Will do. I don’t have good records of the real money I spent earlier this week, and submitting play money tables is just silly because it’s unrealistic… but when I play again this weekend I’ll keep some hand histories.
Went to the tent casino tonight to overlook the poker tables. Pretty much as I expected.
Now a question. How much is the minimum you’d consider bringing to a 3/6 table? I’ve only got about $60-80 I can spend/lose at poker, is it worth playing 3/6 on that? I’m a pretty tight player… will I probably be drained out of $70 before I can expect to make some hands?
Oh, and, is there any advice you can give me for my first time out for real casino type poker? Either strategy or ettiquette.
That’s far too little. If that’s all you can afford to spend on poker, you can’t afford to play poker. You’ll be playing with scared money, and you’ll feel bad if you lose it. And there’s an excellent chance that you will lose it. $60 downswings in a 3-6 game are commonplace. So are $200 downswings.
If you want to play for real money, you could always play at one of the $.50/$1.00 games at a place like partypoker.com
Well, it’s not that I’m strapped for cash so much as I’ve run out at this particular moment. It won’t hurt me to lose $70-80, I just don’t have more at the moment. In a few weeks I’d be able to spend a lot more, but then the opportunity is gone.
I may just stick to the online poker sites, then… I wanted to get a taste of the real thing, but it can wait.
But while we’re at it, what would you consider the minimum to bring to a 3/6 table?
Well, my personal minimum would be 30 big bets, or $180. Ideally, 50 big bets would make a better playing bankroll.
That’s for the session. Before I’d play 3-6 regularly I’d have to comfortable with the idea of losing $1000. Not that I expect to, but then going up or down by $200-$300 won’t cause me to play scared, either.
Ah, I don’t have the budget to comfortably lose $1000.
I suppose I’ll stick to $.50/$1 games and pick up what I can. Thanks for the info. Just wish I could afford face to face poker.
I don’t know how things are where you are, but in the UK casinos often run £50 buy in games: you bring £50 to the table, if you run out of chips you get up and leave.
Partypoker has play-money NL ring games and tournaments, though the latter are very hard to get into since there’s only a handful running at a time.
Large bets are used on both the turn and the river.
In addition to Sam Stone’s recommendations I would note that on any given hand you should have at least enough chips to cover the maximum number of bets. This would be $72 in 3/6. You don’t want to miss out on any action if you hit a monster hand.
Lee Jones’ book Winning Low-Limit Hold’em has good basic strategies as well as a section on etiquette. It would be a good investment if you plan to start playing for money.
I play online for a living myself and can say that most all the sites are honest, cashouts are easy, and cheating is not rampant. I’ve played at most of the online sites and regularly play at Ultimatebet, Partypoker, Totalpoker, and Pokerstars (all excellent sites)
To address a couple of points:
-
Play money tables are not going to compare to real money. The games are mostly just a bunch of yahoos hitting the raise button until the hand is over and they see who won. Sometimes you can get enough “serious” minded players at one table to make some type of game, but that is rare.
-
To anyone really interested in learning the game, especially big-bet (no limit and pot limit) tournaments, I would recommend a membership at pokerschoolonline.com. Membership is $15 a month and they run around the clock tournaments in a variety of poker games (big bet and limit, Holdem, Omaha, 7 stud). They also offer a variety of lessons written by top professionals, who serve as “instructors” at the school, as well as a community forum where the students discuss topics themselves. I’ve been a member for almost two years and it is a great place to learn or improve your poker game. You play there on a play money bankroll, but your play is “ranked” and most players there take it seriously as real money prizes are offered to the top players each month.
-
The Myth of the Tell - Many people think that most of your decisions in poker come from seeing a flared nostril or a throbbing temple. This is simply not the case. Most of your tough decisions come from analyzing the way a hand has been played up to the point of the decision and using reasoning and knowledge of the opponent’s habits to deduce their likely holdings and then determine the mathematically correct play. Tells are a distant second to the betting patterns. Check out this article from Cardplayer for more on this: http://www.cardplayer.com/?sec=afeature&art_id=13375
-
Lastly, (I know, this is more than a couple) anyone wanting to learn the game of poker needs just to pick up a couple books on the subject to get started. Amazon stocks most poker books in print today and I would be happy to recommend some to anyone interested.
