Poker

[Sam_b]

Thought i'd post in and represent just before I leave for my weekly poker league night. New season, hoping to build on last term's solid performance and several final tables. NL Hold 'Em, but my specialist game is still sevent card stud.

I also play online on Full Tilt if anyone is interested. So...do we have any players here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpLSGowLPaY

[Pogue]

I've never played poker but I'd like to learn. I need to sit down with someone who can teach me sometime and get on that.

Do you play for money in your league? And do you think you have skill, or would you say its almost purely luck?

[Killfacer]

If i was you i'd say something hilariously deadpan which was copied from family guy. Thankfully i'm not.

[eyedrop]

I played on RedKings and Pokerstars, mainly Hold'em-limit, haven't played in half a year though. I've also played a few times in the local poker leauge and in various private gatherings.


I've never played poker but I'd like to learn. I need to sit down with someone who can teach me sometime and get on that.I still wonder on how folks manages to grow up without touching toothpick-poker.


Do you play for money in your league? And do you think you have skill, or would you say its almost purely luck?Here free-rolls leagues are usual since it is illegal to gamble.

Poker is luck if you play 10 hands against each other, if you play a million the better wo/man wins.

[spiltteeth]

Yea, I'm on full-tilt, - sweetcheet, but I stay away from tourny's, I do no-limit holdem cash, short hand specialist.

Negraneu is amazing. I actually got a chip signed by my favorite player, Sammy Farha, he's the guy who came in 2nd to moneymaker.

Anyone watching the poker world serious? The 2 Phils are awfully strong at this point. I satay away from the websites so I don't know who actually made it to the final table.

My 2 fav moments,

Sammy and Jamie with 500,000 on the table - KK VS AA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erNjXtuKawU


And sammy with ONE MILLION on the table!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c69bILtpVVk&feature=related

[Dr Mindbender]

gambling is for idiots.

[Sam_b]

The point is that Poker is not merely gambling - its not something like roulette where there is absolutely no skill involved, its about reading opponents and making tactical moves.

The league I play in is at the Student Union so its only a buy-in of £2 every week, but accumulated points totals mean you can win some decent prizes at the end of it. Not as good as the local casinos £10 buy-ins or whatnot. Anyways, I did alright last night but did make some horrible plays which cost me: came 7th in a field of about 40 players. Personal highlight was knocking out three players at once with a KcJc and a flop of KdKsJs :lol:

[Dr Mindbender]

The point is that Poker is not merely gambling - its not something like roulette where there is absolutely no skill involved, its about reading opponents and making tactical moves.

The league I play in is at the Student Union so its only a buy-in of £2 every week, but accumulated points totals mean you can win some decent prizes at the end of it. Not as good as the local casinos £10 buy-ins or whatnot. Anyways, I did alright last night but did make some horrible plays which cost me: came 7th in a field of about 40 players. Personal highlight was knocking out three players at once with a KcJc and a flop of KdKsJs :lol:

by the same token people who live as professional horse racing or football pools punters (which some do) could claim their trade is not gambling either, as there is some modicum of 'skill' involved. In reality it's 99% luck and 1% relying on the other person to chicken out if they have a better hand. It's still gambling.

[mannetje]

I should not say it here actually, but I get a orgasm if the stakes are high. That makes the game extra exciting to me.:cool:

[Sam_b]

In reality it's 99% luck and 1% relying on the other person to chicken out if they have a better hand. It's still gambling.

There obviously speaks someone who has never played tournament poker.

[Jazzratt]

I'm shite at poker, always have been. I never play for money (or at least never for much money) so I can remain a gracious loser. It's gambling, yeah, but luck plays a far lesser part in it than in other types (incidentally my luck is also absolutely fucking atrocious).

[Dr Mindbender]

There obviously speaks someone who has never played tournament poker.

i can think of better ways to throw my money away thanks.

[Sam_b]

You don't mind 'throwing' money away on video games, but somehow spending money on another pastime is objectionble?

