Joanne's Theory of Poker (in the current millenium)

[rant on]

After extensive thought and hours of playing poker both online and in 3D, discussing poker strategy with my friends, again both online and in 3D, I have come to the conclusion that it is playing poker online (along with a side order of watching poker on TV) that has created the phenomena we now have of the worst fucking players ever. Please allow me to explain my hypothesis.

I play poker in 3D alot (well, not as much as I used to, but all-in-all, my 3D play still far surpasses my online play). Playing in person (if you play reasonably good, or reasonably intelligent [or reasonably both] types of people) you don't have as many people who are going to call some ridiculous bet that an online player or newbie will jump on. (Hello! KQ off just ain't that great when it's behind a raise and a reraise - well, to reasonably good players, right?!) So, why do we see so much bullshit? Oh, wait, let me please define bullshit for you first:

Bullshit #1: All-in, first hand in to a tournament

(and subsequently every other hand thereafter)

To wit, I was watching a tournament earlier today and first hand, three people went All-In. This started with one A-I and then two callers. There was not one single pair. We're talking AQ vs. AJ. vs AT. SAY WHAT??? We're not even talking big slick!! (And there's a reason they call AK Anna Kournikova; cause it looks damned good but just doesn't win much! It's a nice STARTING hand!) Would I call an All-In first hand with it? Nope, no way! Would I call three All In's with a pair of 8's? Probably not. Would you? Didn't think so. (We're still talking first hand here.)

Bullshit #2: The Suck Out

I have never, ever seen more people call with the most bogus hands EVER as I do online. Bottom pair calling to the river (and I mean calling SERIOUS bets where they HAD to know they were dead meat) only to hit trips on the bloody river. Or they call a monster bet with a gutshot straight draw or a backdoor flush with their fucking 56 suited connectors (since when is a 6 high flush a GIVEN as the nuts???) and then hit with their 1 or 2 or 5 outer. Would you call a big bet with a 6 high flush? I would have to give that serious thought (based on betting patterns, etc.) COME ON!

OK, so this is the meat of my entire rant and the reason WHY PEOPLE SUCK playing poker. I had a conversation with one of my blogger buds a couple times about the number of suck outs he suffered to on PokerStars. He felt that FullTilt had a much better ratio which was closer to normal (read: 3D) play. I play on both PS and FT. So today I am playing on FullTilt (and thinking about my friend who likes FT better) and sure as shit, EVERY hand where I had callers, I got sucked out on. The only thing that held for me were my QQ where everyone folded to my bet (I had QQ twice...the only wins I got that whole tourney). Let me further say that I was not the only one who got sucked out on (and I am NOT talking about the good kind of sucking here! Sorry, I tangented there for a moment….mind in the gutter…nevermind!)

Anyway, as my theory goes, as people play online much more often than they do face-to-face, the number of suck outs they see and experience (being the sucker as well as the suckee - along with most people having no clue about statistical analysis and probability [ok, I am giving people way too much credit here], er, having no concept of OUTS), they EXPECT that the suckout is how poker works...that it is the rule, NOT the exception.

Coupled with that is TV. How many hours goes into creating one hour of television? Uhm, FIVE maybe? Five hours of FOLD, FOLD, FOLD. Fold to the BB. Fold to any bet. No, these Einstein's see the two hands out of two hours that makes good TV and think THAT'S HOW TO PLAY POKER!

So, now...let's couple these two pieces of total bullshit together and what do we get? We get people who call and go all in with nothing and suck out and think they are the next Erick Fucking Lindgren (I almost said Phil Fucking Hellmuth cause I liked the almost alliteration better but Erick Lindgren is so damned cute [not to mention having the sexiest voice on the planet - dude, would you PLEASE make an instructional tape for me...god I could go to bed with that voice every night.] Whooops, serious tangent there, sorry!!) because THEY WON A HAND. Yo, you dumb mutha fukka, YOU SUCK! You won cause you got lucky! Play for the next year and tell me how much in the hole you are...and FUCK YOU while you're at it ‘cause I KNOW that if I play in that rare cash game, you’re gonna suck out on me!! GRRRRRRRRRRR!

One of the poker commentators said this the other day: The All-In is the right strategy to use if you feel the other people at the table play better than you. Swell. Now they're teaching them that All-In is the way to win a hand you no way otherwise would have, right?

Not that I am the best poker player out there, HARDLY, HARDLY, HARDLY! But at least I understand the basic concepts and TRY to become better at my play! Do I make stupid bets and calls? Hell yeah!! (Although I try to keep those to when I feel desperate (seriously short stacked with an almost negative M [grin]) But I like to think that when I do make stupid moves I KNOW IT and I know why I did it and if I didn't at that moment, I thought about it and I learned from it!

Again, I ask...WHY DO I LOVE THIS GAME???????

{/rant off}