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marcvh
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The Poker Item
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Dec 11 02:26 UTC 2005 |
OK, there's been enough poker talk so I'll go ahead and kick off a poker
item. To get things going, I'll talk about the most accessible portion
of poker -- watching poker on TV.
Watching poker on TV is, in a way, less like watching a sporting event
than like watching a reality show; instead of eating bugs, the
contestants are asked to call raises when they might be drawing dead.
Poker is rarely televised live, but instead is typically edited down to
showcase what the editors think makes an interesting or compelling
story. You get to find out more information than any of the
participants get to have (as opposed to, say, football where you don't
know anything that the players don't know.) Whether that makes for good
watching is a matter of perspective.
1. Best: FullTiltPoker dot net. The main reason is because they show
every single hand, even the "boring" hands where everybody folds around
to the big blind. The commentary is usually at least somewhat
interesting and knowledgable, and the cameras don't get overly fancy in
a way that distracts from the viewing experience.
2. Ultimate Poker Challenge. I'm giving it good marks because it's in
high-def, which makes the watching more immersive. Also, they can take
advantage of the size and aspect ratio to show you the hole cards with a
picture-in-picture; this allows you to watch the player's face when he
sees his hand, which adds a great deal to the viewing experience.
3. Poker Royale. Effectively put together and paced reasonably well;
edited some but not excessively. They usually like to have an equal
number of male and female players, and since there are so few women to
start with you'll see the same ones again and again. If you can't get
enough of Kathy Liebert, Jennifer Tilley and Cyndy Violette then this is
likely a good place to look.
4. World Series of Poker. Its' effectively presented and competently
commentated, but it's so heavily edited that you would think that the
whole tournament only took a couple of hours and every single hand
involved someone with pocket kings going all-in against someone with
pocket aces. The cameras usually don't linger on the players so it's
hard to really look at somebody and see how he acts when the flop
completely missed him but he's pot-committed.
5. Celebrity Poker Showdown. The question is really whether you like
watching celebrities, most of whom are not particularly experienced
players. There's editing but it's not excessive, and the commenation is
a little cutsey but not overly annoying. Because of the nature of luck,
frequently somebody who does everything wrong never the less ends up
winning, which can be frustrating to watch.
6. Worst: World Poker Tour. Mike Sexton is shallow and lacks variety in
his presentation, but he looks fantastic by virtue of the fact that he
is sitting next to the worst poker broadcaster ever: Vince Van Patten.
Vince (son of Eight Is Enough star Dick Van Patten) knows the nicknames
of most of the hands, and he'll share them with you long after they
cease being interesting. If a player is acting weak in order to induce
a bet you'll never get tired of hearing Vince say "he's digging a hole..
he's laying the twigs and branches across it..."
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| 32 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 1 of 32:
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Dec 11 03:51 UTC 2005 |
As Marc mentions, watching televised poker play is less like watching
a sporting event and more like watching a 30-second highlight reel
shown on some news program hours after the game.
The awful truth (from a broadcaster's standpoint) is that most poker
hands do not play dramatically enough to keep an audience's interest.
And the awful thing from an enthusiast's standpoint is that editing
the game down to just dramatic showdowns completely excises vital
context information that's necessary for any real understanding of
what's going on.
So I've personally been somewhat astounded by televised poker's huge
success in the past three years. Poker broadcasts used to be a once-
a-year recap of the WSOP, shown for about a week or two on one of
the ESPN channels about six to eight months after the event took place.
Now it seems like one can watch some sort of televised poker game
nearly every night (although maybe it only seems that way to me because
I don't flip on the television all that often..)
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nharmon
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response 2 of 32:
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Dec 11 04:10 UTC 2005 |
I am finding it easier to beat people at non-Texas Hold'em because a lot
of people think Poker is synonymous with Hold'em.
Case in point, my half-brother wanted to play poker. I called the game
as Five Card Draw. He's like, "Whats that?"
