And whoever suggested playing poker without money on the line...WTF? If you don't regularly play in a home game or a casino, you cannot possibly understand how different play is when there is nothing on the line.

OK, Steevie - So that is at least three of us telling you that no-stakes poker is a different game.

And, Draugnar, it also doesn't take into account that you can win on the spot without seeing another card. All-in is a powerful play and, as you know, the play itself can make people fold. It depends on table presence, position and a host of other things, of course. But I have won my fair share of pots just by making a huge bet. I'm assuming you have also.

I'd rather play 52 card pick-up than poker without money on the line.

@Draugnar - Where do you play? I have the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa about 25 minutes away and play there pretty regularly. Going tonight, as a matter of fact.

Regularly at Hollywood casino in Lawrenceberg, In, but the new Binnions Horseshoe Cincinnati opened up this week and it is non-smoking being in Ohio. The distance is close to the same between the two from my house (half an hour to either) so I may change over after Lent when I resume playing. Depends on the room (not physically, but the players) as well as how they control the downtown bums wandering in and the people getting out of jail just across the street.

Hollywood has the better local and therefore better class of people (you don't just walk in off the street with dirty clothes or fresh from the slammer), but Cincinnati has the non-smoking aspect and other plusses in it's favor.

*locale not local

The Hard Rock casino is, of course, full smoking. But the poker room, which is removed from the casino proper, is smoke free. What a difference that makes. I can hardly stay in a poker room where they allow smoking.

Joker - if you call an all in with 22 you are a 52% 48% favourite against a random hand like 85o. The only hands you dominate are 2x hands and as you have two 2s those aren't ging to happen a lot. You are of course dominated by every bigger pr.

If you strategy for playing poker is to get excited by being a tiny bit head then you will be a loser in the long run, sorry, but there it is. Save your money and give the game up now. If you want to gamble and get involved in races, I'd recommend horse or greyhounds.

@Maniac - +1 I wish there was a way for all of the Dip poker players to get together and play poker one night. Live. That would be a blast.

All the poker rooms in Indiana are smoke free, but you gotta walkt hrough all the smoking blackjack tables and slot machines to get to them. :-(

And, yeah, I'd never all-in on pocket 2s unless I was just 4 or 5 big blinds, then it's take a shot and see if I stay in or not. You got nothing much to loose at that point.

Remember, my pocket deuces I bet the bullets with was never all in and I had my opponent covered more than 2 to 1. The bet was 10% of my stack. That's all. And I had already amassed twice my buy-in as this was a cash game. So the most I would have lost in the hand was pure profit.

beat the bullets with, not bet

The Hard Rock Casino is all smoking and it is huge. And packed with little old ladies smoking like a freight train. But the air circulation is really awesome and, as long as you don't stand right next to someone smoking, you don't notice is much. Much.

@Draugnar - How many tables are in your poker rooms? Ours is huge, about 50.

The new Horseshoe is a 31 room WSOP sponsored. The old Hollywood used to be that big plus they set up temporary ones in the grand ballroow for major tournaments with WPT sponsorship, but the WPT stopped coming (couldn't get a big enough prize pool or celebs) and they moved it to s smaller 20 table spot.

But my favortie room was the old Grand Victoria, about 6 tables, no major tournaments, everyone knew each other, and it was on the top deck of the boat away from *everything*. When Argosy became Hollywood and expanded to the 30 table room, they killed the farther away Grand Vic poker room. I was bummed. One of my favorite hands ever was played there. Even though I lost it, it drew a crowd and looked like something you'd see on TV. I and one of the other regulars went heads up after the flop. I flopped a flush with an openended straight draw. All-in trying to collect the preflop bets (about a hundred) with $1400. Everyone folded but the one guy. He had a nut flush draw and called. He was all in as I had him covered with 800 to spare. Turn came junk. River hit his nut flush with the deuce of spades. Fuck! But the crowd it drew while he was making a decision. People from the other 3 tabels and outsiders who suddenly saw this group standing around one table all came in and watched as my opponent agonized over that call. I didn't mind losing as it was the best fucking adrenalin rush *ever*. A second of my favs came in that room as well when I flopped a straight, turned a flush and rivered a nuts Q high straight flush (J of hearts, the flush suit, was in my hand so no K high or Royal possible). Too bad we were playing 3/6 limit as I was only able to collect a hundred off the other two players in the hand (A high flush thinking he had the nuts and K high flush who thought he was on a draw for a straight flush not knowing I had the J).

Wow. Very nice. There is something to be said for small rooms. Ours is, in my opinion, too large. Not enough good dealers. Too many rich jackasses that will go all in on anything. But, if you can find a good table, it's great fun.

And we currently have a WPT event going on here.

Yeah, I miss the small room. That's why I like "Draugnar's Den" (aka the mancave): poker table and TV and fridge and bathroom right off the mainroom. The table I have seats eight comfortably and is perfect for home games.

quick responses. 27o is worst hand statistically, but to Maniac's point, it is not the worst hand to have due to knowing exactly what to do. I'll take the A6o over it, though, because the stress of agonizing over it won't kill me and I have a much better chance at winning the hand.

I say muck every time. I played with a few friends for a few games in a row. I had them thinking I was bluffing 80% of the time when I was bluffing maybe 20-30%. Due to having a good run of cards and pushing them out the first time I played them, I was able to mess their calculations up for the remainder of the games we played, and because I mucked, they had a lot of trouble balancing those calculations out. I cleaned up pretty well.

As to the point of playing poker for fake money, I don't mind it. I realize I play differently with real money, but it's a fun thing to do when I'm bored. I don't play that often (real of fake), so I don't believe it throws me off to that much of an extent, and even if it does, I'm not playing often enough with real money to lose anything I'm not willing to lose.

It would be awesome to get an actual game going. When's the next face to face tournament that people are planning to go to? If it's more than one day and a sizeable number of people showed up, you could get that together in between sessions, though, it might throw your diplomacy game off lol

I have a real poker table. 8 player oval with blue felt and padded rail if anyone is willing to come to Draugnar's Den and get cleaned out. :-)

Am I invited to this game???

I may not be a 16/17 year old female model like redhouse, but as you know, I am suck a dick and according to YJ, I may or may not like tentacle porn.

OK, first of all I'm a he, it makes sense in Dutch :)
Second, I missed the near-flush in maniac's example, but that wouldn't happen to me with real cards, I'm dyslectic, if that's the right word for it...
In that case it would totally depend on what I think/know about my opponent. If it was the first hand of a cash game I'd probably call or raise at the flop and fold at the turn. Still not depending on real or play. If it were a tournament game I might fold right away, depending on how far away I am from being into the money etc. Play or real still doesn't matter to me. I don't see why people would play different depending on real or fake money. You're still trying to get as much of it as you can, right?

If there was genuine interest I'm sure we could convince Kestas (whom I know to be a poker player) to take our 'donations' and then redistribute them back to us based on the outcome of a poker challenge. We could then set up a free play tournament on one of the online sites.

If we have 10+ players registering an interest we should then approach Kestas to hold the cash. I'm happy with any buy in the other players suggest.

Register your interest here

Maniac

Actually I'll start a new thread

I suggest 0 buy in, otherwise I'm not in, I haven't done online transactions yet (because I never had to so far) and I don't think now is a good time/reason to start...

Oh, other thread :P

Quick question are redhouse and steephie22 closely related?

No? What makes you think that? Because we're both Dutch?