Playing Poker
It’s the weekend! Finally can forget about work and get on with something I enjoy, playing Poker!
Today is Sunday and I’m writing this just before I enter a tournament. I’m not holding out much hope, just wanting to get into the money if I can but I’ll let you know how it goes in my next blog. Yesterday however I played a large number of freeplay tournaments on both PokerStars and 888.com. Ever since I started reading up on poker, all the pros have been making comments about how you can have runs of bad lucks when the cards “go cold” (which is where you don’t get decent cards for ages). Well not only did they run slightly cold yesterday but the gods of poker were out to teach me a lesson. Every time I went into a hand the favourite to win it, I would get beaten, usually on the final card. My computer crashed just after I bet big on pocket aces (and if my opponent came over the top or made a subsequent bet, by the nature of poker sites, when your thinking time runs out, they fold your hand!) So although I think I could possibly have won, I’ll most likely have folded. I had trip aces beaten by flushes, flushes beaten by full houses, pocket kings beaten by pocket 6s (when they flopped another 6), pocket tens beaten, I kid you not, by 9 4 off suit. What the H*** they were doing calling a preflop raise with 94 off suit I have no idea. I played 6 or 7 tournaments and in total for the whole day, my cards held up 4 times. Most of the time I wasn’t all in, so I then had to slowly build up my chipstack by stealing blinds or getting people to fold better hands, but I could never build them up that much so I never cashed in on a single one of the tournaments. Very depressing, very disheartening, but that’s why you should never gamble with money you can’t afford to lose, or gamble outside of a small proportion of your bankroll.
Oh have I not mentioned Bankrolls? A Bankroll is the money you have set aside to play poker. You should always keep your bankroll separate from all your other money, and try to never add to it from your savings as that’s how you end up losing your house. Pick a sum you can afford to lose, put it in an account somewhere, and that’s your bankroll. When you gamble, you should only use a small portion of it in one go as a buy in to an event or table, many pros say about 1/1000th of it. Obviously when you’ve only got a small bankroll, this does limit your options slightly, but both Pokerstars and 888.com have tables and tournaments for as little as 1c, they even have free tournaments where you can win money, so there are options. However I for one can understand how frustrating it can be when you play for 2 hours and win 20c. I can guarantee you though, if you have a $50 bankroll and enter $5-$10 dollar tournaments all the time, you’ll be refreshing that bankroll quite a lot! If you’ve got the money or means to do that, without missing paying bills, then go for it! It’s your money after all. But I don’t want anyone going broke cos of me. Set aside some money that you can afford to lose, and only play with that.
So, back to me. I’m having luck as Bad as Michael Jackson the way, but then what is luck but the random occurrence of statistics? I look at it, the longer I have a run of bad luck, then the better my run of good luck will be, eventually, I hope. My lesson today is, no matter how could you hand, you can still be beaten, that 10% chance they have of winning? Well, 10% of the time they’ll win!
I’ll let you know how the tournament goes; now if you all cross your fingers and wish, maybe I’ll be able to give you good news next time! Till then, Cya later
Squirrel