Sorry…I read that wrong… I just glanced down to see J T 9 9 8 and read those as the table cards from left to right, forgetting the T 9 8 came out first. Going into fourth street, opponent had approximately a 32% chance of hitting his 6 or J on the last two cards (actually, closer to 28%, since one of the Jacks is out, but he doesn’t know this), so the play wasn’t that crazy.
I don’t know if I’d have bought the flop, but I could see staying in against a little reraise with an open draw to the turn. Past that, yeah, he got lucky, and should have laid it down. Happens, but neuro’s dead right–homeboy needs to shut the fuck up if he’s going to be playing hunches.
I know how to play, but I’m no poker player. I play with some friends of mine for small stakes from time to time. Learning to play poker well is something that crosses my mind from time to time, but for some reason is never quite compelling enough.
Just for fun, I calculated the odds:
Pre-flop, neuroman is up 69.8% to 30.2%
After the flop comes down, he’s down to 67.6% to opp’s 32.4%
After the turn, it’s neuroman favored with 77.3% to opp’s 22.7%
So, going into the river, opponent had better than one in five chance of drawing to beat neuroman.
Last summer I was at a casino in Calgary, playing BlackJack and the BITCH of a dealer gave people shit for hitting when they “shouldn’t” and staying when they “shouldn’t”.
She even said to me - after the house won on a hand - that I had screwed up the hand for everyone because I took a card when I should’ve stayed.
I don’t care what the “book” says, I hit when I want to, and I stay when I want to - I think I had a 14 or something … It’s a $2 table for Christ’s sake … no-one else at the table even cared.
Hee hee … the girl beside me was such a ditz … she had an Ace and a 2, so she stayed, thinking she had 13. Which she did, but of course, she also had 3 … it struck us as funny … mainly because the dealer just about had a FIT!!!
What in the hell is a T? A teaspoon? Royal Taxidermist? Tooth Fairy?
My understanding is that it’s introducing unnecessary noise and chaos into the system. Players playing meaningless bets clutter the table and distract the dealers and pit bosses, and make it easier for someone to pull a scam. In other words, they want only players who want to play the game, whether well or badly; if you’re not playing the game, you might be up to no good.
For obvious reasons, casinos can’t even allow the con men to THINK they can get away with scamming the house or other players, because there’s a million idiots out there who will try.
The key is that it’s not 50/50, it’s more like 49/51, or whatever, with the payout. And there’s no point at which repeating negative expectation bets become a positive expectation.
What essentially happens is: there’s an X/Y chance that you’re going to come out ahead a betting unit. But there’s also a (much smaller) Y/X chance that you’ll lose a ton of money. Because it’s not 50/50, and there’s a house edge built in, Y/X is not enough to offset X/Y. In other words, you may win a buck in 998/1000 sessions, but the other 2 sessions you’re going to lose $1000. You expect to lose $1002 for everyone one thousand sessions. But because you’ll win (a tiny amount) a whole lot of times for every time you lose, it gives the false appearance of being a good strategy.
Numbers made up, of course, for demonstration purposes, and I probably explained it incorrectly because I haven’t done much of the sleeping thing lately and my brain isn’t fully functional, but there you go.
Oh, I have no problem with it, as such. I think it’s silly and roll my eyes mentally :p… it only gets on my nerves when some retard berates me because he’s too dumb to understand basic stuff.
Ten. It would ruin the notation system to write “10” as it would be the only two digit card identifier.
All bets are allowed in roulette. However, when the table is busy, sometimes they disallow inside and outside bets. In other words, you can either play the inside, or the outside, but not both. It has nothing whatsoever to do with some combination being “good”.
You can look for tendencies in a wheel, btw. If you know the layout, you can (extremely rarely) find a wheel that has a bias toward some quarter of the wheel. In such a case, you would be best served covering that entire section with as few bets as possible. Of course, the layout is such that it is no easy feat to cover a contiguous section of the wheel.
Still, I enjoy playing wheel sections sometimes just for fun.
I don’t want to be telling you your business, but that’s a perfect opportunity to leave the table and speak with the floor manager. Oh, you can go nuclear and talk to the floor manager without leaving the table.
I’ve done that before, for something similar. Read the dealer the riot act to the floor, with the other players corroborating. The dealer was removed from the table and I was comped for dinner with apologies.
The managers know what side the bread’s buttered on, even if the dealers are too stupid to.
Oh, and regards to the Martingale, it has nothing to do with unlimited bankroll. It is possible, if unlikely, that you will never win any bet for the rest of your life. Ever. That’s because a lifetime of gambling still falls into the statistical category of the “short term”.
It’s all about realization. After several losses in a row, you have already realized the unusual trend you are trying to capitalize on. You missed your chance. That’s the real meaning of independent trials.
I’m with friedo, knowing nothing about Poker.
But I have a question – if playing poker in a casino, what’s the benefit to the casino? Doesn’t the money just change between the players? How does the casino get its cut, particularly if they’re providing the dealer?
In low to medium limit games, the casino takes a “rake” or a cut out of every pot. This is something like 5% of every pot up to a maximum of $4 but there are other ways of doing it too. In higher limit games there is often a time charge. Each player puts in $5 or so every half hour.
Poker makes the casino the least amount of money per square foot of of casino floor space of any game. That’s why most LV casinos have very small poker rooms or none at all.
Haj
I would think in Poker it would be useful to play hands you shouldn’t, so to speak, so as to not be predictible. Lose or play bad hands in the short run for a long run advantage.
If you’re playing in a low limit game, most players would be too stupid/oblivious/green to realize that you were doing this. There are a few moves that you can make but for the most part you just play the probabilities. The saying is: you can’t bluff an idiot.
At higher limits, with better players, this can be a good move.
Haj
You’re correct. This is certainly a decent long-run strategy in poker. Bluffing is an integral part of the game. If you only play hands that are “winners,” and people pick up on the fact that you never bluff, you’re not going to win a lot of money.
You don’t play the cards in poker. You play the people.
At low limits, particularly in a place like Vegas where you are unlikely to see the same person for more than a few hours, you do play the cards. People just don’t tend to pay enough attention to notice any trends that you may or may not have. This is a good thing. You are making money because other people are making probabalistical mistakes and you aren’t.
At higher limits, most people there will know all of the odds and will not make very many mistakes so you do have to play the people. This is particularly true with no limit or pot limit games.
Haj
Varying from optimal play for deception purposes is very important when playing high limit games against good players, or when you play against the same people every night.
But what you’re doing is not bluffing. A bluff is betting a poor hand, hoping to win the pot without having to show it. When you play marginal hands, you don’t mind showing them. That’s kind of the point. So basically you play them like any other hand - you hope to make a big hand starting with bad cards, to catch your opponent unawares.
This is important against good players because otherwise they will run all over you when the flop comes up with cards they know couldn’t have hit your hand. For instance, an ultra-conservative player is guaranteed not to have a four in his hand if he’s playing from early position. He won’t play 44, or 45s, or A4s. If you know this, and the flop comes up 443, you can steal the pot from him, knowing that the best possible hand he’s going to show you is an overpair, and it’s more likely that he’s got something like AK and will fold to a bet.
So occasionally, you want to play a 44 or a 43s from early position. These are not BAD hands, but they aren’t great. They have one advantage in that they are relatively easy to play. You’re either going to flop a set, or a straight or flush draw, or you can get out of the hand. This minimizes the disadvantage of being out of position. In fact, a very good player against a weak field may make a small profit off of hands of this class over the long run, but most will break even or lose a little on them. That’s not why you play them - you play them to increase the profit you make on your other hands.