Poker Stars

[Dowdy]

I`ve never been much of a poker fan but when the lads on ASF started a competition I played with play money at Poker Stars for a while and about a week ago played with real money. Needless to say I lost at the tables until I found Sit n Go where I won a seat into a $250 000 prize pool game scheduled for next week. Trouble is there are thousands of other players too. Also read about games going for 14 or more hours to win. I`m up for it though and will give it my best shot.

I played in a tournament once on pokerstars where there were 25000 players. The top 50 would make it to the next round. I played for 8 HOURS!!! and guess what i came - 51, missed out on going to the next round!


On another note, anyone play poker on facebook? There's less bad beats and they have a tournament where it's 3 rounds. If you win all 3 rounds you get 500,000 chips and a draw to win a ipod touch. I won all three a few days ago so hopefully i win the touch.

Players are alot better too on facebook.

 

[white_goodman]

how much money do you need for the tournaments?

 

[havaiana]

I used to play alot of poker, if any of you guys really want to learn the game there is alot of info on the twoplustwo forum, but like the forex forums you need to identify the good posters because most of the posters are losing players.

There are alot of simularities between trading and poker, bankroll management is very important. Although it's a skill game the edges are very small and the swings are alot bigger than people realise. It's a pretty regular accurance for regular/profitable players to lose 30 buy ins at their limit, so you should not risk more than 5% of your bankroll per game, 2% is a better risk to avoid the variance.

 

[havaiana]

Also if you're signing up to any of the sites make sure you look into getting rakeback before you download the application. Basically depending on the site you can usually get about 25% of the rake sent back to you. If you sign up before doing this you can't get it. Most sites offer rakeback through their affiliates, pokerstars don't but they are still one of the best sites. They have incentives through their player points instead of rakeback. Fulltilt poker is good too, you can watch the high stake internet pro's playing no limit poker with $1,000-$2,000 blinds. Pots get over US$500,000. Internet poker is a huge industry these days.

Edit: you can usually get 100% bonus on your first deposit through affiliate sites when signing up too. Just google poker deposit bonus or rakeback to find the affiliates

 

[overhang]

Failed miserably. One player at the table was getting b.s. hands and controlled the play from open. My best hand was a Jack high flush and got beaten by the Ace high flush. Will try again and hopefully get dealt some cards next time.

Your playing way to loose by the look of it.

 

[Wysiwyg]

There are alot of simularities between trading and poker, bankroll management is very important. Although it's a skill game the edges are very small and the swings are alot bigger than people realise. It's a pretty regular accurance for regular/profitable players to lose 30 buy ins at their limit, so you should not risk more than 5% of your bankroll per game, 2% is a better risk to avoid the variance.

I was thinking of the drawdown during each game because I have periods of up to 20 hands where I get low probability cards dealt to me. This run of low probability deals is manageable until the blinds get big and then I`m forced to play or face the whittling. It`s managing these periods of drawdown (swing) that keeps one alive when they inevitably arrive during every tournament.



Whiteman .... the buy-ins vary greatly.

 

[overhang]

Everyone has periods of being card dead but its all about looking for positions to get your weaker hands in to either steal blinds or force a weak limper to fold.

 

[white_goodman]

Whiteman .... the buy-ins vary greatly.

never realised how fun it was till i played all night last night...

do they ever run play money comps?

also is there a site or somewhere where they have the probabilities of certain hands winning? still a bit 'green' and havent bothered calculating the percentages yet...

 

[overhang]

Pokerstars doesn't have that feature but there is a free program called pokerstove which is quite useful for hand odds and ranges.

 

[Wysiwyg]

never realised how fun it was till i played all night last night...

do they ever run play money comps?

also is there a site or somewhere where they have the probabilities of certain hands winning? still a bit 'green' and havent bothered calculating the percentages yet...

I`m going in a tournament with a US$2.20 buy-in at 11.15 AEST. The prizepool is US$2500 of which there will be several hundred for the winner. Players can hang around for hours or go gung-ho when the blinds are small to build a decent stack before the blinds get big.

