My first victory!

[Pekka]

I mean live play.. I was invited to a home game, poker, texas hold'em pot limit. Now, I knew only one person in that table, a table of 8 players. These guys had the game going on for a long time, and I was introduced to teh table through a friend of mine since one of the regulars moved to another city.

These guys were less than average players too, you could spot right away who had the most game and that wasn't too impressive. Lots of beginner mistakes. Hanging on to the river, seeing all the flops, betting wrong, calling machines, you know the types.

Now I'm not a briliant player but I totally dominated the table and took 80 euros home with me (10 euro sit in).

It was a lot of fun and only took little over an hour to bust the house! Looking forward going there next week ..

[Stuie]

Careful not to win too much - they won't invite you back.

[Zopperoni]

Yea, play too well and "you'll move to another city".

[snoopy369]

That's called "baiting the sucker"

Congrats though. I remember the first time I won a poker game ... mmmmmm

[Pekka]

baiting the sucker? No no, they were weak players for sure.

HOWEVER my strenght is I know where I stand. I'm not a strong player either. But instead of staring at the pocket cards and wishing for the stars, I do get my position rather fast, and I'm not dreaming of beating strong players. That's not how I roll yet, but I can take on weak ones, and they were weak players. You know, the ones who play for fun and never really got into what the game really is about. The ones who wait for a good luck to strike.

But it was great.. you know there's no point of slow playing a guy into defeat when you play winner takes all, 10 euros sit in. Unless there's more games than one.

[Pekka]

I don't know guys, I played like few months online with real money in summer, I gained more than lost, came close to winning a spot to nice tournament via satellite (but didn't), all in all I'm average player with online players, advanced beginner with the real players, but I'm hooked.

That's why I haven't played online in .. 3 to 4 months. I got afraid how addicted I was. I mean, on the average I was winning (not a lot), but I just.. I was thinking about ordering and buying a table, chips, expanding my ways to other online casinos, attending to live events here in Finland... I didn't, but I read books, I watched all kinds of videos, WPT, WSOP, man it was ADDICTING! LIke I said to my friend, I choose poker over porn. Thats how addicted I was, and now that I reluctantly made a decision to play this one real home game, because it was low stakes and mostly for fun.. I got back into it. IT sucked me into it. You know the feeling when yo u're fascinated, and you are playing correctly, spotting weaknesses, making the right calls, and having good luck on top of that. There's nothing quite like it, I love the game and all there is to it, except losing.

I'm back baby! Let's roll!

[Flip McWho]

Any advice? I'm gonna be playing a game tomorrow night. I'm very much a beginner and i'm quite a cautious player too, so help me win please.

[Pekka]

Umhh... if you're a very beginner, I guess the best advice I can give you is try to play tight, develop your preflop strategy, which is easy to do and follow for a beginner. Go with value cards. That would be, IMO, the first thing to do if no experience and no further strategy.

Krazyhorse and David Floyd are much better players than me so hopefully they can contribute more. I'd say as a beginner, the easiest thing to do is develop preflop strategy.

[Flip McWho]

Awesome, now that being? (as in preflop strategy)

[Pekka]

Ok you are playing texas hold'em right?

Preflop is when every player is dealt with two cards and you can see only your own cards. This is preflop. This is where automatic bets go to the table (two players next to the dealer button), and it's time to call, fold or raise (or check if you are in the big blind).

This is the first move you'll make in the hand so this is also the easiest one to learn most of the times, depending how you play.

So you have two cards, now you have to either get in to the hand and pay (unless you were in the big blind), so if you want to play tight, you go only with good cards in your hands. AA is the best possible start. There are other good ones too, but if you play tight, you won't be in many pots and if it's a friendly game, you might get bored even.

This is the preflop, because when everyone has made their decision and round of betting is over, the community cards are dealt to the table, 3 cards that is, for everyone. This is the flop.

So the most easy thing to play with first is preflop. Before these 3 community cards are opened.

Usually good cards are high value cards, or pairs, or suited connectors. Depends of course where you are sitting considering where the dealer button is. Weak aces are usually the doom of beginners, weak ace means you have one ace and one low card. For example A3, not suited, is not a very great hand to start with. If you play tight, you won't play this hand at all.

The reason is, even if you pair an ace later on, you have a weak kicker, and if you pair the 3, you still have just a low pair with a good kicker. Then again it all depends.

The less players there are in the table, the more aggressive you can get, if that is your style. Then 'weaker' cards have better odds than when there's more players involved.

[C0ckney]

read this thread flip.

[Flip McWho]

Awesome cheers

[Pekka]

Flip, so how did you do?

I just got another nice performance, I entered to 10 000 player freeroll, too bad it was only $1000 guarantee.

I got to the final table, but was 9th out. So I made only 14 dollars.. damn! Sucks to do that good and get ONLY 14 dollars. I'm still happy, I feel like I'm developing, I didn't have much difficulties even though the dealer was devil and gave me crap cards all night long.

I was chip leader when there was only 12 left with over million in chips, had pocket 8s in small blind, everyone folded, so I doubled the blind and at that point the blinds were somewhere between 40 000/80 000. So, the dude comes in, he calls. I'm like OK he has something, but I doubt it's a big pair since he was a calling station.

Then flop comes, nothing for me but I still had top pair and the flop were all under cards. So I raised a lot, and the dude goes all-in. I'm think for a while, I'm a bit scared, but I thought I'm here to win and not for second place so I call him, and he was behind me with A-3 offsuit. Did he get the ace in the river? Of course he did, SHAZAAM! I was left with 200k... and the blinds were close to that and right then I moved to final table. Man I was so pissed, I could have cruised to top 5 and pick my spots after that.

But still.. 9th out of 10 000 is pretty good I reckon, even if it was a freeroll ... I'm still learning until I really go to cash games but I think I have some potential.

[Pekka]

well I did almost double up from that prize (since I didn't have money on the account where I played before) with heads up. I just love it when people go all-in straight from the get go when I have the nuts .

But it was a tight race so I almost had a heart attack. Some nice poker lately.. I think I'll read the super system, watch more videos and go for cash games next year.

[Capt Dizle]

Well, if you bust a game in an hour then you probably had good cards. What were the betting limits?