The 10000$ poker challenge

[Flubber]

While I have come to like poker quite a bit, I will decline the challenge on three grounds

1. On a purely economic basis-- I can get a greater return guaranteed from 250 hours of work than 10,000

2. On a fun/ social/relationship basis, I don't enjoy online poker nearly as much as other things I can do with my time includifn seeing mrs and baby flubber.

3. ON a time basis-- I just don't have any more than 7-10 hours a week I could devote to this. Even if I could match your success rate (which I doubt), my impression is you would be spending 3 times as much time as that


But I wish you well and believe you will be successful. You seem to take a very professional approach to things whereas it seems many amateurs get impatient and since it is relatively small stakes, often play very loose.

Do keep us updated since your poker exploits make for some fun reading. In a fun game ($20 game with friends) a few weeks back I got killed with my worst bad beat. I actually had observed my opponent as being someone that loved aces too much and read him as having an Ace-weak while I held KK. Flop comes down Q73. I bet both pre and post-flop but he called both times. Next card was 5 IIRC so I bet enough to put him all in. He had an A3 and the last card of course was a 3. I couldn't believe he had stayed in !!! Maybe I should have went all-in preflop but frankly with KK I am hoping to do more than pick up the blinds. With this hit I was short-stacked and got eliminated a fw hands later.

KH is there any way I SHOULD have played that differently?? I know this guy and he gets too enthusiastic with big hands and would have been raising me pre-flop with a big hand. So I pretty much knew I was starting with the best hand. Or is this one where you shrug and go on about your business

[Flubber]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous


You just hate him because he's a Canadians fan

I'm a canadians fan as well and I agree with the "very capitalist for a commy" sentiment

[Ming]

Originally posted by Flubber
So I pretty much knew I was starting with the best hand. Or is this one where you shrug and go on about your business

Anybody that knows poker knows that some times, you are just plain unlucky. You can play the hand perfectly, and then get screwed by the smallest percentages.

Yeah... you shrug those off. Sometimes, you will win because of it, and others, you will lose. Over time, skill beats luck. A good player can win with bad cards, a bad player can't.

[Japher]

A friend of mine moved to Vegas for the year while he takes the LSAT and applies for law school. He is a nationally ranked poker player. He's not a very big guy, and at a game a couple of weeks ago he was getting good cards and some guy started to threaten him. My friend was all "just playing the cards".

The trick to poker, in his opinion, is not in how to play the cards but how to manage your bet.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Yep, I guess there is a lot more to the game than meets the eye for the casual person.

[Japher]

I'm too stupid.

I like the slots and blackjack

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Ming


Anybody that knows poker knows that some times, you are just plain unlucky. You can play the hand perfectly, and then get screwed by the smallest percentages.

Yeah... you shrug those off. Sometimes, you will win because of it, and others, you will lose. Over time, skill beats luck. A good player can win with bad cards, a bad player can't.

Yup -- I have played some hands badly buty on that one I thought I played it well. Bet just enough to have someone come along when the odds are in your favor etc

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Japher


The trick to poker, in his opinion, is not in how to play the cards but how to manage your bet.

Aside from betting what other type of play is there in poker?

[Richelieu]

Another sucker...

[Pekka]

Flubber, well it seems you had a read on him, and sometimes especially with friends, I guess it's easy to tell if they have a weak ace or low pair or something that's not quite as good as KK. With KK, did you play it wrong?

Maybe you weren't aggressive enough after the flop, when you noticed you friend was racing you. You knew he was still behind pre-flop, and how much he paid to get in pre-flop? Then again, you migh have made the right decision, which I think is most likely.. that you played them correctly that is. Just bad luck you know... I've lost with AA to 3-7 offsuit this week in online poker, and that's just one of the few bad beats, since you play so many hands.

So sometimes even though you play them correctly, some people get lucky. What you need to do, or what I do is I take comfort knowing I played right, and if I keep playing right, I will win at the end in the long run.