[Dr Mindbender]

You don't mind 'throwing' money away on video games, but somehow spending money on another pastime is objectionble?

Ha! Knew you'd try that. At least with games im guaranteed a tangible object to posess (which i can later sell), whereas if i lose money on poker i get fuck all.

Besides being a game development student i can easilly justify such purchases as research material.

[spiltteeth]

Poker is indeed a game of skill in the long run - how else can you explain so many familiar faces at the final tables year after year? Are these simply the luckiest people on the planet?

Ironically, I'm in america NY and poker is illegal (except at the native american casinos) because poker is a game of luck according to NY law. HOWEVER such games of pure skill as the lottery and sports betting ARE legal!

[Dr Mindbender]

Poker is indeed a game of skill in the long run - how else can you explain so many familiar faces at the final tables year after year? Are these simply the luckiest people on the planet?


Some people are good at weighing up risk, and evaluating calculated risk taking, much like people who bet on horses or greyhounds as professional gamblers. It doesnt make them skillful in the same sense that one is skilled at playing football, theres still mainly a huuuge majority margin of luck involved and they are still gamblers.

[Sam_b]

Its this baseless rubbish aobut this fine game that makes me want to take on US/Dr M on a five-game heads-up series to prove him wrong.

[spiltteeth]

Some people are good at weighing up risk, and evaluating calculated risk taking, much like people who bet on horses or greyhounds as professional gamblers. It doesnt make them skillful in the same sense that one is skilled at playing football, theres still mainly a huuuge majority margin of luck involved and they are still gamblers.

Sports betters, even the best, have a much, much , much, smaller margin of winning then the best poker players.
If you know statistics, the margin of luck in poker is huge in a few number of hands, but as the number of hands played increases, the margin of luck decreases.

[Killfacer]

Poker is gambking, it just takes less skil than

[synthesis]

Dominoes, motherfucker.

[Jazzratt]

Mindbender: Do you feel that the boredgame Risk is mainly luck too, after all it basically comes down to rolling dice :rolleyes:

[Killfacer]

There's obviously a large bit of luck involved with any game which involves rolling dice... Everyone's had a big army defeated by one much smaller whilst playing risk.

[Jazzratt]

Yeah, obviously. It's still a nonsense to say that tactics and skill don't come into it though or even that they play a minimal role. I think the same is true of poker.

[Kamerat]

Chess is a game of skill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_skill), while poker is a game of chance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_chance).

Some games of chance may also involve a certain degree of skill. This is especially true where the player or players have decisions to make based upon previous or incomplete knowledge, such as poker and blackjack.
Never the less, gambling on any type of game is reactionary/uncommunistic because it takes money from the majority and gives it to the minority.:p
Luck based games are so boring. Its much more fun to have the outcome of the game depend only on your actions/skills, then on what kind of cards you randomly got.

[spiltteeth]

Dominoes, motherfucker.

I love dominoes.

[Dr Mindbender]

Mindbender: Do you feel that the boredgame Risk is mainly luck too, after all it basically comes down to rolling dice :rolleyes:
yes, as is snakes and ladders. You've never heard of anyone being 'skilled' at snakes and ladders.

Besides which, this is about what constitutes gambling.

[Jazzratt]

yes, as is snakes and ladders. You've never heard of anyone being 'skilled' at snakes and ladders.

The two games are incomprable though. Snakes and ladders is entirely based on chance with no way of influencing it. You might as well sit down and roll a dice each and the highest wins. An element of chance in a game does not remove the skill, the classic gambling example would be Backgammon.


Besides which, this is about what constitutes gambling.

Lots of things are gambling though. Playing pool for cash is gambling and there isn't (what is commonly understood as) a random element anywhere to be found, at the same time playing on fruit machines is gambling and that all comes down to luck. Games like backgammon and poker fall somewhere in the middle of this. To imagine the skillset required to play poker is irrelevant and people may as well be yanking away at one-armed bandits is strange, to say the least.