Are You Addicted to Poker on Facebook?

[chaoseverlasting]

Ive recently started playing poker on facebook and its a really addictive game. Are any of you into poker?

 

[turbo]

Yes, but only with real cards and real money. I used to be able to pick up a pretty reliable $40-50 a week playing poker with the paper machine crew after our last night-shift. Some of those guys were reckless and easy to read.

 

[Focus]

Yes, but only with real cards and real money. I used to be able to pick up a pretty reliable $40-50 a week playing poker with the paper machine crew after our last night-shift. Some of those guys were reckless and easy to read.

I don't buy it. I think you were counting cards

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I play on FullTilt and occasionally at a friends house game.
It can definitely be addictive so I would warn to be careful of playing for money. At the house game I go to one of the "donks" always buys in for $100+ even though the rest of us only buy in for $20 and he usually loses most if not all of it. I've seen him once at the end of the night desperately pulling more cash out of his pocket to make last minute wild bets in an attempt to get his money back.

 

[Chi Meson]

Some of us teachers get together for Texas hold-em about once a month. We buy in for $10 or $20 (with one re-buy allowed at half the starting amount). This keeps it "real enough" to have some tension in the game without fear of losing one's shirt. I found that I can sometimes pull off a bluff, but often I blow it with either a hesitation, or the opposite: too much eagerness to raise. Evidently I'm sending clear smoke signals sometimes. It's fun, but I can tell I should stay out of the casinos.

And I live 15 minutes from Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.

 

[turbo]

My father plays poker every Friday night (except summers) with his buddies. It's good for probably $50/week for him. At 83 he's sharp as a tack. Generally, they play for quarters (minimum) for a couple of hours, then they buy chips and play Hold 'em. He doesn't count his money - he tares coffee-cans, loads the quarters into those and figures his winnings by weight using an old balance beam freight-office scale. He pays his property taxes every year out of his poker winnings. He taught me to play poker when I was a kid (using my head, not my emotions) and he never cut me a bit of slack. He got injured in WWII, and ended up in a motor pool in Liege instead of Airborne after getting out of the hospital. That's where he honed his poker skills.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

He taught me to play poker when I was a kid (using my head, not my emotions) and he never cut me a bit of slack.

I still have trouble even though I have tried training myself not to play emotionally. I've gotten pretty good at not trying to guess if someone is bluffing and just playing on the strength of my hand though.

I know that good poker playing comes from experience rather than books but are there any that you or your dad ever read that were good? Doyle Brunson seems like a good source or maybe I'm just stereotyping. I also have a lot of respect for Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu though I have no idea if Ivey has written a book.

 

[turbo]

I still have trouble even though I have tried training myself not to play emotionally. I've gotten pretty good at not trying to guess if someone is bluffing and just playing on the strength of my hand though.

I know that good poker playing comes from experience rather than books but are there any that you or your dad ever read that were good? Doyle Brunson seems like a good source or maybe I'm just stereotyping. I also have a lot of respect for Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu though I have no idea if Ivey has written a book.

When you are playing at a full table in games where cards are displayed progressively, try to keep track of some critical cards that have been played - both suits and values. When you have a pretty good hand, its tempting to chase it even in the face of the possibility that others might be holding much better hands. You can't do this playing stud - you can only watch the betting patterns, the draw (and reactions of the players), but it is a real handy skill when playing games in with there are shared common cards, or in which player are required to reveal cards from their hands in stages. When you have 7 or more players at the table, you'll need to resort to games that feature shared common cards if you want to play 7-card games. If you're playing "dealer's choice" this is a good opportunity to call such a game. Many novice players cannot easily shift gears between stud, draw, and more complex 7-card games, and that's where they make $$$ mistakes.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

When you are playing at a full table in games where cards are displayed progressively, try to keep track of some critical cards that have been played - both suits and values. When you have a pretty good hand, its tempting to chase it even in the face of the possibility that others might be holding much better hands. You can't do this playing stud - you can only watch the betting patterns, the draw (and reactions of the players), but it is a real handy skill when playing games in with there are shared common cards, or in which player are required to reveal cards from their hands in stages. When you have 7 or more players at the table, you'll need to resort to games that feature shared common cards if you want to play 7-card games. If you're playing "dealer's choice" this is a good opportunity to call such a game. Many novice players cannot easily shift gears between stud, draw, and more complex 7-card games, and that's where they make $$$ mistakes.

