Poker's most basic rule

[MtDon]

Frankly, I vote for it being enlightening.

It's another way of saying that when you bet you have two ways of winning the pot: by having the best hand and by the other player(s) folding.

[PokerFink]

I don't know if I would call it enlightening, but I think it's closer to that than asinine.

Poker is a betting game played with cards, not a card game played with betting. I think your statement is a good way of saying this.

[Loci]

It's useful in it's own simplicity... sometimes when playing this game you need to step back and realize the complexity of simplicity.
A friend of mine was learning years ago (I was teaching him and four other guys at mini-micro stakes), and while he's not the brightest guy in the world, he does have a certain level of insight on occasion. They were college kids and had watched Rounders a few too many times, you know? Anyways, Joe had a bad streak. playing 25 cent max bets, he lost thirty dollars in about 15 minutes. Second best flush, second best full-house, etc... He stood up and looked at me with the most earnest eyes I've ever seen and said "I just lost all the money in my wallet because my little pieces of paper didn't have the right color and shape." He nodded once and walked out. It puts things in perspective.
It's thoughts like these that can keep a gambler from snapping mentally.
O.P.-Good qoute.
Ez

[Al Mirpuri]

[ QUOTE ]
is the statement correct? yes.

is it usefull? no. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true of Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem Of Poker as well. Full marks to the originator of this thread.

[Bluffoon]

[ QUOTE ]
I just thought of this earlier. I'm not sure where it stands between asinine and enlightening.

Poker:
Whoever puts the most money in the pot wins it. In the event of a tie, the best hand wins.

Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

Brilliant!

How can we get party to run this slogan on the billboard in the lobby?

[Reef]

I think this is a somewhat close theory

whoever has the highest proportion of taking bad beats to giving bad beats wins the most $ in the longrun

do you see why?

[RiverDood]

I kinda like it. It has a goofy inanity to it -- much like the guy who used to do "Deep Thoughts" on Saturday Night Live a long time ago.

Just for the fun of it, I tried it out on our home game this week. Two things happened, one of which I totally expected . . . the other of which surprised me.

A) The loosest player at the table became even sloppier. He paid me off way too generously when I stumbled into a flopped straight, as he and his TPTK kept calling/raising me all the way to the river. That was fine. +EV for your little aphorism. Thanks!

B) The real rock at the table began playing hands she'd never tried before. We folded -- or she hit her draws . . . and instead of watching her conserve chips all night long, we saw her double her stack. Very worrisome -EV.

So what you've got there is a powerful laxative for low-stakes games. (I don't think anyone at a higher-stakes game will pay any heed.) Based on a one-evening sample, it's fine for coaxing passive players to share even more chips. But it's not the right medicine for every table.