November 08, 2005
But that's Pokerparty, and you ought to snap enough bluffs off in situations like these to make calling worthwhile in the long run. Whenever an opponent confesses that he put you on a single hand rather than a range of equally likely possibilities given your action before and on the flop, you can assume that while your opponent is thinking about your hand, he's probably doing so in a fairly simplistic manner.
Find out how they resist the temptation to play marginal hands in bad position. Learn how they keep from going on tilt, and discover how they exploit the table when they have the best of it. A friend of mine who is a very successful mid-limit hold'em player immediately gets up from the table and walks around whenever he takes a bad beat. Sometimes he walks around the casino, other times I've watched him walk the parking lot. But it allows him to cool down and regain control of his emotions.
There are two Pokerparty players to act after me, and I believe one of them will cold-call the raise and the other will release his hand. Moreover, I expect the small blind to either call or reraise. Thinking I have only two outs and may not win even if I catch another Nine, I decide to fold my hand. Was this the correct play, based on my analysis of the other players?
- Moreover, many of the money winning and money-saving skills demonstrated by superior Pokerparty players are neither as dramatic as a Kobe Bryant slam-dunk, nor akin to a daring sacrifice that results in a checkmate from a chess maestro. In chess, even if we can't always assess the viability of a move while it's occurring, we have the blessing of hindsight. Every move is recorded for posterity and can be analyzed for years to come. So that grandmaster's ploy, which may have looked like the kind of blunder only a patzer would make, might really be an innovation of major proportions.
- The Official Dictionary of Poker defines implied odds as, "The ratio of what you should win (including money likely to be bet in subsequent rounds) on a particular hand to what the current bet costs." Calculating implied odds is imprecise, and really a form of reckoning at best, since one never knows how many opponents will remain in the hunt, or how much money will be wagered on subsequent betting rounds. The more betting rounds in a particular Pokerparty game - all else being equal - the bigger the role played by implied odds.
- The first column in the following chart describes some common situations you'll encounter playing hold'em, along with the chances of making your hand. Those chances have been expressed as percentages. The second column of figures shows these same percentages expressed in terms of the odds against making your hand, which have been rounded, for simplicity's sake. For example, if you are dealt a pair before the flop, you have a 12 percent chance of making a set on the flop. The odds against flopping that set are 7.5-to-1.
She had flopped a straight, had the best possible hand on every betting round, and never raised me once. Not even on the river, when there was no possible hand I could have held that would beat hers. The words, "Nice hand, ma'am; well played," dripping with every drop of sarcasm they usually carry when uttered at a Pokerparty poker table, came to mind, but they never escaped my mouth. Instead, as I stood there amazed, all I could say was "Wow."
A friend of mine who is a very successful mid-limit hold'em Pokerparty player immediately gets up from the table and walks around whenever he takes a bad beat. Sometimes he walks around the casino, other times I've watched him walk the parking lot. But it allows him to cool down and regain control of his emotions. Some people think its foolish, but he is a consistent winner and he's in the game every day. Many of his critics are on the rail. I've adapted this "time out" technique to suit my own style.
