The Slot Blog

The footballer has his shorts and cleats, the ballerina her tutu, but what about the poker player?

For many years, dress codes were very strict in this closed environment. Today, you cannot miss the excitement that surrounds the game of poker. The enthusiasm of the younger generation, the arrival of women in this environment and the new media of poker have helped change the style of dress of these enthusiasts of cards, bluffing and strategy. Regarding look, nothing is left to chance. Here is a small description of fashion trends in the world of poker.

The appearance of a player is used to transmit a message to opponents. Dress codes will bring determination and above all the assurance of the player. If there is a random part in the game, it has no place in the fashion choices. Superstition is also often important. Every detail is important and symbolic. Players demonstrate many fantasies, their cloth will thus be both a good luck charm, but also the way to display the look of a winner.

However, if you walk the halls of tournaments, the conclusion is final. The tendency is to want to wear jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie. How to explain this epidemic of sportswear around the poker tables? The search for comfort of course! Spend endless hours to handle cards and chips in an optimum concentration justifies the quest for comfort clothing. A revolution codes that also adapts to modernism and changing attitudes. Only one more detail is necessary to complete the required look. No one is armed for the battle of the blinds without his dark glasses and headphones. The glasses are an essential weapon at the table for both maintaining the mystery and concealing one’s emotions. Now an essential accessory, we look more and more to personalize and customize it, like wearing glasses bearing the image of SpongeBob SquarePants.

The desire to stand out is overwhelming. Increasingly, we see that some players personalize their style. The neutral look becomes more extroverted, some players do not hesitate to play on the paths of all the fluff and frivolity. You will come across so few players looking like a dandy or wearing a his three-piece suit and a borsalino hat and smoking a cigar. Others display a more offbeat and whimsical style straight out as a manga in the image of Elky’s bleached hair.

Casual, elegant, provocative, whimsical, the poker player imposes his codes and style at the table. Superstition is essential in the accessories, the bluff addicts represent today more and more than the fashion addicts!

A lot of poker is about building a bankroll. We build a bankroll and conserve it so that we can play higher and higher stakes, so that we can earn more money on an hourly basis. But when we get the bankroll, we may be frightened to take a shot at those higher limits. This is the experience of many players.

This post is for people to post comments about hands that were played by idiots at relatively high levels of poker. The idea is to provide encouragement for people to properly manage their bankrolls, so that they can move up with less fear. In a sense, this will hold some of the same sorts of material that is currently covered in other posts but more focused on bankroll. Please post only comments about hands that your opponents played really, really badly. Show all of the lower limit players how much money is lying around at the higher limit tables, just waiting for decent players to pick it up.

This is either limit or no-limit Holdem we are talking about. Please post only for bigger games, say 5/10 and higher. I don’t play limit holdem, but I think it is a good limit to count as semi-big. And the bigger the better! If someone is a complete donk at the really big games, we all want to hear about it!!

Actually I would like to see some of these kinds of hand histories from 3/6 and maybe even as low as 2/4. 2/4 is my next step that I have been putting off my initial jump basically because I am afraid of damaging this bankroll that I have worked to hard to build to the point it is at now. But I understand if you want to keep it at 5/10 and above. I forgot how long ago it was but my friend just got up to 2/4 recently and while he is very lucky he has made almost a thousand there in less than a month, I played some recently at Titan Poker to clear some bonus and it was quite bad, I was check raising those fools like mad.

I actually think 2/4 is worse than the 1/2 level because 1/2 has a lot of bonus whores probably, while 2/4 players cares less about their money. I think the same may be true about 5/10 and 10/20 .I want to set the bar high so that this post is not flooded with comments. If you just fire up a 5/10 table on 888poker with a good HUD running so you can see mucked cards, I guarantee you’ll find all the reassurance and encouragement you need within 20 minutes.

I recently had a poker session and here are some thoughts about my play.

Yes, they are that bad. I don’t know what possesses people to go insane with bluffing. I realize that now and again, the bluff-raise is a pretty solid play, but the bluff-bet/bluff-reraise/bluff-bet, then call just doesn’t seem like it’s going to make a lot of money in the long run. Even when you factor in advertising. I got a full house by the turn while my opponent had pure air, this is a dream come true situation to get bluffed with a monster.

