Directed to a dick on Pokerroom.com who took more of my money than he had any right to…
You’re not a good player. You got lucky. You got lucky over and over again. You hit miracle cards against me on the river at least a dozen times. You cracked my trips at least three times by hitting a straight. You beat at least two of my straights by hitting runner-runner flushes. Your 8-3 off-suit should have been folded but you had the luck of position and you rode that shit to the turn and river to end up with a set of 8s to bust my two pair. You were playing garbage hands and staying in with shit no one who actually knew anything about poker would play. J-3 off-suit is not a quality starting hand under any circumstances and the fact that you called with it and hit two 3s on the flop does not make you Doyle Brunson.
So spare me the fucking lectures. You don’t know what cards I’m playing (my hole cards muck automatically if I lose) so you have no business yammering away about how I’m chasing losing hands or calling bets with nothing. You’re the one playing with nothing, you’re the one chasing garbage. You’re just managing to hit your cards more often than you should against me after being behind through the flop and the turn. You’re a shitty player, you think luck is skill, you have no fucking clue what you’re doing and fuck you, fuck your skanky mother who birthed you, and I only hope I’m around when your luck turns to see you start whining like a little bitch when actual good players take all your money away.
I feel your pain on this one, Otto. I hate those rare instances when I lose to a lower rated chess player. The post-mortem analysis is almost unbearable. The little shit starts slinging pieces around in absurd combinations, “Maybe you should have tried this…”. Gah. Maybe I should have just not gone to sleep.
It’s players like him that made me stop playing money tables and play tournaments only. I also pretty much gave up on limit games even in tournaments NL or PL let you drive those players out more often.
Minor point: if you go to showdown, all he has to do is check the hand history, which will show him your cards even if you muck.
Poker is not really a game of chance. There is a not-insignificant element of chance, but if it were really a game of chance, we would not see the same faces winning repeatedly.
Well, yes, it is a game of chance. Though poker, esp Texas Hold-'em, does require a higher level of skill than other games, you’re still dependant on the community cards. It does take a level of skill to know which pockets to keep and how far to follow it, but that’s playing odds, and sometimes if you’re lucky you get an opponent you can read.
But boil it down to the basics, and you’re betting on the chance a card combo will be turned that gives you the best hand.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s the fact that it’s close to 4, but I saw the subject of the OP as being confused by the difference between winning due to luck and winning due to skill. If it were a complete game of luck we wouldn’t see anyone (like Doyle Brunson, for example) with ten WSOP bracelets and 3 championships. This particular fellow happened upon a great string of crap-start quality-end hands and thinks that he had some influence upon what is ultimately chance.
One part that isn’t chance, and to which Otto gave direct reference, is knowing a crap start when you see it. King 4 unsuited is crap, yet one gets the impression from the OP that this fellow would have kept that hand and, very possibly, happened upon King 4 on the river or as the last two cards.
Now, what this guy needs is to go to next year’s WSOP thinking he’s going to get all the cards he thinks always come to him, enter a few no-limit tournaments … and be totally fucked when he plays his 5 2 unsuited and bets all his chips, then ends up with 5 2 8 9 J 7 K. Better still if this can happen after he’s gloated once or twice.
On the “plus” side, however, this guy is not learning how to play, he is learning that he needn’t ever throw a hand away. Given the tendency at first to not want to throw a single hand away, this reinforces a bad strategy that will be all the more difficult for him to drop once he starts to see that keeping 5 2 unsuited does not give him a 50% chance of winning. When the cards stop going his way (and Law of Averages says they will), the reaction will be interesting.
iampunha, that’s what I meant by it being a game of chance. It is common for someone to chase bad hands and win when a more experienced player knows it’s best to fold. Hence the term “Beginners Luck”.
Over the course of extensive play, **otto’**s opponent would lose his shirt. However, sometimes the cards fall right and you can make a killing without knowing a flush from a full house.
The point was, with otto being the better poker player and knowing how to play the odds of any given hand, over time he will beat out the insurgent. Anyone gambling to win knows you have to take wins and losses in the timeframe of months, or even years to see meaningful gains. Sometimes you just play someone that is going to win.