Lately I've only been playing Hold Em. I always get a bit nervous when I see a possible straight or flush on the board. I've even fronted a flush myself on occasion. Generally I'm content to lay down what might be the best hand to stay in the game and play a better hand later. Online its easier to avoid giving tells. I just try to play my hands with the same betting patterns whether its a bluff, soft bluff, or the real deal. The really good hands I always slow play unless I'm betting against someone who seems to have a decent hand and might chase it.
In the home games I change up my betting to try to keep people from guessing. Since I know the players to some degree I can bet in a way that plays to them as an individual. There's a lot more psychology involved in real world play that I have yet to get the hang of though.

 

[Proton Soup]

i can't get excited about gambling. never have. fresh out of high school, some friends and i pooled our bets at the dog track and doubled our money. it made for free food and entertainment, with a bit left over. and i didn't get the bug. i don't think i could ever get into it unless i knew how to say count cards and could reliably bring in income. then it'd be like a job.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

i can't get excited about gambling. never have. fresh out of high school, some friends and i pooled our bets at the dog track and doubled our money. it made for free food and entertainment, with a bit left over. and i didn't get the bug. i don't think i could ever get into it unless i knew how to say count cards and could reliably bring in income. then it'd be like a job.

Counting cards can apparently be dangerous. Have you seen the movie 21? Its pretty good.

 

[Jack21222]

I've been into poker for a long time. I keep track of my winnings, and I am profitable at $25 online no limit at pokerstars, which have blinds of 0.10/0.25. After this graph, I moved up to $50 no limit, and went on a bit of a downswing. After that downswing, I withdrew my bankroll to pay for a semester of college.

Here's my graph up until I switched to $50NL

Note: This graph does not take into account money from bonuses from the site, which amounted to about 300 dollars.

I recently deposited another 50 bucks, and have been playing penny stakes to build my bankroll. I've got it up to about 120 right now. I can't wait until I build it up enough to move back into the stakes where real money can be made.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I'm actually about to play a tourney. Full Tilt's The Daily Dollar. Up to 12,000 players, one dollar buy in, and the top prize is 1,500 dollars. Yesterday I only got to about place 750(of 7,100) for $2.50. Hopefully I'll do better today.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I've been into poker for a long time. I keep track of my winnings, and I am profitable at $25 online no limit at pokerstars, which have blinds of 0.10/0.25. After this graph, I moved up to $50 no limit, and went on a bit of a downswing. After that downswing, I withdrew my bankroll to pay for a semester of college.

Here's my graph up until I switched to $50NL

[image]
Note: This graph does not take into account money from bonuses from the site, which amounted to about 300 dollars.

I recently deposited another 50 bucks, and have been playing penny stakes to build my bankroll. I've got it up to about 120 right now. I can't wait until I build it up enough to move back into the stakes where real money can be made.

That's pretty impressive. Have any tips?

 

[Moonbear]

i can't get excited about gambling. never have. fresh out of high school, some friends and i pooled our bets at the dog track and doubled our money. it made for free food and entertainment, with a bit left over. and i didn't get the bug. i don't think i could ever get into it unless i knew how to say count cards and could reliably bring in income. then it'd be like a job.

I'm not into gambling either. I'm just as happy to play for pretzels as cash. I wouldn't play card games in casinos or with strangers, because to me, they are more something to do while socializing with friends, not something I do just to do.

 

[Jack21222]

That's pretty impressive. Have any tips?

Keep your emotions out of it, learn to calculate odds quickly and accurately. But the biggest factor in my winnings was a program called PokerTracker. It keeps track of every hand I play (and therefore, every hand my opponents play), so I can get a feel for what they likely hold.

For example, if over 500 hands, my opponent has NEVER raised a single hand preflop, and all of the sudden they raise preflop, I'm folding QQ. I probably even fold KK preflop. Their range is AA, and maybe if I'm lucky KK.

On the other hand, if over 100 hands, my opponent raises 35% of the time preflop, he's probably something of a maniac, and I'm happy to reraise him with as little as AJ or 99.

PokerTracker is a must have.

It's that program which allows me to play 9 tables at once. (Some players will 24-table, but that's a but much for me.)

Here's what my screen looks like when 9-tabling.

Those boxes over the players names are my PokerTracker interface.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I'm just as happy to play for pretzels as cash.

I have a bit of a competitive streak. Playing for something other than money people tend to do silly things and go all for broke since its just "pretzels" or what have you. It cuts out a lot of the strategy involved.

 

[Moonbear]

I have a bit of a competitive streak. Playing for something other than money people tend to do silly things and go all for broke since its just "pretzels" or what have you. It cuts out a lot of the strategy involved.

Exactly! That's why it's more fun.

