This time I had 10s in the hole and the flop came 10-10-Q. I bet out and they called. K came on the turn, so I set a trap. Sure enough, someone bet, I raised and both other players called. They folded to my bet on the river, so I didn’t even have to show my cards. 😀
I need to hit up a casino, cuz I’ve been hot lately!
I just placed 3rd in a no-limit sit ‘n go tournament on UB. It cost $5.50 to enter the tournament and I received $10 for placing, so I came out ahead. I played flawless poker pretty much the whole time. The only reason I bowed out was because I was slow-played 2 hands at the end. The player didn’t bet or raise with ladies in the hole and then didn’t bet or raise with tree 7s a few hands later. I’m improving and that is what counts.
I flopped 4 of a kind just now for the first time ever. I had a pair of sixes in my hand and the flop came 6-6-2! One player kept calling me down to the river, so it was a nice payoff. Two hands later I had a pair of fours and folded preflop because of the raising. Flop came down 5-5-4, so I woulda flopped a full house!
Update: I kept playing well after that. I played for about an hour tonight and ended up ahead by over $11, playing .25/.50 limit hold’em. That’s over 20 big bets per hour.
A historic day in the world of poker. The world famous Binion’s Horseshoe Casino was closed late yesterday. Get the full details by reading the article. I hope they don’t have to move the WSOP somewhere else this year.
No, poker is not exciting. Go to a casino and I’ll bet all of my chips that most people can’t sit there and watch a poker table for two hours straight. But when it’s on TV we could watch it all day long. It’s exciting on TV. So what’s the difference? You can find poker on TV all the time now, but why?
Everyone can learn to play poker. We see the professionals on TV playing and we can actually play the same game at home, in a casino, in the break room at work, or anywhere we have a deck of cards. It’s different from watching football, basketball, auto-racing, and other sports because we can’t go and compete in these sports. Poker is the only game that I know of where anyone can enter the championship. I can take $10,000 to Las Vegas, buy a seat in the WSOP, and play against the top professionals in the world. I can’t walk into the Super Bowl and throw a touchdown pass.
The poker they show on TV is exciting because of the commentators and the drama. They only show us the big hands; the hands with a lot of betting and drama to them. It wouldn’t be very exciting if they showed the hands where everyone folded before the flop, leaving the player in the big blind to only win the small blind’s bet. It’s also exciting because there is so much at stake. You see pots for tens of thousands of dollars all the time, and it only gets higher as players are knocked out of the tournament. It’s exciting to watch someone make a gut call that could cost them thousands of dollars in prize money.
Over the past year, the number of poker shows has increased because of the demand. We want to watch poker played at a high level. We want to watch a “dead money” amateur like Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP.
During the Thanksgiving holidays, I played poker with friends and family a couple of times a day. It really wore me out from playing. So I decided to take some time off. Up until this past week, I had only played online once in the last month. It was a much needed break.
When I was home for the holidays, I started to play online a little bit and have once again found my game. I came out ahead during every session that I played. I’m still playing the .25/.50 cent tables and hopefully will move up to .50/$1 in the next month. I was coming out ahead by over 10 big bets per hour. I was getting good cards, but for the first time since I’ve been playing, I really felt in the zone. I was reading people’s hole cards really well and making good poker decisions. The increase in my bankroll reinforces this fact.
I’m beginning to really hate flush draws. I never seem to get them, but when I’m up against someone else, they play it to the river and hit quite a bit. Or maybe I just remember the times that I do get beat with a flush that hits on the river. It not only happens to me online, but in home games too. I got beat by Dad 3 times on a flush that he hit on the river while at home. We had a few tournaments at family gatherings and he even beat me twice in one tournament with a river flush. We were all-in both times! I guess maybe I’m not a No-Limit player. I do prefer playing limit poker, which is exclusively what I play online.
For New Year’s, my Mom and Dad were heading up to St. Ignace to the casino and I was invited to go. I decided to turn them down and go out with a few friends instead. We had a good time, but after hearing how my dad won $160 playing Texas Hold’em, I wish I had gone. He knows poker, but hasn’t been a student of the game like I have. I know that I could have won a few hundred that night with all the fish throwing money around in celebration of the new year. There’s always next time!
In the game of life…play the cards you’re dealt.
-Rounders
I’ve been enjoying my holiday break a great deal. At the same time, I miss being back in Saginaw at my apartment, but this is a nice little get-away. I’ve been sleeping in until at least 10 every morning and I didn’t even leave the house yesterday.
The big project yesterday was to get a page up with poker chip tricks tutorial, and so far the page is getting a lot of attention. According to my web hosting stats, almost 500 visitors stopped by my site yesterday, which is amazing since I’ve never had 200 visitors in a single day before. My brother Isaac helped me out by doing most of the camera work on the videos. We used my digital camera and it worked out pretty well. Once the videos were done I wanted to compress them a little bit and I removed the audio to save some space. I used a DivX 5.1.1 codec for the compression, which seems to be giving a couple of people problems viewing the videos. Later tonight I hope to work on getting another video format posted as a 2nd option.