Oh, otto, believe me when I say I know how you feel. About 6 months ago my roll went from $1100 to $45 (real money) in 90 minutes chasing a player. Just wasn’t my night. :mad:
I know where you are coming from Otto , but try to be grateful that players like this guy exist. If there were no idiots who will play garbage hands and then chase them when they miss the flop, it would be harder for the rest of us to win. Sure they can infuriate you in the short term, but you can only hope that this gut turns up on the same table as you again and again, because someone will take him to the cleaners at some point.
Of course, I would probably feel differently if the last tournament I played, someone raised UTG with what turned out to be 10 6 suited. I called on the button with pocket tens, and the guy had the misfortune for his attempted steal to hit the flop when the board came 10 8 2. I’ll be having all your chips then…
Otto, just take solace in the fact that in the long run, you’re winning money from players like him. It’s annoying for the moment, but if he goes on playing like that, the odds are simply stacked up against him. Keep playing tight with the occasional bluff and you’ll keep making a profit.
Oh, and poker isn’t a game of chance in the long run. If you play one hand, sure, that’s luck. If you play a thousand, there’s next to no luck involved.
I just needed to say that the OP (and the subsequent posts) are very much like those bridge columns you see with the comics, in that they’re entirely in English, and yet I can’t figure out a friggin word of it.
Right. Each site has its own deposit methods. Most take credit cards but a lot of US card companies have blocked cardholders from depositing on gambling sites because a lot of people have lost a bundle and then disputed the charges, claiming that Internet gambling is illegal and thus the debt is unenforceable.
If that’s how you’re playing it then I’m not surprised at the hits you’re taking to your bankroll. You’re playing the cards and not the other players. Poker isn’t about who has the best cards. It’s about getting your opponents to believe you have the best cards whether you do or not, or convincing them that they have better cards when they don’t. Good poker is as much about betting as it is about hitting cards. If you’re putting money in the pot based solely on your odds of having the best hand, and you’re not employing betting strategies, then you’re going to get steamrolled. Have you never bluffed or semi-bluffed? Or checked a good hand to trap your opponent into betting? Or slow played a big hand to set your opponent up?
Part of the problem is that I can’t really afford to play very high limits so I get stuck with a lot of people who have the attitude of “it’s only a quarter to call” so they’ll stay in with crap hands more often than not. I don’t see the sense in throwing away money on hands that have very little chance of going anywhere, even if it is only a quarter or whatever. This idiot last night was calling with almost any two cards, getting stupid lucky with the board, and as a result thinks he knows how to play poker. It really bothers me to see stupidity rewarded, especially when the reward is coming out of my pocket.
Of course another part of the problem is that I broke my cardinal rule and played on a Saturday night. Always a big mistake as the reckless drunken idiots are so often out in force.
sigh…I’m sorry, Otto. Assholes like this are the reason I only play in brick and mortar card rooms. It is impossible to bluff against a bad player, and that means I have to adjust my play to way too tight for my liking. TellMeI’mNotCrazy, the worst part of it is that not only did this newb take Otto’s money, he had the balls to try to teach him what cards to play, when Otto’s been playing serious poker for several years, whereas the newb has probably watched three episodes of World Poker Tour, decided it was easy, and plays like a maniac on a few online sites.
What can I say? I think it’s both good and bad for the game. It’s definitely forcing me to be more patient, I’m more disciplined in my play. OTOH, it takes longer to build my bankroll, and I have to play fewer hands and wait for the nuts. I play 7 stud, and occasionally Omaha. If I ever get the urge to play Hold 'Em, I just walk past the table and watch for a few minutes. And then go back to my stud game.
Otto, I shared your frustration with the limit games, as that will happen again and again. Sometimes it even makes sense for bad players to chase long shot hands, you can’t raise past a certain point, and the pot odds remain acceptable for them to make bad calls.
I switched to no limit Sit and Go’s and have found it to be much easier to win consistently. You control the bet so you can make it very expensive for them to chase. If they want to call K4 you can make them pay for it. Since I have made the switch from cash games to tournaments my bankroll has been much more stable, and I feel that it is a better way to develop my skills. Good luck!
