[TaoTe]

Hand reading is one of the most important skills in poker and one of the hardest to develop. Last night, after a friend and me busted out of tournament (I don't know how he played but the words "worst" and "ever" are involved with how well I played) we sat around, bored, watching the game and drinking. Out of nowhere we started to guess at what the players in the pot were holding. Around the third hand we started to make our hand reading a little side game to play in while we waited for another tournament to start up. We decided to wager a dollar on every player in the pot, chose their hand and the loser had to pay up. If we both agreed on what someone held we would split it. After we finished we called the game "Loser's Poker" and I was up five bucks. This did several things. 1) the money on every hand kept us interested enough to really try and read the palyers' hands 2) We got to see what players played what hands certain ways. 3) just focusing on other peoples' cards allowed us to eliminate distractions of our own cards (because we didn't have any).

Often, when not in the hand I've done the same exercise, trying to figure out what the players are betting but it has always been dull and I've been easily distracted from it. Salty (my friend) agreed we would play Loser's Poker everytime we got busted out of a tournament early. Hopefully, Loser's Poker will help make us winners. Loser's Poker, I highly recommend it.