you are dealt pocket Aces just prior to the final table you will
either,
a) Lose a huge pot after many raises to a player with pocket deuces when
a deuce comes on the river, or,
b) You will be in the big blind when you get AA, and everyone will fold
to you, or,
c) The dealer will catch a "hanger" to the small blind who will see 3
cards and a misdeal will immediately be called.
************************************************** ******************************
5) When another player holds pocket QQ's, an Ace or King will flop
statistically 43% of the time.
When YOU have pocket QQ's, an A or K will flop 92% of the time., and you
will have opponents with one or both of those overcards, 99.2 % of the
time.
************************************************** ******************************
6) Dealers will never make pre flop dealing errors and call misdeals,
except when they have already dealt you pocket KK, pocket AA, or AK
suited.
However, during later stages of play, dealers may make dealing errors
that result in having to shuffle up and "redeal" the river card when the
river card was improperly dealt before the last player on the button
acted.
Naturally, this rare event will only occur when the exposed "dead" river
card would have made you a nut flush, top set, a miracle straight, a
Full house, or some other huge pot winning hand. Yeah they'll put that
dead card back in the deck and reshuffle...but don't even DREAM about
the redeal doing anything but busting you!
************************************************** ******************************
7) If a loose, drunk, wild, and completely clueless opponent decides to
start playing every 2 cards all the way to the river, he will
consistently build huge stacks of chips and beat everyone at the table
with hands like 9,3 offsuit.
Conversely, if you should ever go on tilt and start playing looser than
usual, you will lose about 800% more than in any previous losing
session.
************************************************** ******************************
/images/glasses.gif In tournaments, when you have a small stack, blind limits will
always go up just prior to your big blind. Additionally, when you are
moved to a new table, you will always be assigned a seat directly in
front of big blind.
Corollaries to the above are that you will have a stack size of 2X the
big blind when you are seated, and the BB hand you are dealt will be an
8,2 offsuit which will be raised by the button.
************************************************** ******************************
9) When you are on tilt, all the following rules apply, NO EXCEPTIONS!
* You will make your miracle gutshot straight draw on the river, while
an opponent makes a runner runner flush to win with his 4 of hearts.
* You will make your miracle runner runner flush on the river, when an
opponent simultaneously improves his 9,3 offsuit 2 pair, with a 3 of
your suit on the river.
* Finally getting a decent hand during your wild loose play and holding
QQ's you will make your miracle set of QQ's on the river. When the third
Q falls and makes your set, it will make a gutshot straight for your
opponent who stood all your previous raises with his unimproved K,8
offsuit.
* All Ax suited cards you play on tilt, will always be beaten by an
opponent who holds Ace with a kicker EXACTLY one value higher than
yours.
************************************************** ******************************
10) Players who hold their cards 3 feet in front of them and wave them
carelessly for all to see, will always be sitting at the opposite end of
the table where three of your better opponents will always have the
advantage of seeing the exposed cards.
************************************************** ******************************
11) When you hold Q,J spades, and the flop comes 9,10 spades, giving
you a straight flush draw on the flop, your bets and raises, will go
unheeded by all, an enormous pot will initially build, but be aware you
will not improve your hand 95% of the time.
In the scenario above, if you have only one opponent left on the river,
and you have bet raised, and check raised all the way, you can bluff bet
this unimproved Straight flush draw on the river, into your lone
opponent. However, when you do this, 92% of the time you will be
called and beaten by an unimproved K,3 offsuit opponent who completely
misread the final board and thought he had a straight.
************************************************** ******************************
12) When you lay down an unimproved A,K suited on the river, your
opponent who bluff bet into you, will always be holding an unimproved
4,5 offsuit that had only a miracle gut shot straight draw possibility
going for it. He will of course flip his cards over and laugh maniacally
for ten minutes straight, making jokes in some foreign language you
don't understand. The entire table will join in this frivolity at your
expense, including your wife, best friend, and mother if they are poker
players sitting at your table.
************************************************** ******************************
13) When your "service" waitress arrives to ask you to pay your food
bill, you will be in the middle of playing the first hand you have been
in for 36 straight hands. While fumbling for money, you will make a
critical error in judgement like giving a free card when they all would
have folded to your pocket Kings, , and you will subsequently lose a
giant pot when a 9,J offsuit makes 2 pair on the river.
************************************************** ******************************
14) At a loose aggressive and wild table that generally has 5 or 6
players and huge capped pots in every hand, all your pocket AA or KK or
AK suited, will always occur on your big blind. On such hands, all
other players will suddenly fold to you with a sudden total disinterest
in the game. Be happy! You got the small blind. If any opponents had
called an inevitable raise from you with their proudly held hand of 4,7
suited, you can be absolutely sure you would have lost the hand to them.
The only exception to the above, is when you somehow find this hand in
late position. In this case, every player at the table will call, and
call your raise, and build a huge pot. In that case you can be certain
with 99.784 probability, you will be drawn out on and beaten. Why not
just fold those pocket Aces when they all call ahead of you? You'll lose
a lot less!!!
************************************************** ******************************
15) Table rules and etiquette. Be aware that table rules do not apply to
your opponents. They can string raise, take back chips from the table
when they see you are planning to call, bet out of turn to try and
induce folds, trap raise with their team mates who subsequently fold,
soft play the nuts to their friends, show each other cards, throw cards
at the dealers eyeball, string 18 profane phrases together, etc. There
will never be any consequences or reprimands to these players. If you
complain, you will be immediately branded a whiner, a loser, a
troublemaker, and looked on with great suspicion.
However, while your opponents can engage in these behaviors without
being called on it, YOU will be immediately challenged and humiliated if
you should inadvertently bet out of turn once during your session
because you didn't see an opponent's hand which he was hiding.
************************************************** ******************************
Summary:
In general, the theories of random distribution in cards is a myth
designed for the gullible.
It is ONLY the lucky players that will win. Repeat this mantra many
times before each poker session. "Only the lucky players win, Only the
lucky players win, Only the lucky players win".
YOU, on the other hand....if you are the best player at the table, and
skillfully play your "A" level game, will not be so foolish as to
believe you are either lucky OR that your skills will save you from the
lucky. You will either win a small amount in your session, or lose a
large amount. Depending of course on just how bad your luck is running.
But be happy! Remember, if you didn't have any "BAD" luck, you wouldn't
have any luck at all!
Major poker/philosphical concept. Life is divided into the horrible and
the miserable. Therefore, if you suffer a miserable session of bad luck
and bad beats, costing you say, 10% of your bankroll....be GLAD it was
not a HORRIBLE session that took your WHOLE bankroll! See, you always
have something to be thankful for!
So keeping all the above in mind, quit your damned bitching and moaning
and enjoy the poker experience!!!