Relearning Poker

[jgorham]

I have taught myself how to play poker online. My entire bankroll is from online play, my reads are based on numbers and my only personal interaction while I play is the music I am listening to, or my mom if she brings me a drink [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Anyway, this summer I have been playing live poker and learning some really interesting parts of the game. Last Friday while I was playing live, the two players to my immediate left starting having a discussion on sports betting. Now I understand how point spreads work in football, basketball and baseball, but these two were engaged in an incredible analysis of women's tennis and the odds associated with the bet.

While I didn't understand what the bet was exactly, I did understand that the player directly to my left had $1500 riding on Clijsters (semis against sharapova), and that money had most of his attention. By the time Clijsters was blowing 5 match points in the second set, I could see tilt start to set in. When she dropped the set and looked demoralized, he looked and played worse. As it went I figure I only won one pot against the player I may not have otherwise won. Which certainly isn't very significant in the long run.

But those little things sure are fun.

[hobbsmann]

A month or so back I played my first live 10/20 session at the local casino and remeber sitting next to a guy that had a couple thousand riding on various baseball games that night. From what he told me he wasn't having a very good night with the sports betting and took on the gambool mentality while playing poker the rest of the night. He approached most hands from a building a big pot perspective and essentially allowed me to take advantage of more info that I wouldn't normal get from the numbers online. Anyway, live play is fun....if only it wasn't so slow.