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naftee
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response 3 of 32:
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Dec 11 04:29 UTC 2005 |
i tried playing poker once this summer but it didn't work out.
blackjack was more fun.
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nharmon
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response 4 of 32:
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Dec 11 04:44 UTC 2005 |
I agree. Blackjack is much more fun.
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scholar
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response 5 of 32:
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Dec 11 05:30 UTC 2005 |
Blackjack is best played by a computer.
More than one sense of the word 'best' is being used here.
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cyklone
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response 6 of 32:
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Dec 11 07:26 UTC 2005 |
I always thought 7 cars stud (which, if I'm remembering right, was Texas
Hold 'em with two more hole cards) was the ultimate poker game. Does
anyone play it anymore?
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scholar
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response 7 of 32:
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Dec 11 07:35 UTC 2005 |
Seven card stud is played with no community cards, three downcards, and four
upcards.
It used to be the ultimate game, but hasn't been for a few years.
The four hole cards one is OMAHA, which is like Hold 'em except that you have
to use exactly TWO of your hole cards and THREE of the community cards to make
your hand, and it's often played for LOW as well as HIGH hands.
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furs
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response 8 of 32:
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Dec 11 10:32 UTC 2005 |
I don't know what it is, but I am addicted to watching poker on TV. I
mean, I don't watch it all the time, but when there's nothing else on,
I do find it very fascinating.
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other
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response 9 of 32:
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Dec 11 15:29 UTC 2005 |
Seven card stud is traditionally dealt in five rounds, and there are no
common cards (eash player is dealt her own hand of seven cards).
The first round is two cards face down and one card face up. The next
three rounds are one card face up, and the final round is one card face
down. Betting follows each round.
The group I play with most Friday evenings typically plays a small
variety of games including some we've made up, depending on the number
of players (range seems to be 3-9). The games are:
Five card stud (four rounds, 1 down and 1 up, 1 up, 1 up, 1 down,
no common)
Seven card stud (see above - 7 players or fewer)
"Hedge" (one round, five cards down)
"Coquilles" (pronounced "ko-kee" - same as Hedge, but add two
rounds with 1 common card per round)
"Johnny Two-Hole" (five card draw plus two rounds of 1 common card
per round - generally good only for 6 players or fewer)
Texas Hold-Em
Last night we added a new game, "Little Indian" (one card, dealt face
down to each player, who then - without looking at the card - holds it
up to their forehead where all the other players can see it. Players
then bet that their own card, which they cannot see, is higher than the
other cards that they can see. Last better has a significant advantage,
especially if the players are a little drunk.)
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scholar
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response 10 of 32:
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Dec 11 18:31 UTC 2005 |
why don't you play hold 'em that way?!
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mcnally
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response 11 of 32:
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Dec 11 19:40 UTC 2005 |
I'm not sure to what extent the current television hold'em craze has
eroded this, but until recently there were some definite regional
preferences in poker play (and here I'm talking not about home games
but about the sorts of games dealt in legal and semi-legal casinos
and card rooms..) The east coast, particularly Atlantic City, was
known for favoring seven-card stud. Hold'em has been the default
game for national play for some time -- 30 years or more. And for
what originally started out as legal reasons but became established
in their poker culture, Southern California has a regional pocket
of draw lowball players, a game that's not commonly played seriously
anywhere else that I know of. I've never seen five card draw (high)
dealt anywhere in the country except for Deadwood, S.D., and that
seemed more like a concession to tourists enamored with the Wild Bill
legend than a real devotion to the game.
As for myself, in my poker playing years I mostly played limit-bet
hold'em (which is dealt according to the same rules but proceeds
substantially differently from the no-limit-bet tournament version
favored on television, since the betting has such a huge effect on
strategy..) A few years ago I started playing more Omaha, which,
as was already mentioned is a flop-card game variant like hold'em
where the players are all dealt four cards instead of two and (in
the variant I played) is played high/low. It's a less familiar
game for many players and some find the increased possibilities
from four cards confusing, leading to more exploitable mistakes
from beginning players, which is why I found it attractive.
