This is all in tournament play when I am not getting bad beats I usually end up winning the tournament or getting into the money. Not professional or even casino just local bar poker where you buy in for $10-$15 and the pot is like $400.
Forgot one yesterday I have 8 6 the flop comes 4 5 7 I flop the nuts (at the time) straight. I bet it big opponent calls, turn comes 4, river comes a 9 he turns over 4 9.
Two days ago (Friday night) in a cash game I turn the broadway straight opponent rivers the boat.
No one can tell me poker is a 100% skill game. If I have pocket Kings and opponent has pocket Jacks and they hit their Jack, how is that skill? They put their chips in the middle against me with the worse hand and got lucky.
Poker is a game of long term skill and short term luck. Keep getting it in good and you will eventually come out ahead. Unless you let it drive you insane first.
This game is terrible this way. They should change the name to river poker. It happens constantly and allot of time to people who have no business even being in the hand. Wish it would be more like real poker!!!
Long term play is skill. Individual hands are luck. All are influenced by skill in betting/reading the opponents, and knowing odds.
Let’s say something liking sinking a basketball from 3/4 court. If I only have to do it once with one try I’d rather be lucky. If I have to do it 10 times out of 20 I’d rather be skilled.
All-in preflop with a pocket pair is usually a bad idea. It’s not just trips that can beat you, but two pair or even a higher pocket pair. Even all-in with pocket aces is a bad idea, though lots of people here do it. When they lose, they often blame it on Replay, saying stuff like “Only on Replay”. No, pocket aces don’t lose only on Replay.
Theres better players here than I, but i’d tell you its never just about your pocket. how the board reveals itself is all part of the strategy. Know when to hold them, Know when to fold them, but thats not new advice.
As said in above comments, your pocket is only 2/7 cards possibly in play. Maybe avoid All-in preflops, just pay the SB/BB tax and move on until you’re more confident in your hand, wait out/sit out the “bingo” players always going all in(an almost eventual losing strat) and they’ll usually leave when the pots start drying up, because others catch on.
look at your pocket. are they On suite connectors(or on suite within range of straight)? those can give you many more outs, flush and straight draws are more likely, and you could snag a (2) pair, or trips. That’ll greatly increase your outs. pocket pairs are worth investigating for cheap, even low pairs, but pocket pairs make flush and straight harder to obtain. full houses can be made well with pocket pairs, but that means one of the other 2 cards matching yours is either in the deck or in someone elses hand(s), and so the probablities are lower.
Try and focus on reading the board inversely and identify possible pockets, more importantly so than yours. what would nut this table? are they betting like they have it? consistent raising patterns are a good give away that a player either consistently bluffs like that, or has the nuts when betting like that. better players know to mix that up though, so YMMV.
and avoid “bingo” players. its fun to bust them, but they are rarely playing with the same intent as you.
(by bingo players i mean players who constantly go all-in, even after losing their stack, and rebuy again just to go all-in over and over again.)
and avoid Bingo, in general. its for boring people.
Respectfully disagree with the notion that going all-in with pocket AA’s is a bad idea. As long as only a small portion of your total estate is caught up in the game, you can just focus on maximizing your expected return, and getting called all-in with pocket AA’s certainly does that. The main problem with this strategy is that you’re not going to see stronger players call an all-in preflop very often, so you’re basically throwing away the best hole cards in poker the vast majority of the time.
You guys are also assuming that I’m the one that went all in, which I did with the Queens against Queen Jack the other two times I raised and my opponent went all in with worse cards and got lucky. Am I supposed to fold pocket Kings because my opponent pushes all in? I realize that could mean they have aces but that wasn’t the case any of the times. I don’t play against professionals.
Just keeps on happening though. I have pocket 7s the flop comes 7 8 9 two hearts. I shove opponent has ace 9 off suite with ace being a heart in his hand the only way he can win is a flush because if he hits another 9 I hit a boat, turn heart river heart.
