Hold 'Em - Lottery or not?

[GlosRFC]

...you decide!

So I'm in the final of a ten-seat tournament and I'm holding 10c 10d.

Opponent goes all in so naturally I follow. He's showing Ah 7s

The flop is Jd 9d 4c

Turn card is Qd

So at this point he's got nothing at all and I'm still in pole position with my pair of 10's. Added to which I reckon I've got that many possible outs that I don't know whether I'm coming or going:
Two diamonds for a straight flush
Seven remaining diamonds for a flush
Three remaining 8's for a straight
Three remaining K's for a straight
Two 10's for trips/four
Nine J's, 9's and 4's for two pair

So by my reckoning I've got at least a 59% chance of improving my hand and a 98% chance of taking the pot. But you've probably all guessed by now. The river card was the A of clubs - the only stinking card out of the 44 remaining which could save him.

;fire

[Fadetoblack]

I think this is the reason why I've stopped playing Hold em completely.

[presto]

happens to everyone glos, all you can do is get it in with the best hand.
by far the biggest hand i have played - i flopped a FH, (called an all in) only for my opponent to hit 2 perfect cards on the turn / river for a SF - his only outs.
and i was watching the WPT the other night - an all in and he had to catch 7-7 on the turn / river as his only outs. you can guess what happened.

[GlosRFC]

I think this is the reason why I've stopped playing Hold em completely.

It's the reason why I rarely play...and why Vegy is currently doing better than me in the Win2Win tournament too :D

Freerolls are even more of a joke - every time I've played one, the first 30 minutes usually consists of every blithering idiot going all in with the flimisiest of cards.

[GlosRFC]

But it does seem to happen more online, Presto....bah

It's just annoying when you patently do have the best hand, by a long chalk, and they're just:pss in the wind. Might as well just pay out according to the turnover card for dealer and not bother actually playing any hands.

[presto]

to be honnest the early loose play on freerolls can be very usefull. - getting a big stack early on can be very good, as you can affort to call the loose all ins with cards like A-10s (pretty good hand, and you could easily be up against a small pair 50/50 or dominate a lower A - which 2 hands people tend to overplay early on). - i personally play extreamly aggressive (more so than usual) early on to get myself into a good position for the later stages. - also if you bust out, you have lost nothing.

if you don't like the super loose first 30mins of a tourny - then just don't turn up till later, or only play the top 3 hole cards (all in) - or pot commited. for a hopefull double up.

[presto]

i disagree about it happening more online. as you probably play 4X more hands per hour online than in a live game - so it just seems to happen more. also (i assume) most of us play more online than live, so we can't really compare.

[Fadetoblack]

I played 70% live 30% online...I was playing well but kept on getting stung by crap players praying for, and receiving miracles. Eventhough I wasn't losing much money, it was just demoralising.

[GlosRFC]

The best strategy I've found at Sit and Go tables is to do nothing unless you've got a picture pair - invariably the other players chasing with an A high end up blowing each other out. I've lost count of the number of times I've found myself in the third pay-out place just by not playing at all :)

[Fadetoblack]

That famously (for me) happened to be in a fairly big tournament where I reached the final table and then my internet connection went down. It reconnected after the tournament. I checked it and found that I had taken down over a grand with a 4th place finish.

[peza2605]

...you decide!

So I'm in the final of a ten-seat tournament and I'm holding 10c 10d.

Opponent goes all in so naturally I follow. He's showing Ah 7s

The flop is Jd 9d 4c

Turn card is Qd

So at this point he's got nothing at all and I'm still in pole position with my pair of 10's. Added to which I reckon I've got that many possible outs that I don't know whether I'm coming or going:
Two diamonds for a straight flush
Seven remaining diamonds for a flush
Three remaining 8's for a straight
Three remaining K's for a straight
Two 10's for trips/four
Nine J's, 9's and 4's for two pair

So by my reckoning I've got at least a 59% chance of improving my hand and a 98% chance of taking the pot. But you've probably all guessed by now. The river card was the A of clubs - the only stinking card out of the 44 remaining which could save him.

;fire

<cough> er...sorry about that glos...

nah seriously,ive had it happen to me countless times but ive also been lucky myself countless times. it happens, at the end of the day the river is still a card,and the hand is never over till the river card is turned. all part of the game.

galling i know but when it happens to me these days i just shrug it off and remember the times the river card has saved me.

still get annoyed though when i raise big with kk eg ,get called with something stupid like 6 3 and the board comes up 2,5,j,4,8 etc.:D .

[Onlyforfun]

It's a lottery and good play will only take you so far. The evidence I present for this is that there is no dominant player, just a dominant group of good players.

[GlosRFC]

It's okay...I wasn't moaning so much as just putting up a reminder (more to myself really) that, as often as not, when you get to the river you're just facing what amounts to a one-card turnover.

There is good news though. I just popped back to give it another go and adopted my casual strategy but managed to build my stack up with a few of those high-ranking pairs. Five minutes later the table was down to four. Then the timid guy on my right must've thought it was his lucky day as he finally risked a large raise when an A on the flop paired the one in his hand...not knowing that I'd previously checked after being dealt pocket A's. :D

So he was as good as doomed when I went all-in on the turn, leaving me with 70% of the available chips. This allowed me the luxury of sitting back and slurping a cup of coffee while the other pair went toe-to-toe before I eliminated the last man standing with KKQQ :)

So another $50 in the bank to go with the $20 earlier. A good days work in the end!

[Win2Win]

It's the same as horse racing, some people think there are DEAD-CERTS...and complain when they are beat.....moan the race is fixed....the jockey is crap.......yet never understand that it is plain old stats.

As long as you keep the stats on your side, you'll come out on top long term.

[GlosRFC]

It's a lottery and good play will only take you so far. The evidence I present for this is that there is no dominant player, just a dominant group of good players.

Yup, and how many players "showdown won" stats are significantly greater than 50%? So statistically it's no different from tossing a coin!

[GlosRFC]

What really puts me off playing though isn't the dodgy cards or the stats. It's the people who think that poker staking and playing should always be played according to some rigidly prescribed rules that they've read in a book or on the internet. What these people forget is that others will play the game according to what they feel is best strategy for them and that it's possible to make your own luck.

Y'know the ones I mean...when they lose, the chat becomes filled with comments about the other guy "fishing" or he's a "muppet"...but when they fluke the card they need, it was down to skill.

[Win2Win]

Vegy's poker skill is going out early......his win was a FLUKE!! :D Proof if ever needed :)

[Profit Seeker]

I've done consistently well in freerolls, reaching top ten from 2000 players many times, proof enough that crap players can be beat in the long term, though I'm first to moan about crap runs, swings n roundabouts slightly in your favour however.