These days beginners and many players are ready to go all-in with a coinflip situation, I would try to avoid that.. I don't like gambling like that . But with KK if you knew you had him beat, I think you played it correctly for sures, depending of course how you were betting but it seems it was about right.

But that's still not the 'correct play' every time.. you only had top pair, he could have flopped the set, have the AA and many other things.. unless it's a new player and you got a read on him, which you did.

[KrazyHorse]

KH is there any way I SHOULD have played that differently?? I know this guy and he gets too enthusiastic with big hands and would have been raising me pre-flop with a big hand. So I pretty much knew I was starting with the best hand. Or is this one where you shrug and go on about your business

Why should you have played differently? You got all your money into the pot when you were an 8-1 favourite. I'll play with those odds every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

That's a bad beat, especially because his play was so ****ty, but certainly not the worst beat ever. As I said, you were only ~89% to win. I have been beaten by somebody who drew perfect on the last two cards to defeat me after we were all-in on the flop. That was 989-1 against.

I've also been beat several times by somebody with one pair on flop (while I had straight or flush) who managed to fill up on turn and river. That's more like 30-1

Then again, I've also played ~100 000 hands of poker in my life, so a lot of things happen...

[Asher]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060111.wpoker0111/BNStory/National/

My brother knows this kid.

Ontario student has $1-million poker face

Waterloo, Ont. — A University of Waterloo student has won more than $1.3-million (U.S.) after a week of playing poker in paradise.

After a seemingly endless chain of tense moments, Steve Paul-Ambrose, 22, emerged in first place Tuesday from a pool of more than 700 players in the Third Annual PokerStars Caribbean Adventure at the Atlantis Casino Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

The third-year business and science student won $1,363,100 and captured a $25,000 seat in the World Poker Tour's championship tournament, which will be played in Las Vegas in April.

His brother, George Ambrose, spent all day getting updates of the matches online.

“It was colossal,” Mr. Ambrose, 26, said in a phone interview from Kingston, Ont., Steve's hometown. “I'm just totally excited and blown away.”

The tournament was organized by PokerStars, an online poker site. Spokesman Scott Womer said the admission was $8,000 and “it's one of the biggest tournaments out there people can participate in.”

But Mr. Paul-Ambrose only paid $102.

The Kingston native got in by winning a series of online competitions through the website.

“It's ridiculous,” Mr. Ambrose said. “This is the last thing he ever would have expected. He has very little experience.”

Mr. Ambrose said his brother has only been playing online for about two years and has rarely faced opponents at a table.

“Over Christmas, he was playing penny-poker with his uncles and was telling me after that he was practising at getting a read on people,” Mr. Ambrose said.

“Steve is a fairly quiet guy and he's a really good thinker and problem solver. That's what this game is about.”

The tournament was based on a popular version of poker called Texas Hold'em, in which players get two cards they must use with five others dealt on the table to come up with the best hand.

[Richelieu]

OK: did i miss a thread? Did KH mention his getting married elsewhere?

[KrazyHorse]

Yes, about a year ago I got engaged and started a thread on it. My wedding is on Aug. 26 2006. The projected budget is ~15 000$. I have promises of 4000$ from my parents and 4000$ from her side of the family, leaving a shortfall of 7000$ to be covered by myself and my girlfriend. Some of her friends will know to bring cash gifts, bringing the shortfall to ~6000$. I don't particularly care about weddings etc., but it will make my girlfriend very happy and I feel that it would be wrong to deny her that. I therefore need money. Or, more particularly, if I don't want her to pay for everything from her savings (of which she obviously has much more than I do, given the disparity in incomes) then I need money.

This is an attempt (probably pretty reasonable) to get as much of it as possible in a fairly short amount of time doing something that is compatible with my continued work on a doctorate in physics.

[KrazyHorse]

I would be swimming in cash, but a little under a year ago I got bored with playing poker, and so have not engaged in it on a regular basis since then.