Damn right I do, and as soon as the mercury drops I'll drive my pasty white tundra dwelling ass down there and lay a proper hurtin' on your dirty subpoena issuing rebel ass!
Value better the river (especially thin value betting the river) is an art all by itself. Really comes down to the player and what I'm putting him on more than my hand.............but it's no fun doing that against a good player who could easily re-pop you right back with air. OP, if your primary focus is on MTTs, then you should do some tournament specific reading (or if you're looking to save money, go on 2+2 and read all you can for free) - generic poker books will be somewhat helpful in terms of hand strengths, knowing how often you're going to flop 2 pair/set/flush, etc., (and more importantly, how often your opponent will), putting your opponent on a range, but that's about where the similarities end. I'm no Phil Ivey so take what I say with a grain of salt, but my MTT game and my cash games are almost wholly unrelated to each other (MTT the goal is chip accumulation to stay ahead of the blinds; in a cash game, especially at the 1/2 and/or 2/5 levels, it's a patience game - if you want to, a very profitable strategy is simply to set mine (with any pair) and only play AA/KK from early position). It's pretty nitty and way to boring for me, but damned if you won't make money doing that......... BTW, I still play on Ignition poker - I live about ten minutes away from Parx Casino here in PA but a 2 and 4 year old mean I've only been there once since living here (4 years).
Lol....bill my cousin used to do a ton of tournaments with big buy ins. Made enough money to buy a house.car and not have a real job for a while. Then stuff went a little cold. Dunno what he's doing now. He was pulling in a few hundred k for a year or 2 just playing. One tournement he won 80k. But shit. I know a guy who just won 320k.at a fishing tournament..
I get stuck in a quandary. Don't have the bankroll to play high stakes, so, I'm stuck at the lower limit tables. Enjoy the play and typically end up OK when there's good players at the table, but, I haven't perfected the art of playing against bad players and that's where I tend to lose. I try to minimize losses when playing against them, especially when they have a decent stack, which also leads to minimizing wins when the 3 outer they've been chasing doesn't hit 4th or 5th street. I also haven't been able to overcome the hurdle of looking at each chip as money rather than a tool needed to play the game right.
I start a thread about trading stocks and options a couple years ago, and everyone's all "you'll shoot your eye out kid". But someone else starts a thread about online gambling, and we're all taking pics of bookshelves, quoting poker scripture, and talkin' strategy... I'm surprised y'all ain't singin' "The Gambler" together.
I've made more money -- and consistently-- in stocks and other investments, than I have in poker.. if that helps LOL. But this is a motorcycle racing forum, which of the two do you expect to be a better hit You just jealous?!
Naw, man... I'm totally laughing. I love this place. I've never been a good poker player, but I've done ok playing blackjack from time to time.
See... THAT is insane to me given the context haha. I will play blackjack from time to time just cause its fun, but literally EVERY table game BUT poker is rigged to take your money. Even counting cards only evens your odds. All those games will take your money if you play long enough. Poker is the one game where the house has no incentive and its you vs. another dude. The only real gamble in poker is an all-in before the flop, the rest isn't really gambling at all. I can't bring myself to take people seriously who religiously play table games. You see all these viet and chinese dudes blowing their savings on baccarat everytime you go to the casino... blows my mind.
I only play because it was easy to pick up, low cost of entry, relative to others. I don't play religiously, but I generally walk out with more than I went in with. I'm selective about where I play though. Those Vegas casinos that pay 6:5 instead of 3:2 on a 5 or 6 deck constant shuffle can go F themselves. I play 2 deck, hand shuffle 3:2 only. There is/was a casino in Henderson this still played this way, but since its been a couple of years, they've probably switched over as well.
Yea the constant shuffle is a nightmare. Makes counting cards impossible. At least with 8 decks you can still keep track.
The best way to win at poker is to play bad people. Table selection is everything. If you are analytical and really want to make money at poker, try limit games. It's boring but predictable returns played correctly. 1 bad judgement in no-limit can wipe out days of grinding. TJ Cloutier wrote some great books on playing MTT vs Cash games.
Look up Sklansky's chart (below) for opening hands, and then read his first book. Follow it and it's a pretty good mathematical indicator of what to do.
