The irony of victory
August 26, 2009
You win a poker match and you pat yourself on the back. You are the victor among nine players at a poker player. You have multiplied your money by a factor of nine. You are on top of the world. But now what? You have won the poker game and you should celebrate and be happy. Fine, you can sit back and relax for awhile but at the end of the day, you are back at square one. At the end of the day, when you play poker once again, everyone has an equal stack of chips. This is the irony of victory. Although victory is temporary in poker, the only thing that you can bring to your next poker match is your experience of winning. Aside from that, you are back to square one.
So you know that your victory is only temporary. You know that the irony of victory in a poker match is that in the next one, no one knows that you are victorious. In fact, if ever someone knows that you won the previous match, all the more that these people want to take you down. There is a marker on your forehead saying “previous winner, please eliminate before this person wins again.” Being victorious in the previous poker match can make you learn a couple of things. First, when you win, enjoy it at that moment and then move on. There are much more battles ahead of you. Second, when you win, make sure you bring the valuable lessons that you have learned in the previous poker match.
What are the things that you should learn from victory then? First, you have to review how you took out your opponent in the heads up game. On a two on two match, you should review your strategy and find out what worked on whom. You have to review the way you took out your last rival. The heads up game is one of the most crucial parts of a poker match. You learn a lot from it. Although it may be weird to take down notes at the poker table, try to take down mental notes while you play. Make sure that you remember the good things that you did and the bad things that you did. If you remember these things then you will be able to become a better poker player in your next match. Instead of starting from scratch all over again, you have some experience that will allow you to take out everyone at the poker table all over again.
If you think that victory is a permanent thing in poker then you are very wrong. In poker, you have to roll the dice at the beginning of every game. Sometimes you will be lucky, sometimes you will not be so lucky at all. The only thing that will make you a winner is your skill and your experience. You might have bad nights where there seems like nothing is going your way. Even if you are playing like a professional poker player, for some unlucky people, you will not win at all. The catch is this, even if you are lucky, you are not guaranteed that you will win. You need to have the necessary skills to win a poker match. If you have won a poker match before already then all you have to do is try to remember what you did right.
The morning after poker
August 20, 2009
There are a lot of nice things that happen in a poker match. There are also a lot of nasty things that happen in a poker match. When you wake up in the morning after a poker match, you can feel good, feel bad, or feel indifferent about your poker game the previous night. You can feel bad about your poker game the last night for the following reasons. You can feel bad because you were making a lot of mistakes. You were calling hands that should not be called. You were going all in with two pairs. What were you thinking that night? You can also feel bad about your poker game last night because you got so wasted with alcohol. You have a really bad hangover and you have to go to work. You have a bad hangover and you have to step up for something important. Nothing is worse than stepping up with a hangover.
You can feel indifferent about your poker match on the previous night if you were making a mix of good calls and bad calls. Sometimes you got a bad beat on someone with a higher straight. Sometimes you were playing too defensively to the point where you were not taking advantage of any opportunities anymore. Maybe last night you were too distracted to play a good poker match. Maybe last night you were not paying too much attention to your opponents. Maybe last night you were too lazy to analyze the odds of some hands. You took advantage of some opportunities but at the same time, you let a lot of opportunities pass you by. The morning after that poker match, you are going to feel indifferent.
There is nothing more pleasing than waking up after a good poker game. Why? You have ten times more money in your pocket! Aside from the money, it is nice to wake up after a good poker match because you knew that you were playing your cards well. You knew that you were taking advantage of the right opportunities. You knew that you seized the opportunities right when they were in front of you. There is no better way to win a poker match where your timing was always right. You were making the right decisions at the right place at the right time. You called your straight when everyone else was bluffing. You went all in and you won the pot. You try to bluff and people fall for it. For some strange reason, you are on a roll. You are making a lot of good calls. You are playing like the professional pokers you see on television and the poker players that you read in books and magazines. Isn’t it good to feel like a poker player? All your poker studying has been put to good use. You can finally say that poker is a nice game. If you are the type of person that has been cursing poker since day one of your poker career then now is the time to change perspective. Poker is really a hard game to win but when you win, the fruits are very fulfilling.
