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OT - Poker Hand (Columbus, OH Casino)

Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Tuesday, 28 June 2016, at 12:49 p.m.

In Response To: OT - Poker Hand (Columbus, OH Casino) (Stick)

This story again illustrates to me that poker is clearly a hard game to play well, and maybe even harder than backgammon.

I play poker about once a week...nothing serious, just 1-2 or 2-5 no limit just to relax and have something to do away from backgammon, which I am doing the other 6.5 days a week. I usually lose, but never lose big as I set limits, but when I win, I often win big, probably because I become a better player with more money in front of me and when it's their money...(probably should play that way all the time).

The more I play the more I realize how little I know, even after reading Cash Games and getting excellent advice from people like Stick and a local poker pro who I trade backgammon lessons for poker lessons.

I just watched the Netflix movie about Daniel Negreanu's life and saw how uncanny he is about guessing what is in the other players hand...even the top pros he plays, he reads well. Just like Stick showed us he did so well on his hand. (Not a very good movie, so don't waste your time.)

I'm a pretty good gin player, and one of the things that made Stu Ungar such a great player was his ability to determine what is in his opponent's hand faster and better than anyone else. I played in the World Series of Gin in Vegas a couple of weeks ago and didn't do that well, and the major reason I believe was my lack of practice that kept me from reading my opponent's hand well enough. This is something that is almost second-nature to me when I was playing almost every day, but backgammon has gotten in the way.

The odds and math in poker are not that hard. (I'm talking only about cash games, not tournament, where the odds and math can get quite complex.) Easier than backgammon by far. It's reading the opponent and knowing how much to bet as well as when to raise, call or fold that makes the game so complicated.

5 years ago I laughed at anyone who said that poker was as difficult a game to play well as backgammon. Now, I can see why Kit Woolsey told me he thinks it's actually harder to play poker at the highest level than it is to play backgammon. At the highest levels of backgammon, everything is on the table and there is no intuition about your opponent required (assuming he is also at a high level you are probably right to assume he will take takes and drop drops).

A couple of months ago at Jim Pasko's house we had a really fun poker game: Stick, Sax, Cliff, Glass, Russell, Contos, a few others (sorry, I know Akiko and Pasko and Michy were there but not sure who all played) and I insisted on a rule that everyone must show their hand at the end so I could learn more about the game. And I kept getting all kinds of advice. But the best advice was from Stick: "Anytime you aren't sure what to do, just go all in." Well, I did that about every other hand and it worked. (It worked because almost every hand I was paired or at least suited with one or two high cards!)

I think that every backgammon tournament should have a poker side event on Sunday night....I bet we would get more people to the tournaments.

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