Well, I’m home for spring break, which means I’m thinking about going to the casino once while I’m here. It turns out Sandia has a $35 buy-in, $5 fee no-limit hold’em tonight starting at 7 PM. The $40 gets you $1500 in chips and there is no re-buy. Not sure what the initial blinds will be, Now, I’ve never played Texas Hold 'Em for real money before–friendly games with friends where pride is on the line, and as part of the casino computer game I have, but never for real money. I don’t even know if the casino will provide a dealer or if the dealer will rotate through the players. I’m not even quite sure about the strategy–I know roughly hole cards it’s worth sticking around until the flop for, but I’ve never played a whole lot of poker, especially not for real money and under these conditions. So, poker Dopers, should I give it a shot or not?
It depends. Will there be free drinks?
$40 sounds like a cheap way to spend a few minutes…
Just joking, if you feel like you’d like to try it, and can afford $40, I’d jump all over it!
Can you afford to lose the $40? Do you think you’ll have fun playing? If so, then go ahead and play. I’d advise against drinking. The casino will provide dealers. In the early going, play tight aggressive. Stick to premium hands and play them hard. After the first break, shift from survival mode to accumulation.
Good luck, let us know how it goes!
Amstel Light is a great beer for poker because you can’t get drunk even if you drink them all night. You can act drunk though…
The no re-buy works in your favor though, since you won’t be at a disadvantage to those who are willing to invest $80 or $120 for a $40 tourney.
Have fun. It’s a pretty nice card room.
And when Otto says premium hands, he means it. We’re talking pairs 10s or better, AK, AQ suited, KQ suited, and that’s about it. You can be a bit looser with that if you’re on the button, and of course you can play most anything form the small blind for cheap or big blind for free. Don’t try to get tricky with medium pairs or suited connectors, at least not until later when the reckless ones are weeded down and the people who are left should have some respect for your raises.
Break a leg, and have fun with it. Tonight, this is a game, not a way to make a living.
I wouldn’t be thinking about going if I couldn’t afford to lose the $40. If I don’t do this, I’d probably go with about $50 and play blackjack, but this sounds like fun and I think it’ll take more time. I never drink while gambling, unless Diet Coke counts. What exactly do you mean by premium hands? I know how to play Hold 'Em, I’m just not quite sure how to bet Hold 'Em. Here’s what I think I understand:
Don’t even bother to see the flop unless you have at least T/4 suited. The only exception would be if you are one of the blinds, where if you’re big blind you’ve already had to pay, so you might as well see what comes up, and if you’re small blind, you’ve already paid half, so you might as well pay the other half.
If you go from crap to gold on the flop, be careful. Maybe put a small bet out there or call if there hasn’t been a lot of raising. Don’t be afraid to fold on even a pretty good hand if it looks like other people are raising high. The same goes for the turn and the river. For example, if you’ve got two pair but one of the pair is out there in the board cards, assume that someone else has at least three of a kind. If they start raising, get out. I didn’t say the turn or the river because if you still have crap after the flop, you shouldn’t sit there throwing money away chasing flushes and straights.
Basically, I just don’t want to be a complete idiot. I have no problem with conservative play with the occasional higher gamble. If I walk away with no money but an enjoyable few hours, that’ll be fine. The problem with table games is that for the same amount of money, I could get as few as 8 bets (assuming they all lost). That means I could be done in 20 minutes or less. So that’s why I’m thinking trying the poker instead. No idea what the chip amount has to be before I could start getting some of that money back.
Are there any etiquette things I should know about? You know, things that won’t make me look like a complete rube.
You were probably writing that when JSexton posted, but I think you need to re-think your starting hand strategy, more like what he said. T 4 suited is an awful hand to start on IMHO, especially at a full table.
You may have to fold a bunch of hands, but that’ll give you a chance to observe. Observe the players, the table etiquette, the guys playing 10 4 and getting stomped, that sort of thing…
I’d recommend against it. In no-limit, you can lose your chips very quickly if you only half-know what you’re doing. If you want to play poker, see if the casino offers a $2/$4 limit game and bring $80. That should last you a good couple of hours so long as you don’t play like a maniac, even if you’re an otherwise average/somewhat below-average player.
Don’t play T4s for a bet.
Let’s see. Keep an eye on the action, and whose turn it is. Don’t bet or fold out of turn.
Don’t spend too much time agonizing over decisions; if it’s taking that long, you probably ought to fold.
Keep your bets stacked neatly.
Announce what you’re doing clearly, even though there is shorthand for some things, it’s best to be crystal-clear. For example, if you are going to raise, say “Raise $40” before moving money out. That way, if you miscounted, your verbal declaration is what counts, not the stack of chips. Oh, and be aware that the signal for checking is tapping the table. I have a terrible habit of drumming my fingers while I think, which can be mistaken for checking.
Keep the table talk down. Announcing your hand is the same as folding, as is showing your hand to another player.
Your cards speak for themseves. That is, if you flip over your cards during the showdown and announce “Pair of Kings”, and you didn’t notice the flush you made, you still get credit for a flush, assuming the dealer notices it.
