OK, so I’m flipping through the TV and come across the '02 WS of Poker on ESPN 15 or whatever. After watching for awhile, I have to ask: Why do they only play Texas Hold Em?
It seems kind of a dumb game for that high a level of players. I mean, it is primarily luck that determines the winner and not skill. You get 2 cards and then the 5 in the middle are common that everyone can use. So bascically you are betting on your 2 cards and hoping like hell that something good turns up. It seems professional players would want a game where your skill at bluffing and making hands out of what you have determines the winner. For example, the match I watched, one guy went in with a pair of 10’s while another went in with A-Q. You would thnk the guy with the pair has the better hand. Nope. An ace is turned up in the middle and a pair of aces wins it.
Granted, any gambling has luck involved, but with 5 cards to turn up you might as well play roulette.
Any ideas as to why this is THE game for the big boys (and girls)?
Any hold em players here that really like this game above all the others?
I’ve never played for anything bigger than matchsticks, but I’ve been told that at this level, you’re not playing the cards, you’re playing the other people. The winner will be the player that can predict his opponents the best. The cards are almost incidental.
Not that that’s really an answer, but it sounds good.
Texas Hold’em is very much a game of skill. If you don’t think so I suggest you go to a casino and play for a while and see how long your “luck” holds up. They play Hold’em because it is a game where knowledge of odds, discipline, money management and yes bluffing all will reward the superior player. This is not familiar to player who may be used to playing in home games with lots of wild cards (“OK my 5 Aces beats your Royal Flush”). I can’t really explain to you all the intricacies and subtleties of the game because they can literally take years to master. If you really want to know - learn the game and I am sure you will change your opinion. I wonder what game you would like to see or expect them to play?
There is a tremendous amount of skill required to play Texas Hold’em. In fact, it is one of the most difficult forms of poker to play at a high level.
One reason there is less luck in it than in other games is because there is two stage betting - you get to see some of your cards before investing larger amounts of money. And also, unlike stud the last card is played face up, so there is less guessing required.
Bluffing also works well in Hold’em, because the last card dealt is shown. In seven card stud, a player can have a full house without having a visible pair. So it’s tough to put an opponent on a hand. Plus, there’s a greater chance that your opponent has backed into a hand. In Hold’em, if there is no pair on the board, no one can have a full house. That allow you to narrow the possible hands your opponent could hold, and make smarter calls or more aggressive bluffs.
Also, things like playing position are more valuable in Hold’em. In stud, high hand is first to act on each round, so position changes within the hand. In hold’em, the person acting last before the flop acts last throughout the hand. This allows him to make more intelligent decisions regarding the value of his hand. For example, a hand like 4-5 suited is fine to play in late position in Hold’em, with three or four callers in front of you. But from early position, it will cost you money. Being last to act throughout a hand is a big advantage, and makes pre-flop hand selection more challenging.
Absolutely, for the kinds of reasons Sam mentions, and because it’s quickly paced (so you can play more hands, and have less downtime once you’re out of those hands).
Actually, the event has several tournaments (the schedule is here), but the only one to get any real airtime (and the one with the largest prizes and the most competitors) is the No Limit Hold 'Em tourey.
My favorite poker game, through still has to be limit Omaha Hi. Used to pay in a weekly 15/30 Omaha game that was just great.
Another nice thing about Texas Hold’em is that there is a reasonable amount of luck involved. Believe it or not, from a professional poker player’s standpoint, that’s a good thing. If the game were pure skill, the weaker players would always get beaten, and soon the games would be very, very tough. And once there are no real fish in a game, the profit capability goes way, way down.
For example, no limit Hold’em is possibly the most difficult game to play well that there is. And since you can get busted on one hand, luck plays less of a chance. A bad player can hit lucky cards all night, and a patient pro will sit there waiting to trap him in a couple of big hands, and win all the money back and then some. As a result, whenever a card room starts up a weekly no-limit game it seems to die out as all the weak players get busted quickly, and then the good players stop play to look for easier pickings in the limit games.
The other thing about luck in Hold’em is that it encourages bad players to play weak hands. “Any two cards can win” is a phrase I’ve heard many times at the card table. Usually, the guy who says it leaves broke.
