Post your pre-game routine

[otter]

1. As a lot of people have mentioned it's important for me too to take a big ole dump too
2. Drive to get some coffee and perhaps a donut. I try not to play right when I get out of bed or on an empty stomach.
3. Open Empire/party and collect data on the games I didn't mine the night before (in typing this I should put this up at number 1).
4. check my buddy list and put my names on those tables.
5. Put my name on the list if the pot is at least 7x the BB. If I get called and it's at least 8x BB I take the seat.
6. When I get called for a game I usually sit out at least one round to make sure the pot is still w/in my criteria. Sometimes I take the maniac's seat and find that the action has died down. If the average pot drops below 8x the BB that's usually a good indication that the game is slowing down. I used to look for 10x the BB, but those are much harder to find nowadays.
7. If I'm sitting at a table w/ 3 or more players who see the flop 20% of the time or less I leave and move on unless there are some real, real live ones or unless the rock is a big loser over the many, many hands I've observed. Most of my sessions last about half an hour. Often I find myself back at the same table I started with, but w/ so many games why play at a bad one?

I haven't played at more than 4 tables at once yet (until I get my new dell). I generally play 10-20 up to 20-40 right now. When I get my 2001fp I plan to play more tables at other sites and take advantage of the bonuses as long as going after a small amount of bonus at the low limits (2-4, 3-6, maybe 5-10) doesn't distract me too much from the profit at the bigger games.

4x rum and coke
2x beers in the freezer(fast and easy no time to mix a capt/coke while playing)
2-3x good cigars ready to be chewed on.
Chips and salas covered cream cheese
Porno in the vcr
Heavy rock playing on the 5.1 surround

I then take off my pants and get my game on!

[x2ski]

Thanks a lot for the replies so far, although some of them weren't exactly what I was looking for lol.

Anyway, many of you talk about morning coffees, donuts, dumps etc. Is this actually in the morning?

And I thought I played at subprime times of the day (1pm CST+). Wow.

[x2ski]

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It usually begins as a trickle, with one or two tables opening up. I sit at the tables and deal myself out, expecting to wait until I have 8 good tables running before I start playing.

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Why wait until you have 8 tables open to start playing?

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Because I am trying to avoid this:

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Within a few minutes, the tables open up like wildfire, and I'm stuck trying to play hands, select tables, close tables etc.

What frustrates me most is when I've just played the blinds at an "OK" table, and all these tables are opening up and I have 4 Empire and/or Euro tabes open already so I must make the decision to leave "OK" tables in the middle of an orbit while risking sitting down at "even worse" tables, or sitting down at tables that I'm already sitting at (on the other skin). The "let me think about it" button gives you like 5 seconds to think about it, and that thing popping up constantly while I'm in the middle of hands and all this other crap popping up makes me want to pull my hair out.

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And if playing 8 tables is so stressful, why not play just 5-6 tables? If you're not feeling so stressed out, you'll be able to play a longer session and make up for the reduction in hands per hour.

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Playing 8-tables isn't stressful... Getting them all set up is. Hence my OP.

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As for my pregame routine, I like to flex the GUNZ in front of the mirror and shout "Who's the Man? Me! IMDAMAN! I'm gonna CRUSH this game punk! Bring it on bitches!"

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Well, this is a given. You absolutely cannot win if you omit this part [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[x2ski]

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I also get on the waiting lists with the largest average pots (although they change enough that I'm likely wasting my time), but I avoid overlap by joining all numbered tables on Empire and named tables on another skin.

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Great idea. Thanks!

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I look at stack sizes and only sit if there are a few people with well under the default buyin. I never sit if several people are significantly above the default buyin.

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Is this for limit games? If so, care to explain why?

[x2ski]

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Similar to your setup but I think you're missing a few steps. I'm sure along your travels you've come across absolute wild money donors. These people need to be on your buddy list and your first stop should be the search function. Pop those tables up and wait for a seat to their left.

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I've never really bothered with the buddy list. I tried it for a few days, but didn't like sitting at tables that normally had 9 TAGs milking the "buddy".

I'd rather sit at random tables with a few more bad players instead of just one super-fish. I dunno, perhaps my buddy-listing sample size was too small.

[itsmarty]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In Antwort auf:</font><hr />
Is this for limit games? If so, care to explain why?

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Yes, limit. They might have bought in short, which almost certainly means they're not very good, or they don't know enough (or don't have enough money) to rebuy when they can't cap all streets if the situation calls for it.

Also, a lot of bad players have a strange mentality where they just "play out their stack". Once they make some expensive mistakes or take a few beats they just give the rest of it away. I like that.

As far as staying away from a table with a few big stacks, I figure at that point I'm getting the seat of the guy who was giving all his money away, and the table is about to tighten up.

Martin

[Unoriginalname]

No one else does wrist/hand/arm stretches before a long session? I have a whole routine that takes about 5 minutes that I do every time I am going to play poker for several hours. I don't have any pain issues right now and I'm looking to keep it that way.

[Seether]

Are you serious? this seems like the most annoying process for such small sessions....

[joop]

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I would pay $50 for a program that automatically got you on the waiting lists of the 8 games with the highest average pot sizes.

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Same here. Joining waiting lists almost constantly (tables breaking up, fish leaving, etc) has to be the one thing I dislike the most about online poker. Anyone know anyone that could code this up?