So since we’re playing tonight instead of Friday night (I was at work until after 8 on Friday and thought I missed Poker), I figured that I’d put down everything I could possibly remember about playing Hold-’em in prep for tonight’s game with strangers.
1st off: Position. There is the little blind, the big blind, under the gun (the first guy to bet after the big blind), before the button, and the button. Everybody else is in the squishy middle somewhere.
In most poker games, the majority of players just call. They don’t fold that often. They want to see the flop. They want to see the turn. They daydream about seeing the river turn over that *ONE* card, like in Maverick.
In a game where just everybody always calls, position doesn’t matter much because you know that everybody is going to call anyway. So your best bet is to fold when you don’t have good cards but, hey, might as well see the flop because you never know. (But *THEN* fold unless you’ve got three of a kind or something because the turn never helped anybody and the only person ever helped by the river was that one guy on television.)
Don’t look at your cards after you first get them. Look at everybody else. THEN look at your cards. Don’t constantly have to look at your cards. Come up with a way to remember them easily. A big letter/number for the card and a small letter for the suit should do it. A pair of nines could be remembered with 9ch. Suited 78 could be remembered with 78d. If you’re consistently playing hands that require 4 characters rather than 3, you shouldn’t be consistently waiting to see the turn.
In a game where some people know how to play, position matters. The guy who is under the gun probably has something. A pair, maybe a suited face card. The guy who is the button probably has crap but just wanted to raise to see who he could knock out. The Big Blind could have anything. Anything at all. This makes the Big Blind very dangerous.
If everybody notices that you fold all the time, this makes them more likely to fold when you happen to stay in. So you should open the game by staying in a handful of times with crap. “I was going for a straight!” or something. Make a big show of losing little pots. Make a little show out of winning the big ones.
Seriously. K8o? What are you hoping for? A pair of 8s with a good kicker? A pair of Kings with a crappy kicker?
So… what are you playing?
(Picture is HG Wells playing a war game from Illustrated London News (25 January 1913[/efn_note]
In most home games, the majority of players probably call, but in a casino game, the majority of players fold.
As you say, watch the table, and if most are playing tight, play loose; if most are playing loose, play tight. And know when to switch gears.Report
That’s been my experience with home games. People will generally stick in to see the flop, unless someone starts raising. Basically, it seems everyone is willing to fork over the ante as the price of doing business, and won’t fold until someone starts raising.
After all, if everyone is just calling and the pot isn’t going anywhere, maybe you will win with a small pair or a high card.
Of course, that generally means people raising have solid cards, especially after the flop. Which is why everyone bails as soon as people start raising.
(Of course, this gets a little more complicated as soon as someone has a solid chip advantage, or when the blinds start getting really high)Report
The new expansion for Civilisation VI (Rise and Fall) came out on Thursday, so I’m playing that right now. The new features do help to improve the game, but I need to play a couple more games before I can really determine the effect it has had on the game.
In any case, it will hopefully keep me occupied until the Apocalypse expansion for Stellaris comes out in two weeks.Report
Did they fix the bug with spawn points? I quit playing Civ 6 the third time I spawned in within 10 tiles of another Civ, on a large world.
Once, I spawned in so close their initial city moved my settler because I was inside their new territory.Report
@morat20
I think they mentioned that in the patch notes.Report
Cool. It drove me to quit after a few games.Report