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December 8, 2005
If the Pokerparty players in seats eight or nine hold hands like 10-9 or 9-8, they may call a single bet on the flop, in hopes of catching a miracle card on the turn, or perhaps picking up a straight draw. However, if they are reasonably prudent players, they will not call a raised pot with second or third pair and little else to support it. Is this a form of raising to thin out the field? Yes, it is. But in this case, you're doing so after the flop has defined or partially defined your opponents' hands.
Keep records to prove to yourself that you're a winning Poker party player. Build as big a bankroll as you can for the game you play in. If you average winning about one big bet per hour and the game is not overly volatile, 300 big bets ought to do the trick. But if the game is more volatile -- or you're winning, but just marginally -- you'll need more in store than you think.
- If you got the goods, bet. If you don't, check. And if someone is betting into your hand and you know yours is better, go ahead and raise. Keep Learning: You'll never know it all. There is always something more to learn about poker, and even when you think you know all there is to know, you won't. Moreover, much of what's learned about poker has to be relearned from time to time.
- The event at pokerparty was a no-limit hold'em shootout-to-match play format. We'd begin with eight Pokerparty tables and play would continue until there was one winner per table. In other words, as players were eliminated, tables would not be combined as they are in traditional tournament formats.
- Once he gloms on to the fact that you never bluff, he would adjust his strategy accordingly. Now he'll fold when you bet, but he'll also show down the best had and win the pot whenever you check. Do you see what's happening here? Not has your opponent wised up to your pattern of always bluffing each time you had a busted drawing hand, but more importantly, your results are not a function of your actions.
You can also divide 3 by three, yielding 1, and 18 by 3, which yields 6. Then you can divide 2 by itself, and 6 by 2. This simplifies the problem to (5 x 19 x 3 x 17) divided by one. Canceling out can simplify problems, and if you are working with big numbers, it can often keep your pocket calculator from giving you an error message, It's even easier determining how many ways you can make A-K. There are four aces, and four kings - and since any of the aces can combine with any of the kings, the answer is 16.
Overall, there were 4 losers and 5 winners. Seat 9 lost at the rate of $3.18 per hour while seat 6 won at the rate of $1.99. That's a difference of more than $5 per hour - and its clear that the rocks never got into the long run, even after a year of simulated play. When I sat 9 Fish at the table, I expected more overall action, since a table full of bad players figured to be in more hands, and frequently chase to the river with little chance of winning at Pokerparty.com.
In this "reverse" bluff, Johnny Chan bluffed Erik Seidel into thinking he held the best hand, lured him into betting, and won a $1,600,000 pot during the final stages of the 1988 World Series of Poker party. Chan had won the World Series the previous year and had been on a roll ever since. It was a big, gutsy bluff. But the rewards were big too: a second consecutive world championship.
