Facebook Poker Experiences
I have been playing poker (Texas Hold Em) on Facebook for close to three months now and the experience has been a good one overall. If there is one good thing about playing poker online, it is the fact that a novice has many more opportunities to gain experience online than in a live scenario. Facebook poker is not played using real money, which makes it more attractive as a novice has nothing to lose.
The system in Facebook is that each player starts with about 400 chips and is supposed to play his way up the rankings and chip tallies. Facebook is very liberal with chip bonuses, giving each player either 200 or 500 chips (depending on player level) when they log in first time each day. There are also bonuses for passing certain landmarks (e.g., a 5000 bonus for crossing 50k chips, along with a 5 star ranking and the right to call yourself a shark :))
This post is starting to look like an endorsement for Facebook poker, which wasn't my original intention, so I'll get right to the point. I have felt my approach to poker change a lot after playing online for these three months. I had written about this in an earlier post, but I'll recap a few points. I feel that many people approach poker the wrong way. They simply treat it as another form of gambling, much like roulette or craps, and this attitude reflects in their gameplay. The truth is that poker is a game with a significant component of skill that goes with the luck. Some professional players (yes is it indeed possible to make a living playing poker, but is isn't the life of a gambling addict) say that it is 80% skill and 20% luck while others give different numbers, but the undeniable fact is that skill goes a long way in playing the game. Facebook poker is unfortunately filled with a large number of novices who play a very risky and amateur game where they simply throw in chips with crappy hands in the hope of getting lucky and striking gold. I don't expect everyone to play solidly and I know that unpredictability is a useful attribute in poker but there should always be a method to the madness. In some cases, the sheer stupidity of certain plays is so aggravating that it can get me steaming, which is the exact opposite of the way a good player should play.
A cursory google search for poker strategy will yield so many results that it isn't possible for me to compactly explain what it is about these novice gambling wannabes that gets me so riled up. Instead, I will try to illustrate my point by narrating a few bad beat stories. I know that most pros hate hearing such stories, but then again, a pro wouldn't be learning anything new from my post :).
My first bad beat story deals with a sit N go where I was short stacked with 490 chips. The guy to my left was an aggressive character who would put a lot of pressure on me by reraising every time I entered the pot. I had folded only three hands and I was suddenly down from 1000 to 490 chips with 5 players left. The guy to my left had abut 3000 chips. I got AK suited, which is a really strong hand and so I raised to 4X the big blind by putting in 200 chips. The guy to my left raises to 500 chips, which is puzzling to me because it is a move that indicates a monster hand like pocket aces. Surprisingly one other guy called the raise. At this stage I had to go all in as I knew my AK stood a good chance of winning. The aggressive guy managed to bully the other guy out of the pot and it turned out that he had 4 6 offsuit!!!. Of course, dame luck was her fickle self and he caught a 6 on the river to win all my chips and knock me out of the tournament.
My analysis here is simple. Even aggressive players need to respect raises by other players, especially with junk like 4 6 offsuit. This guy should have folded to my raise of 200 chips because
a) His cards were junk and b) he could not possibly bully me off the pot when I was short stacked. In short he was playing like a brainless schoolyard bully and deserved to give me his chips. While his play wasn't the most braindead play I had seen on facebook, it was a pretty stupid play. Unfortunately, he got lucky and got the better of me.
In poker parlance, people who play this way are referred to as either fish or donkeys, but a comparison to a wild gibbon randomly throwing fruit your way hoping to hit you is also apt. I had another such encounter in the gibbon infested habitat of facebook when a guy made it a point of raising and calling my reraises with clearly inferior hands. In one case, I had AQ and he and something like J4 and caught a 4 on the river after calling my all in bet on a flop which didn't help him. I had raised preflop with AQ to give others a chance to get away from the hand without any trouble, but this fellow was the kind of fish who falls in love with a picture card. Even the call preflop is tolerable, but not folding to a sizeable bet on the flop is something which puzzled me and further confirmed to me that the guy really had no clue. Of course, the moron got lucky and took over 1500 chips from me. This was not a tournament and so I restacked with the idea of making him pay the next time he blundered. Unfortunately, it was a similar situation five minutes later when I had AK and he had K6 and he caught a 6 on the river to win again.
My last story is a weird one because of the betting patterns of one of the players. I was playing a table where few people raised preflop, but almost everyone would call. I raised with AK in mid position, and had a lot of callers. The flop came A 8 9, which made me very happy. It was checked to me and I fired a good sized bet. Many guys folded but there were still two more guys who called and one guy was before me. The turn was a Q. First guy checks, I put in anther big bet, third guy folds and first guy calls. I feel that the first guy's behaviour is very suspicious because he was calling without any hesitation as if he was confident he was ahead. The river was a J. The first guy checks and I check as well because I had by now become more wary of the way these people played. I was expecting him to have two pair or trips.
Imagine my surprise and shock when the guy showed 10 7 offsuit. The guy had played like a drunk man, chased a draw in a highly suspect manner all the way to the river, made a straight on the river and did not bet on the river!!! I have seen bad poker players and worse, but that had to be one of the most braindead plays ever. The reason I am so harsh is because betting on the river was a win win for him. If I had called, he would have got more chips from me and if I had folded, he didn't have to show the table the junk that he was playing, which would have been to his advantage. Instead, by checking, he allowed me to get away scot free (although I was sorely tempted to fire a bet on the river).
Of course, the rest of the table congratulated the guy on his hand, which was proof that I was in gibbon central here. Still, it is always preferable not to berate inferior players at the poker table. I say this because by berating them, you will be educating them and making them play better, which automatically reduces your chances of extracting chips from them.
To sum up, poker isn't like chess, where the better player always wins. Sometimes making the right moves and decisions alone isn't enough. I am convinced that there will never be a Bobby Fischer of poker due to the sheer variance involved with amateur players who don't know when to fold. However, in the long run, patience and superior skill should catch enough luck to become profitable.
Labels: poker