 

[white_goodman]

I`m going in a tournament with a US$2.20 buy-in at 11.15 AEST. The prizepool is US$2500 of which there will be several hundred for the winner. Players can hang around for hours or go gung-ho when the blinds are small to build a decent stack before the blinds get big.

thats pretty cool, good luck

http://www.pokerprobability.net/calculator/texas-holdem.html just found this if anyones still noobish

 

[Wysiwyg]

thats pretty cool, good luck

http://www.pokerprobability.net/calculator/texas-holdem.html just found this if anyones still noobish

I notice the number of player on the table have a large bearing on these %`s. That`s what makes it harder. If there is one card in the deck to beat you then someone seems to have it.

 

[havaiana]

thats pretty cool, good luck

http://www.pokerprobability.net/calculator/texas-holdem.html just found this if anyones still noobish

Starting hand statistics's are not really that important, they depend more on your position and how many big blinds you have left more than anything else. Also tournaments and sit n go's are different to cash games. Sit n go's and tournaments when you're low on big blinds are pretty much solved games. You will be able to find starting hand tables on the internet that will give you the basics on this. twoplustwo is the best site in my opinion, read the stickies.

A good quick way to estimate the probabilties of a draw during the hand is to multiply your number of outs by 2 and multiply that by how many cards are left.

So you have 2 clubs and you flop two clubs. you have 9 outs to a flush. 9 x 2 = 18, x 2 (two cards to come) = 36% chance of hitting flush. This is not exactly right but always close enough.
If the turn is not a club 9 outs x 2 = 18. 18 X 1 card to come = 18% etc.

I was thinking of the drawdown during each game because I have periods of up to 20 hands

There are also alot of coinflip type hands, you play enough you will go through stages where you will lose alot of these in a row and alot of buy ins. you might think you can just fold these hands, but when there is already money in the pot it's negative expected value to fold coinlip type hands. Sometimes it's correct to get your money in when you have a very low percentage cahnce of winning depending on the pot odds.

 

[Wysiwyg]

thats pretty cool, good luck

http://www.pokerprobability.net/calculator/texas-holdem.html just found this if anyones still noobish

Knocked out at 388 from 2721 entrants. Buy-in $2.20, return on investment (gamble lol) $3.15 Payouts up to 390 so I scaped in by two.

 

[white_goodman]

Knocked out at 388 from 2721 entrants. Buy-in $2.20, return on investment (gamble lol) $3.15 Payouts up to 390 so I scaped in by two.

good effort, what would the top prizes be, or is it dependant on number of entrants?

 

[Wysiwyg]

good effort, what would the top prizes be, or is it dependant on number of entrants?

Here is the prize payout for that game. Pays to 390. Yes dependant on.

You finished the tournament in 388th place. A USD 3.15 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

 

[white_goodman]

might put $100 into an account and try some tourneys out for fun....

 

[Wysiwyg]

might put $100 into an account and try some tourneys out for fun....

I shouldn`t warn you off but I get alot of suss cards in that game. And I have lost hundreds in the past 2 weeks. If you play the few dollar to 10c games you could stretch it out. I played too high buy ins and with so many players the odds are stacked against you.

Friendly warning.

 

[white_goodman]

I shouldn`t warn you off but I get alot of suss cards in that game. And I have lost hundreds in the past 2 weeks. If you play the few dollar to 10c games you could stretch it out. I played too high buy ins and with so many players the odds are stacked against you.

Friendly warning.

i was thinking just so i could play some tournaments... isnt it just an entry fee for tournament then just play money?

 

[Wysiwyg]

i was thinking just so i could play some tournaments... isnt it just an entry fee for tournament then just play money?

Yeah the tournaments are the go with real money for a few dollars buy-in. Many many players but you see I am an absolute beginner and got to a pay out level this morning.

Let me know if you get an unusual amount of bad beats.