 

[Proton Soup]

Counting cards can apparently be dangerous. Have you seen the movie 21? Its pretty good.

i'm familiar with some of the background story. if it's really that dangerous, then to me it's just another good reason to ban gambling. nothing but a bunch of thugs if you ask me. they have the odds in their favor for all the games, which is just another name for "rigged". anybody that can beat them at their own game is a hero in my book.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

i'm familiar with some of the background story. if it's really that dangerous, then to me it's just another good reason to ban gambling. nothing but a bunch of thugs if you ask me. they have the odds in their favor for all the games, which is just another name for "rigged". anybody that can beat them at their own game is a hero in my book.

I think that the movie makes it a bit more extreme than real life but I have heard of card counters that were threatened at the very least.
As far as banning gambling I don't see why anyone should get in the way of a transaction (or game) between two persons unless one is obviously being defrauded. The fact that games like black jack favour the house does not seem fraudulent to me.

 

[turbo]

i'm familiar with some of the background story. if it's really that dangerous, then to me it's just another good reason to ban gambling. nothing but a bunch of thugs if you ask me. they have the odds in their favor for all the games, which is just another name for "rigged". anybody that can beat them at their own game is a hero in my book.

Nobody beats the house. That's no reason to ban gambling. The suckers know the house has the odds stacked against them. Really! The house has TWO total rake-in buckets on every roulette wheel in the US.

The alternative is to hold honest games with your friends and have fun with no ATMs around, so if you get wiped out of your stake, you can hang out, back-seat-drive, enjoy the snacks and generally still have a really good time. Most of the places that my paper-maker goons congregated, we had well-stocked private kitchens (in our own homes) and if we managed to knock out somebody who had any cooking skills, we'd say "Jay, cook up a bunch of scrambled eggs and some bacon". It was all good. One of our members was pretty profane and one non-poker morning we had congregated at a local hash-house for early eggs and beer when former Sen Margaret Chase Smith and a female friend showed up for breakfast. Herbie was tossing around F-bombs pretty liberally, and the proprietor looked over at me. I asked him to tone it down a bit, and he hollered, "****, she's heard worse than this every single day in Washington", and damned if Sen Smith didn't turn and smile and nod at both of us.

 

[Proton Soup]

I think that the movie makes it a bit more extreme than real life but I have heard of card counters that were threatened at the very least.
As far as banning gambling I don't see why anyone should get in the way of a transaction (or game) between two persons unless one is obviously being defrauded. The fact that games like black jack favour the house does not seem fraudulent to me.

one of the few useful things i learned from psychology class many years ago is how important it is to the business of gambling. i can't do anything but laugh when i see the industry running some gamblers anonymous type PSA, because their games, beginning with the good-ole one-armed bandit, are purposefully designed to maximize gambling behaviour. how can we get the rat to press the lever the most times for the least amount of food pellets?

it is not an honest transaction in my mind. they are actively promoting addiction and just as bad, if not worse, than drug dealers.

 

[Jack21222]

one of the few useful things i learned from psychology class many years ago is how important it is to the business of gambling. i can't do anything but laugh when i see the industry running some gamblers anonymous type PSA, because their games, beginning with the good-ole one-armed bandit, are purposefully designed to maximize gambling behaviour. how can we get the rat to press the lever the most times for the least amount of food pellets?

it is not an honest transaction in my mind. they are actively promoting addiction and just as bad, if not worse, than drug dealers.

So the handful of people with gambling addictions should ruin the fun for the rest of us that gamble as a form of entertainment?

I'm going to have to vigorously disagree with you on that one.

 

[moose]

I've been into poker for a long time. I keep track of my winnings, and I am profitable at $25 online no limit at pokerstars, which have blinds of 0.10/0.25. After this graph, I moved up to $50 no limit, and went on a bit of a downswing. After that downswing, I withdrew my bankroll to pay for a semester of college.

I started at pokerstars yesterday. I've just been playing the play money games to get a hang of the software and the general feel of playing online as well as being able to calculate the odds quicker than I'm used to. I'm going to put 50 dollars in and see where that takes me.

I'm going to have to get used to solely betting tells and other such things. I'm excited to see what happens, but I'm not expecting anything.

 

[Jack21222]

I started at pokerstars yesterday. I've just been playing the play money games to get a hang of the software and the general feel of playing online as well as being able to calculate the odds quicker than I'm used to. I'm going to put 50 dollars in and see where that takes me.

I'm going to have to get used to solely betting tells and other such things. I'm excited to see what happens, but I'm not expecting anything.

