Any poker players here?

[pokerfan]

OK, I play a lot of cards, but just discovered Texas Hold'em 18 months ago. I'm no high roller. I play low limit and regular low buy-in tournaments. I'm up about $2K since embarking on this game, so like I said I'm no high roller. I'm not wagering the nest egg or house on this stupid game. It's just for fun. But I finally have hobby that pays money instead of the other way around.

So last month I enter a satellite tourney at the local cardroom where the grand prize was a seat at the World Series of Poker Main Event where the buy-in is $10K and this year the grand prize is expected to be around $10M.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSOP

Anyway, the buy-in for this satellite was $30. Anyway I survived the first two rounds and last Sunday I found myself in the final tourney of fifty players. Long story short, I finished in fifth place for $1,000. It's been three days now and I still don't know if I should dance or cry.

I don't feel that I played my best and I know I made several crucial errors. But I got a decent payday and learned some lessons and probably improved my play.

But, dammit. I really wanted that seat in the big tourney!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. I play, but I'm a definite novice.

And if you don't want the $1,000, I'll take it! :D

[pokerfan]

2. LOL

At this stage of my game I'm better off with the one grand. I now have about a three grand bankroll to test myself in some larger games.

Had I won the WSOP entry, my odds would have been slim to even finish in the money. Last year they had 5,619 entrants and paid just the top 560 players.

I guess I'll take the one grand.

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. But you came out ahead! Congrats!

MrG and I go to tourneys. He's come in 1st three times (prize ranged from $1000-$2500), 2nd quite a few and then no places. He's really good. Me? I have no patience to wait for a great hand. :)

I keep trying to get him to buy into one of the WSOP tournaments when they come to town. :hi:

[pokerfan]

4. He should try it (and you and I have talked poker here before)

The travelling WSOP satellite tourneys don't cost that much to enter.

Yeah. It takes patience. When you watch on TV they only show the exciting hands which is about one out of every ten. They don't show the hands where everyone folds to the BB. Or everyone limps and folds to the first bet.

I'm kicking myself over two things.

My only great opportunity to slow play when I had pocket nines and had a player isolated. The flop came 9-x-x. I had tripped the high card! He checked to me and I bet about half the pot. He folded. I'm not a fan of slow playing except in certain situations. This was one of them! I should have given him a chance to catch up. And I knew that! I just had a brain fart. Had he paired even one of his likely hole cards (A-K-Q-J-T), I might have busted him.

The other one was late in the tourney, letting myself get blinded down to just a few big blinds. When it got down to 5x to 10x I should have been looking for any two cards to move all in with.

But in my defense, the big blinds were $20K with about $500K on the table split among five players. Not really a situation where you can wait for good cards.

[ScreamingMeemie]

6. He's completely into it...has gotten the info on them, and has friends

who play in the satellite tournaments. He likes playing online play money, and tried the real $$ ones once, and didn't really care for it. Hard to read people online. :D We've been playing Hold'em as a hobby for awhile, and it is very addictive. It will only get worse. ;)

[pokerfan]

9. Find a local B&M game

And find a local B&M (brick & mortar) game. I cut my teeth playing the local VFW game. You get valuable experience playing against real people.

Yet you can get reads on people online. Mostly in how they alter their betting patterns. I have two sets of hands depending on position. But it's either limp or raise 3x the BB. Too many people vary their raises based on the strength of their hand.

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. We've been doing this for quite some time.

I think he's got it by now. ;) I'll put it this way, I won't play a game against my own husband anymore. I tease him that pretty soon his friends won't either. :rofl:

MrG got me into it in 2004. I called it "Texas 2-step" when I first started playing. :rofl:

We've found online playing to be quite different from real life tourneys. We practice online and then take it on the road. He's been playing for quite a few years now.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Do Not Beat Yourself Up

In Hold 'Em, there is a substantial element of chance. Everyone, and i mean everyone, makes mistakes. It doesn't matter if you're Fegruson or Ledderer, who are math whizzes, or Ivey who is a people reader. Everyone makes mistakes.

Fifth place is great, and you came out $970 ahead. Dance. Don't cry.
The Professor

[pokerfan]

7. I know

And this is just a hobby to me. But to come so close is devastating. But next time (and this was my first time playing for the WSOP) I will be stronger. And then I can represent the DU Louge on ESPN.

The last month I had been dreaming about geting seated next to Doyle or Hansen or Lederer or Ivey or even Hellmuth or Matusow.

Or even Jennifer Tilley. :)

Funny story from the tournament. I was getting shotstacked early on and was looking for some cards. I limped with Q-T and got raised all in. The guy raising me was Asian, and I don't have a racist bone in my body, but it was just so freaking intimidating. In my neck of the country we don't have any diversity. This guy was like Phil Ivey staring me down. I reverted to Doyle's SuperSystem where he said a lot of tells are subconcious. I was shortstacked but I had this guy covered. Now I'm not a mathematical idiot with a four year degree in electrical engineering.

The hand before this one was AA vs. KK and I commented that the AA was an 80% winner preflop. This guy corrected me, saying it was an a 81.5% winner. I'm like, OK if you say so. So anyway, I'm sitting there with my QT suited which frankly looked pretty good in light of the hands I had been getting. But it's not much better than than the "computer hand" the most avererage 50-50 hand in hold'em. My reasoning was if he had AA or KK he had me. If he had QQ, he still had me but that was less less likely since I had one of the Q's. (I just looked it up, 99 is a 72% winner against any other single random hand.)

But as it turned out I had two overcards to his pair making it basically a coin flip. But at that point I was willing to gamble and he was in an even worese position than me, stackwise. Well I caught a Queen and it was over. Then he went on one one of those classic Phil Hellmuth rants. "How could you make that call?"

The classic reponse is "How could you make that bet?"

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Actually You Beat Him Because, . . .

. . .he was too wrapped up in the probabilities. It's good to know those, and i can calculate them in my head too, but poker is a feel game. It's not roulette. Odds are fine when playing in computer tourney, but face to face, he relied too much on the numbers.

That'll teach him!
The Professor

[Kingofalldems]

8. The guy who won the WSP 3 yrs. ago

Was the luckiest sob I've ever seen. His name was Moneymaker I think. He has been busted out of every
tournament since then (At least the ones I have watched). My point is, even a novice can win with some skill and a lot of luck. Keep trying.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. No He Hasn't

Moneymaker has finished at the final table in at least 5 tournaments since then. He was 6th or 7th in the Player of the Year standing last year.
The Professor

[Kingofalldems]

15. Wow, I did not know that!

Knock me over with a feather---I've seen him in about half a dozen tournaments since he won and he busted out early each time. He looked like a rank amateur, but maybe I just caught him on a bad day or days. Still say he had incredible luck to win that WSOP, but a win is a win.

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. Chris Moneymaker is the most flamboyant POS I've ever seen

playing that game. I laugh my little head off everytime he goes all in and loses.

[pokerfan]

14. Chris Moneymaker

If I ever won the WSOP, I would fade into oblivion.

$10M? Thank you very much! Here is my Swiss Numbered Account.

Seriously, you would never see me again.

I would surface here, once I've made my new home, wherever. Monaco, perhaps.

But you would never see my fat face on PokerSuperstars commercials, no matter the money. Oh, I would still play cards (because I fucken love it) but you would never know it was me. I would be the ghost and simply disappear.

But that fantasy will have to wait another year.

Unless I get lucky on some freeroll in the next month.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

16. You keep on thinking that.

And you're WAY WAY off on Moneymaker.