I have played my fair share of Hold’em (no higher than 6/12 limit) and if you think that it’s all or mostly luck, you are more than welcome at my weekly game. So far there have some excellent detailed and correct answers to your question. Yes, luck is involved in the short term but in the long term (>10 hours or so) skill will kick luck’s ass. This is a fact.
Any sort of gambling is obviously a combination of skill and luck, whether you are betting on which raindrop slithers down the window the fastest or who is going to win the next Grand Prix.
Successful poker players, regardless of the breed of poker, are those who know the way their luck is going. I have seen professionals leave the table rather than buy in once, when they are getting no cards. Even on a small money game. That is skillful.
Last weekend I saw a man buy in twenty five times at 50 pounds of the sterling realm in the space of about two hours. He never got a card, just kept going all in with the hope of hitting something on the flop. Never happened.
That is decidedly unskillful.
The best Texas games, to my mind, are the ones with no buy ins at all. Everyone has to be more judicious than they might normally be and it makes for a tighter, more dramatic game.
Mum and Dad are on an aeroplane, as we speak, going to Las Vegas for the World Series. If they get into the final, I’m off!! Keep your fingers crossed
If you like the World Series of Poker, you’ll be interested in the [http://travel.discovery.com/fansites/worldpoker/tour.html]World Poker Tour. I love watching poker even though I don’t play and watching the best of the best is worth dealing with a Van Patten as an announcer.
This is totally wrong. There is NO WAY to know ‘which way your luck is going’. Past trends are useless in predicting whether you’ll get ‘lucky’ on the next hand or the next 100 hands.
Weak players pay attention to streaks. Good players pay attention to the other players at the table.
We have all seen players making the most ridiculous flops, playing (for some reason) with a two and an eight unsuited and then finishing with a house of eights, or even four.
The next night, that same player, if he gets a roasting earlier on, will wind his neck in and only play if he has a high pair or two high, suited cards.
If you have never seen players doing this, then maybe you play a different game to me.
If skill involves prediction of your opponent’s actions, couldn’t I win the World Series of Poker by playing randomly, or introducing a random decision process into the key decisions?
Wouldn’t that give me a 1/n chance of winning the World Series of Poker, where n is the number of players and me being a complete noob?
Hmmm how to explain. I play alot of Hold 'em and agree it is the least sophisticated game when it comes to reading cards. This forces players to become more acute readers of people. No Limit becomes more interesting because you’re not making nearly as big as bet on your cards as you are about your ability to read your opponent. Alot of Hold 'Em players admit that they can’t play more than 20 rounds of 7 card stud without their ears starting to smoke. The mental taxation of reading live and dead cards and the way the hands are played is just too much - there is no energy left to read your opponent.
In my experience, players who lose big early on tend to go into “recoup my losses fast” mode, in which they play lots of hands they shouldn’t (thus putting them still further in the hole).
A good player, though, will not change his play according to how his “luck” is going. Whether you won big or lost big on hands a through y, the smart play on hand z is precisely the same.
I agree with all the responses from the Poker players that have posted. I also prefer hold 'em games to stud games. But I think the OP’s confusion is stemming from something that I also saw on the WS of Poker that was totally bizarre and would never happen at my weekly poker game.
The two players bet against each other and then they showed their cards, BEFORE THE FLOP. One guy had a pair and the other had an Ace and a 10, I believe. The dealer flipped up all 5 cards, none of them matched the Ace or 10, so the guy with the pair won. No more bets were placed. Now what is that all about? Seems like a crapshoot to me.
If I may, how does all-in work? If a bet gets raised to the point where your cost to raise is greater than the chips you have, you can go all-in to keep playing, right? But you can also go all-in just on its own as a strategy rather than being driven there by bets. Is this true? Why would one go all-in if not forced to do so?
Sorry for the unrelated questions. A sweet poker FAQ would be much appreciated.
Well, one reason you might go all in is to bully another player out of the hand. If you believe the other person doesn’t have it, and you can make them think you do, then you force them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. You try to force the other player into a decision for all their chips.
For the same reason you’d make any other bet: either because you have a strong hand and want to raise the stakes, or because you want to represent a strong hand and force others to fold (or, some combination of the two). Going all in also confers the benefit of not having to worry about being forced out of the hand later by aggressive betting.
Exactly. Because of the way the game’s constructed, there are very few viable options in each hand, so the game is won and lost on being able to figure out if your opponent has three aces or two pair.
Luck is barely a factor in no limit hold’em, if at all.