Update: Those having problems are now able to view the videos after installing the DivX 5.1.1 codec, so I will not be adding a 2nd video option for now.
Today I went and contributed to the Ryan family college fund. Doc. Ryan is my dentist, who I’ve been visiting frequently since I got my own dental insurance. I think I’ve bought half the equipment in their office by now. They filled two big cavities on upper left teeth. The numbing is starting to wear off and I can feel some pain coming on. It’s funny how my teeth never hurt until after I go to the dentist, even though my chart shows red marks on just about every tooth. As a kid my teeth were always hurting, but over the past 5 years or so I really haven’t had any pain. Maybe I’m simply used to it.
In a few minutes we are off to Cheboygan for Isaac’s varsity basketball game. I’m not even quite sure who they play, but hopefully the Hurons will come out on top. It’s a mini tournament they are playing in, so I’ll be going back tomorrow for either the championship or the consolation game.
When I get home tonight I’ll be working on the poker chip trick videos like I mentioned earlier. Maybe Isaac will even want another ass-whoopin in March Madness. I’ve only lost one time so far in the game…any challengers?
When I was learning how to do tricks with my poker chips, I had a hard time finding information on the different tricks. In order to help others in the future, I’ve created a page with explanations and videos for the tricks that I know how to do. The tricks are:
I’ve run a few home poker tournaments (playing no-limit Texas Hold’em) and they’ve went quite well. I figured someone else could benefit from the rules and setup that I use. My rules/setup is a compilation from various things I found on forums, newsgroups, and websites.
I’m posting this as a guide so that people don’t have to go through all the work that I had to when I wanted to setup tournaments. It’s meant as a simple starting point, change it to fit your situation.
Shuffle Up and Deal!
| Players | $10 | $20 | $50 | $200 | Total |
| 4 | 45 | 30 | 25 | 11 | $4,500 |
| 5 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | $4,000 |
| 6 | 30 | 25 | 16 | 8 | $3,200 |
| 7 | 28 | 21 | 14 | 7 | $2,800 |
| 8 | 24 | 18 | 12 | 6 | $2,400 |
The A will be the button (first to deal), deuce will be small blind
(SB), 3 is big blind (BB), etc.
bets before seeing their cards. The 1st is the SB and the 2nd is the
BB.
seat.
would have had it next and there isn’t a SB on this hand (SB
moves into the empty seat). On the following hand, the button would
wind up in the empty seat. The player who just had the BB would have
SB, and the BB moves on normally to the next player.
next if nothing had happened. He will be the BB on the next hand.
The SB is always on the button and the other player is the BB.
cards are dealt.
called before dealing each round of card(s).
to each player.
deals 3 cards (flop) in the middle of the table face up.
and the hand is re-dealt. The button does not move.
to the table. The hand is not re-dealt.
the card remains as is. It will not be burned.
bet or raise shows his/her cards first. If it’s checked around, the first
person to act (left of dealer) shows first.
his cards.
raise.
to first, the button acts first before the flop, and the BB acts first
after the flop.
into the post after the betting round is complete. This will eliminate
some confusion that may occur with no limit betting.
| Time |
SB |
BB |
| 20 minutes | $10 | $20 |
| 20 minutes | $20 | $40 |
| 20 minutes | $30 | $60 |
| 20 minutes | $40 | $80 |
| 20 minutes | $60 | $120 |
| 20 minutes | $100 | $200 |
| 20 minutes | $200 | $400 |
| 20 minutes | $300 | $600 |
| 20 minutes | $400 | $800 |
is a split pot, not equally divisible by the number of players in
the hand, the “extra” chips will be awarded to the player
closest to the left of the button.
the hand with the most chips gets the higher finish and awarded the
corresponding prize pool for that placement.
I ran my 2nd successful Texas Hold’em poker tournament tonight. I’m 2 for 2 at finishing out of the money. My brother finished in first, so that was good for him.
I’m still pissed at myself for one particular play that I made. I had 5-6 of clubs and raised pre-flop. I got one caller. He checked after the flop brought 2 diamonds. I bluffed and went ALL IN simply wanting him to fold and give me the pot because I didn’t figure he had anything (since he didn’t bet). He hesitated and called me. He flipped over two diamonds…the Ace and something else I don’t remember. He had the nut flush draw, so I’m pretty much screwed because I had absolutely nothing! Needless to say another diamond came on the turn, he won the pot, I was left with but a few chips to my name, and now was forced into desperation mode. I was able to survive about 4 ALL IN calls after that (I really had not other choice with a very short stack as the blinds were raised). What I’m even more pissed about is that I didn’t realize something until after that stupid hand. The caller had not bet one of his hands for the entire tournament yet (even when he had something), which was about an hour at that point I think. If I had realized this, I would never had made that bet. If I would have checked or made a small bet, I would have had a good chance at winning. Live and learn I guess.
On a side note…I finished in 119th place out of 200 in the online tournament for the Super Bowl tickets. That may seem pretty bad, but the starting chip counts in this tournament were based on a qualifying point total. My starting chip count was well below the average. When the tournament started I was in 156th place…so I didn’t do too bad for having such a short stack.
Nick Momrik 