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scholar
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response 12 of 32:
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Dec 11 21:47 UTC 2005 |
An easy way to make a few dollars is to play blackjack at online casinos.
Due to stiff competition, online casinos tend to offer large bonuses (100%
is common) on the first deposit players make, under the condition that the
player play through the money several times before cashing out. The idea is
that people will play and lose all their money, including the bonus, but, for
players with the small amount of disipline to cashout as soon as they fulfill
the playthrough requirements, the odds can be hugely in their favour. For
example, Starluck Casino offers a 100% bonus on a $100 deposit with an eight
times play through requirement, i.e. you have to wager $1600 in total to
cashout. However, playing the lowest house edge game -- 'Vegas Strip'
blackjack -- with perfect basic strategy results in a house edge of 0.41% and
a payout of $193.44. That's a player edge of 12.09%! Not all bonuses are
this good -- many, for example, have higher playthrough requirements for
blackjack than they do for other games or prohibit it entirely -- but there
are many bonuses out there that can be played profitably!
Online poker rooms also offer bonuses, though those tend not to be as generous
as the casinos.
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nharmon
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response 13 of 32:
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Dec 11 22:11 UTC 2005 |
So you make $93. How long does it take to play through $1600?
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scholar
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response 14 of 32:
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Dec 11 22:26 UTC 2005 |
It depends.
Ideally, you want to play with the lowest possible wager -- $1 -- to reduce
variability. That'd take maybe four hours, though that depends entirely on
how fast you can play.
If you increased your wager to $4, it would only take... an hour!
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scholar
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response 15 of 32:
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Dec 14 01:27 UTC 2005 |
ALSO< UH< AN INTERESTING THING IS THAT THERE ARE MANY ONLINE CASINOS THAT
OFFER THE S_O_CALLED "MICROGAMIONG VIPER" SOFTWARE< WHICH AUTOMATICALLY PLAYS
PERFECT STRATEGY BLACKJACK FOR YOU>
IT MIGHT BE A BIT OF A HUMP GETTING OVER THE WHOLE *HEY< SOME COMPUTER IS
BETTING $60 OF MY MONEY PER MINUTE*< BUT IT"S REALLY NO DIFFERENT THAN YOU
DOING IT YOURSELF< EXCEPT THAT IT TAKES A LOT LESS TIME AND REQUIRES MUCH LESS
INTERACTION>
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jep
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response 16 of 32:
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Dec 14 18:48 UTC 2005 |
This item is linked as Grex agora:128 (and sports:128
(Hey, what are the odds on that?)
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scholar
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response 17 of 32:
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Dec 14 18:54 UTC 2005 |
I object to the linking.
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jep
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response 18 of 32:
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Dec 14 19:02 UTC 2005 |
Why?
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scholar
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response 19 of 32:
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Dec 14 21:05 UTC 2005 |
Because it was done without consulting me.
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mcnally
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response 20 of 32:
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Dec 14 21:52 UTC 2005 |
On the same basis, I object to your objection.
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jep
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response 21 of 32:
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Dec 14 22:03 UTC 2005 |
If the author of this item wishes, I will remove the link.
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marcvh
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response 22 of 32:
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Dec 14 22:37 UTC 2005 |
I'm not a sports fan in general, nor am I a regular participant in
the sports conference. Moreover, I recognize there's some degree of
controversy whether poker is a sport and whether a poker player is an
athlete (I think it's only if he is good at rippling chips.) But I
don't have any objection to the linking.
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naftee
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response 23 of 32:
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Dec 14 23:13 UTC 2005 |
what !
jep !
how come ric isn't FW of the sports cf over here ?>!
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scholar
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response 24 of 32:
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Dec 15 01:27 UTC 2005 |
jep is a bad man.
a boring, intolerant coward.
i object to the linking because i don't think anyone like him, with his
history, should have the capability to have control over items, especially
if he hasn't first asked for it.
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