Any hand which touches the muck (the discards) is dead, no matter what.
Don’t overturn the table and send chips scattering. I always get that one wrong.
T4s is junk. Take a look at the chart on the following link:
http://teamfu.freeshell.org/poker_hands.html
Tight play for you means anything between AA and KQs. You’ll be folding a lot. Get used to it.
Take another $60 and sit in on the lowest stakes ring games before the tourney. Play tight so it won’t cost you very much, but watch and learn. You’ll figure it out.
A couple of things off the top of my head:
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Practice looking at your cards without exposing them to others.
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If you are going to call or raise, say either “Call” or “Raise” before you put chips on the table. This will prevent you from string raising.
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If you do win a pot, tip the dealer (this won’t apply in the tourney, but it’s common in a ring game)
Well, I’m off. Not sure I can get in any other action before the tourney, but maybe I can. After all, worst that can happen is I’m out 40 bucks. Play it tight and if in doubt, get out.
I’ll see you guys later–and probably 40 bucks poorer. But hey, I’ve spent more money on that on food.
Just hope you don’t get on a table with some jerk that goes all-in every hand and is bluffing 9 times out of 10, but the one time you decide to call he’s not bluffing.
I played with a guy like this on saturday. Absolutely lacking any subtlety, always pushed hard no matter what was in his hand. It came down to just him and me, and he ended up winning on aggression and dumb luck. Bastard.
Man, I hate when that happens. I think those types usually lose, but not always, unfortunately.
Well, I’m back. Made it through the middle of the fourth round (blinds 200/500). I only actually got to play three hands all the way through. The blinds and occassional looking at the flop is what took me down in chips. First time, I was down to 400 (blinds 100/200), got KK, went all in, and won about 1500. Second time, got KQs, guy goes all in with QJ, I go all in, the only card that helps either of us is a Q, so I win with the K kicker. Third time, I’ve got pocket QQ, go all in (blinds 200/500) after he raises to 1500 preflop, lose to a guy with pocket KK. So I had fun, played well enough, and won my entry fee back by playing blackjack. So I had about 4 hours of fun for the price of a couple gallons of gas. Don’t know if I’d do it again any time soon though. Probably I’d just go in to play the limit 2/4 normal games if I do.
Congratulations. Sounds like you did very well for a first-time tournament player. Certainly a lot better than I did the first live tournament I played (went out the last hand before the first break).
Limit? But that’s gambling.
For serious, limit poker is a completely different game than no-limit. I’ve played a little limit and I stink on ice (although I did manage to win a limit single table tourney that I entered online by mistake; I was very drunk and I can’t remember a thing about how I played). I’d definitely suggest you read a book on low-limit holdem before putting in any serious time or money at the tables.
Good result for your first tournament. How do you feel you did? Were you unhappy about playing so tight? Or do you think it was the right way to go?
That’s a pretty admirable showing for your first time out, I’d say.
I’d like to hear more about your experience in general. I think if I had done that well, I’d be chomping at the bit to try again!
Well, the table I started at had either 10 or 11 people. I had seat 5, which put me to the right of the dealer, so I didn’t even have to contemplate playing a hand for at least 8 or 9 hands, till the big blind finally got to me. We lost a player or two fairly quickly, so it got to me a little bit quicker than it could’ve. The table got down to about 8 players, then they split us up to other tables where they had openings–somewhere in the middle of the second round, I would say. Where I wound up sitting meant that I had a while before a blind got to me, so I didn’t really play the rest of the second round. It was early in the third round where I was down to about 400 and went all in with the pocket kings. Otherwise, it was mostly just sit there and wish I would occasionally get something worth going in with, but that basically never happened. Playing as tight as I did, I outlasted more than half the field, but I don’t think I had anywhere near enough in chips to make the final 10.
I don’t know if I’d do it again. 40 bucks is awfully steep, especially with only the top 10 taking home any money. If there is another tournament organized at my school, I’d probably play that (as the entry fee for that last time was only 10 bucks). In any case, I couldn’t possibly go play at Sandia again until at least May. I can’t play Isleta’s $5 buy-in until at least May as well, but I would be more likely to go to Isleta more often with that lower buy-in, depending on what the casino fee was. Though they do have daily tournaments at Isleta every day at 2 PM, so depending on the cost, I might go try it tomorrow or Friday–though I don’t think it’d be no-limit. Problem is, their website stinks in actually being able to pull up the useful info. They’ve got some bad coding going on. Or I could try Laguna Pueblo’s casino. Problem is, I can’t get any useful information out of their website either. I still might drive down to Isleta–I’m up about 40 bucks from playing blackjack today–or even get into Sandia’s $60 game tomorrow night, with the possibility (if I win of course, which has a probability of approximately 1 mole to 1 against) of getting into a winner’s tournament in late May with a chance to get a seat in the WSOP. So basically, the question would be, if I could play for at least a couple hours like I did last night, would it be worth 20 bucks.