With a 50 dollar bankroll, stick to the penny stakes. 0.01/0.02 No Limit, if you prefer tournaments, they have some 1 dollar buy-in tournaments which are pretty soft. Lack of bankroll management has caused many players, even otherwise good ones, to go broke due to variance.

 

[Cyrus]

I LOOOOVEEEE to play poker. They used to have free nightly toruneys at this bar near my house. I would go there almost 7 days a week. It had enough regulars to fill up 7 or 8 full tables. It was a ton of fun. First prize was a 25 gift certificate at the bar so you could buy food and drinks and a $25 american express prepaid card.

I tried online but lost $100 very quickly becuase I was too impatient playing online. I can't sit there and wait and wait. I have to play with actual people. I have friends in school who have made literally thousands of dollars (>30k), but they play multi table games online for hours grinding it out. Simply not worth it, IMO.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I LOOOOVEEEE to play poker. They used to have free nightly toruneys at this bar near my house. I would go there almost 7 days a week. It had enough regulars to fill up 7 or 8 full tables. It was a ton of fun. First prize was a 25 gift certificate at the bar so you could buy food and drinks and a $25 american express prepaid card.

I tried online but lost $100 very quickly becuase I was too impatient playing online.

Impatience is a dificult thing to over come. I try to entertain myself by talking **** in the chat. My favourite line is "I'd throw feces but all I have is chat". I obviously use the same sn there as here. ;-)

 

[moose]

With a 50 dollar bankroll, stick to the penny stakes. 0.01/0.02 No Limit, if you prefer tournaments, they have some 1 dollar buy-in tournaments which are pretty soft. Lack of bankroll management has caused many players, even otherwise good ones, to go broke due to variance.

Yeah that's what I'm worried about. I'll stick to the penny tables for a while until I have more money to possibly lose.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

With a 50 dollar bankroll, stick to the penny stakes. 0.01/0.02 No Limit, if you prefer tournaments, they have some 1 dollar buy-in tournaments which are pretty soft. Lack of bankroll management has caused many players, even otherwise good ones, to go broke due to variance.

This man knows of what he speaks!
The money games can be rough and you may find yourself throwing away a lot of money there. I did on my first deposit. I doubled my roll in the first day then lost it all through cockiness and poor selfcontrol. Currently I am playing mostly tourneys where lack of selfcontrol can be a good thing if properly moderated. That sounds pretty contradictory huh? Throwing caution to the wind can pay off better when you have only bought into a tourney for say a dollar than if you are playing for real money.

Edit: though the real money tends to be in the money tables instead of the tourneys.

 

[Oscar Wilde]

I enjoy playing Texas Hold em and Omaha Hi-Lo. I used to play for hours and hours in the summer on partypoker but I haven't really played much recently. I like to think I'm pretty good but when I play in person my play is usually a little worse. I try to take after the stoic movement.

 

[Loren Booda]

A woman I know claimed a few years back that her son had won something like $100,000 in online poker. Do you think she was exaggerating?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

A woman I know claimed a few years back that her son had won something like $100,000 in online poker. Do you think she was exaggerating?

Its definitely possible. Online games on Full Tilt range to $1,000 blinds (the amount you have to pay to be in on anyone hand). Tourneys range up to a million or so dollars for top prize.

edit: I was suprised myself at the amount of money that apparently flows through online poker sites.

 

[Jack21222]

A woman I know claimed a few years back that her son had won something like $100,000 in online poker. Do you think she was exaggerating?

I know quite a few online grinders that make about that much per year. Especially before the UIGEA passed a few years ago, the games were amazingly soft.

High volume players can also make a ton of money in what's called "rakeback," which is basically a bonus from the site.

I'm not quite that good, I could easily squeeze out minimum wage though, or a few dollars more, if I had to.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I know quite a few online grinders that make about that much per year. Especially before the UIGEA passed a few years ago, the games were amazingly soft.

High volume players can also make a ton of money in what's called "rakeback," which is basically a bonus from the site.

I'm not quite that good, I could easily squeeze out minimum wage though, or a few dollars more, if I had to.

I've been thinking about finding some good books on poker, as I've mentioned. Do you know of any or are you all experience? I've looked for good tutorials online but that's pretty fruitless since everyone has their own perspective and wants to be paid for it.

 

[Jack21222]

I've been thinking about finding some good books on poker, as I've mentioned. Do you know of any or are you all experience? I've looked for good tutorials online but that's pretty fruitless since everyone has their own perspective and wants to be paid for it.

Anything by 2+2 publications is reputable. I'd avoid almost anything else, in fact.

In fact, I can give you a specific recommendation, since you're a tournament player. Harrington on Hold'em.