Book recommendations would be good.
If your goal is to play lower limit games online or you are just getting started learning the game:
“Winning Low Limit Hold’em” by Lee Jones
“Poker for Dummies” Lou Krieger (excellent beginner overview)
“Winner’s Guide to Texas Hold’em” Ken Warren
“Hold’em Excellence from Beginner to Winner” Lou Krieger
After a couple of introductory books and some experience playing, a must read is “The Theory of Poker” by David Sklansky. It covers nearly every aspect of the game with a focus on the mathematics of poker and its role in your decision making.
There are many excellent books to read as you move up in limits or experience. Here’s a short list:
“Middle Limit Poker” Bob Ciaffone
“Pot and No Limit Poker” Bob Ciaffone and Stuart Rueben
“Hold’em Poker For Advanced Players” David Sklansky
“Omaha Poker” Bob Ciaffone
“7 Stud Poker For Advanced Players” Ray Zee
“Hi/Lo Split Poker For Advanced Players” Ray Zee (covers both 7stud hi/lo and Omaha hi/lo)
“Improve Your Poker” Bob Ciaffone
“The Art of War” Sun Tzu
“The Psychology of Poker” Alan Schoonmaker Ph.D.
Lou Krieger recently published a book on Internet Poker as well. Although I have not read it yet, his stuff is always excellent.
Finally, I would also highly recommend “Zen and the Art of Poker” by Larry Phillips. It covers the emotional side of the game; maintaining focus, dealing with bad beats, the ability to fold, fold, and then fold some more.
Most of these can be found at Amazon. You can find all of them, and many others, at Conjelco.com, an online gambling store.
I would second Thasmodious’s reading list. With the caveat that a couple of those ‘low limit’ books have some errors in them that won’t hurt you at low limits, but will cost you when you move up.
But Sklansky, Malmuth, Zee, and Ciaffone can be counted on to give you the straight dope.
Incidentally, I tried to cash my original credit card buyin out of Ladbrokes (poker.com) yesterday, and they told me that VISA international has recently stopped allowing credits back to their customer accounts from gambling sites. That means the only way to get your money back is to register all your personal bank information (which many of us would be unwilling to do), or photocopy a ton of personal information and send it to them, and wait for a check.
I’m very annoyed about that. I have balances at four different online poker sites, and if I’ve got to go through this hassle at all of them I won’t be amused.
Senor:
Sorry for the delay in responding. I really haven’t had the time to spend much time on the various sites. I recommend that you check out a few yourself (and report back on your own preferences).
Personally, I almost exclusively play play-money 7-card stud at http://www.pokerstars.com. I just like the way it plays. The only bad thing about it is lack of users - typically only two full tables. It is my understanding that it has play-money tournaments that lead to cash prizes or entry in to cash tournaments, but you have to have a deposit to enter.
To the experienced players out there:
(mods, if this is too great a hijack, please move)
I got into a game the other day where two of the players bet/raised at every opportunity. They would hit on the river just often enough to stay solvent, or go to the bank for more free chips. What would be an effective playing strategy? (Obviously, the effective non-playing strategy is to leave the table, but I would prefer to send them off crying.)
Most of the people I play with on pokerstars are very serious about their play, even if it is only “play money”. It’s pretty easy to spot the a-holes.
And I have seen many people with upwards of 40k chips. Maybe they are pros taking a break from real money.
emolson: If a player plays every hand, and always bets/raises, and doesn’t modify their strategy based on what you do, then a winning strategy would be to play tighter than they do, so that you’re always at a statistical advantage in the hand, and then to simply check-call to the river, and to raise when you think you have the best hand.
Whether this is the optimal strategy depends on the exact nature of the player, and whether or not other people are in the pot. This last factor gets a lot of people into trouble when playing against ‘maniacs’ - they forget that there are other people in the hand as well, equally aware that the person betting is a maniac.
At a full table with a couple of maniacs, where there is no chance to bluff, and every hand costs a lot of bets, the correct strategy is to simply play tight before the flop, and then if you can, when you make big hands to let the maniac bet for you so that you can trap other people who are calling the maniac. Check-raises become very useful.
Thanks for the advice. How would you do it in 7-card stud with 6-8 players? All I can think of fold, fold, fold until I get trips on the deal.