How I Fell For The Bait

I’ve never played online poker, or rather – I haven’t developed ardent interest in playing poker because I associated it with pretty bad decisions in life. Mostly, because I had a friend who not only ran an underground poker room, but also lost quite a bit of money in this game.

Nevertheless, I don’t shun the game, and like to play it when an opportunity presents itself. I used to view it as something similar to bingo, expecting fun cards and then inconspicuously asking a friend standing behind my back whether I had good cards or not.

Very silly.

Having recently started playing again, and having developed a deeper understanding of probabilities and combinatorics, I realized there’s a lot more to the game than waiting for the “fun” cards. There’s a lot of “what are the odds of…” It’s a game of skill as opposed to a roller coaster of luck.

I realized that the first thing you should in poker is to understand that it’s not about hoping for the best cards, but realizing that sometimes you’re just gonna be sitting on the not so generous card deal. It is one thing to calculate the odds of getting a powerful hand and figuring out whether it’s reasonable to continue with what you’ve been dealt. It’s another thing altogether to hope for four-of-a-kind deal when you hold a 6 and a 10. Watching poker tournaments on TV can help you with odds if you’re not good at calculating them yourself.

You also need to understand that things can get pretty rough, emotional and seemingly irrational sometimes. People won’t play according to the probabilities they hold in their hands. Distinguishing between bluffers and amateur mathematicians is the hardest task, I find. But that’s a post for another time.

Tags: newbie poker