I also played some Stud/8. On one hand I stepped into trouble with my 5th street raise. Thank god I am a luck-bucket when it comes to stud/8. There’s nothing like being an over-aggressive idiot to ensure that you are raising into the (near) nuts on a regular basis. I plead innocent by reason of insanity. There is clearly no way construction is going to lay down on fifth street with any hand at all. My ten high low draw might look mildly intimidating, but in retrospect I kind of doubt it. I guess I was hoping to be able to steal from him on the river or something. I guess the ‘or something’ worked out pretty well though. Nothing like the miracle gut shot when the opponents trips does not fill to scoop it on the river.

I like both Texas Holdem Poker and Seven Card Stud, but I am probably better in Stud. As nowadays everyone plays holdem, the skill range in Stud is quite large with all kinds of players but a large number of fish. Many of them are casual players who do not try to master the game but just want to relax and have a cool time. This is what makes the game interesting for serious players.

Poker can be an extremely confusing game, especially if you’ve never played before. Try any online poker room for a first game. Before throwing yourself into the fray unprepared, there are various terms and ideas you should familiarise yourself with.

One of the most important things to be aware of is the protocol at the start of a poker game. Before the game even begins proper, prior to the first hand being dealt, players must put some money into the pot. This means that each player has something to stake before the first card has been dealt. There are two different ways in which money can be contributed, depending on the game you are playing.

If you’re playing a version of poker with what is called an ante, each and every player must contribute a certain, predetermined amount to the pot before each hand of the game. Usually this is a relatively small bet. The essential thing about the ante is that it’s not actually a bet, just a method of getting the ball rolling and the game started with money in the pot.

A blind is a forced bet made before the deal. It’s a blind bet because you haven’t yet seen a card, so you don’t know anything about the course the game may take. The standard practice for putting in blinds is that the two players who are to the left of the dealer pay them in. There are two blinds to be paid, one “little” and one “large”. The player immediately to the left of the dealer usually plays the smaller “little” blind and the player two places to the dealer’s left plays the more substantial “large” blind.

The actual amounts of both “small” and “big” blinds are predetermined before the game begins. The sum of the blinds often depends on the kind of game you’re playing and the minimum bet associated with that game. The “large” blind is usually equal to the minimum bet of the game, while the “little” blind is perhaps a half or a third of that amount. If the minimum bet was £10, for example, the “large” blind would also be £10 while the “little” blind might be between £3 and £5. Blinds do count as a player’s first bet, which means that in the first round of betting in these kinds of games no one can “check” out, everyone has to place a bet.

The WSOP 2010 is already approaching its end, but two major events still remain to be played. Of course the main event which will start on July 10th at the Rio Hotel and Casino. As is now customary this event will play for a few days until the Final Nine are decided, in other words the players who will make it to the final table. And this final table will take place a few months later in November, so that the suspense can build up. Given the size of the field for the WSOP main event, is is not expected to be won by a well-known poker pro, but rather by an unknown. Of course this unknown will lose his anonymity forever after winning the event.

Another prestigious event is the Tournament of Champions. This a very unique tournament as there is no entry fee despite the cool one million dollar prize, half of which goes to the winner. The field is the smallest at the WSOP with only 27 players. But only a few players are eligible. First they almost all have a WSOP Gold bracelet. And not just that, but they must be elected by the public. Can you guess who was the player with the most votes? Not really surprisingly it was Phil Ivey, and Daniel Negreanu was second. For now Mike Matusow is the chip leader and this tournament will continue in a few days.

Other noteworthy results so far are Gold bracelets won by poker superstars. A few did. The most notable is that Phil Ivey who won his 8th bracelet in the $3,000 HORSE event. Only 5 players have won more bracelets, but it is expected that Phil Ivey will surpass them all. Sammy Farha won his 3rd bracelet in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better event, and this is not really surprising either as Sammy is considered one of the best Omaha players in the world. Finally another well known poker player who had not yet a bracelet is Gavin Smith. He won the $2,500 Mixed Hold’em (Limit/No-Limit) event. Congratulations to all of them.

And good luck to you at the poker tables and slot machines.