The misdeal
August 10, 2009
What is a misdeal? A misdeal is when the dealer makes an error in dealing the cards. When there is a misdeal, the dealer has to collect all the cards and deal the deck all over again. Sometimes, there are penalties for a misdeal, on other times, there are no penalties for the misdeal. There are some times where the dealer is charged the big blind for a misdeal. There are some times where the dealer is charged the small blind. Sometimes the dealer even has to pay the small blind to all the players. Sometimes, the dealer simply has to reshuffle and deal again. Whatever suits you and your group is okay. Make sure that the house rules are established before the game begins so that you will avoid any misunderstanding in the middle of the game.
There are a lot of instances where a misdeal can happen. When can a misdeal happen? One instance where a misdeal can happen is if one of the cards accidentally flips over. How will this happen? This will happen if the dealer is distributing the cards too quickly that a card will end up flipping over because the air pressure is unbearable beneath it. Try throwing a card as fast as you can across a ten foot table. Throw all the cards to the other side one by one and see if one of them will flip over. Chances are, even if you are the best dealer in town, one of them will accidentally flip over.
Another instance where a misdeal can happen is if the dealer forgets how many players are on the table. The dealer can forget the number of players if someone or two people get knocked out in a poker match. Sometimes the dealer will give away seven sets of cards when there are only six players left. When this is the case, the dealer has to reshuffle and declare a misdeal.
A misdeal can also happen if the dealer deals out too many cards. There are some instances where a player will receive three cards instead of two. In poker games that have a dealer’s choice option, meaning the dealer can choose whether people will be playing Omaha, Hold’em, or Pineapple, sometimes the dealer forgets which one is being played and simply gives out the cards.
If you are the dealer of a certain poker round then you have to make sure that you are dealing the right amount of cards. You have to make sure that you are giving the cards to the right people. You have to make sure that you give the first card to the small blind. If you do not follow these measures as diligently as possible then you will end up giving away a large amount of your chips to the pot for no reason at all. When you are dealing at a poker match, the most important thing that you should have is presence of mind. Do not allow your mind to wander off when you give away the cards because the moment you lose concentration is the moment you lose chips.
The poker t-shirt
August 3, 2009
Fashion in poker is something that is very liberal. You can pretty much wear anything you want to the poker table. One of the nice fashion shirts that you can wear at the poker table are poker t-shirts. There are a lot of poker t-shirts out there and here are some examples.
One of the famous poker t-shirts out there has the saying “but they were suited.” This is a very funny saying because there are a lot of people out there that do unusually weird things at the poker table just because their cards are suited. Remember that when you have suited cards, you still do not have a flush! You still have to wait for five other cards to turn up and your chances of hitting a flush are less than one forth! Even if you have suited cards, there is still a higher chance that you will hit a pair or even an unsuited straight. This shirt is very funny because there are times in a poker player’s life that he or she will bank on a flush just because his or her cards are suited. Every poker player has gone through this dilemma. If you think about it, even you have gone through it!
Another famous poker shirt is the pocket aces. This is one of the best feelings in pre flop poker. Getting pocket aces when the dealer finished distributing the cards is one of the best feelings in poker. When you get pocket aces, all you want to do is jump for joy and go all in on the first hand. The pocket aces on your shirt is one way of telling everyone at the poker table that you are a lucky guy.
If pocket aces aren’t enough luck then you must wear the royal flush t-shirt. Getting the highest possible hand in poker is the best feeling in the world. It is even better than getting pocket aces. One of the nice things about the royal flush is that you are certainly going to win the pot no matter what happens. The only thing that you need to do is to reel as many people in. Once you reel as many people in, all you have to do is show your cards and take home the pot.
Poker t-shirts are very fun to wear because they tell a story. All the poker players out there can relate when t-shirts like this are on display. If you want to say something to a person without even uttering a word then you should put on some of these poker t-shirts on your next poker match. If you are going to play poker this weekend or next weekend then you might as well put on a t-shirt like this. Not only will the people at the table talk about your shirt, they will also want to get one themselves. Aside from the poker t-shirts that were mentioned here, there are a lot more shirts out there to choose from. A lot of shops offer it so all you have to do is get out there and see what is available.