November 23, 2005
This entire Fulltiltpoker article amounts to a wordy way of saying that much of poker is all about developing your senses to the point that you're able to realize when you have the best of it, and exercising the sorely needed self-discipline required to release hands when you're staring up a long and lonely hill.
Sometimes you have to call, or bluff-raise, even though you are an underdog to capture the pot simply because you're giving up too much of an edge if you allow him bet and take the pot every time you're heads-up and the flop is unfavorable to you. Even if you're holding A-K, you'll flop a pair only about one-third of the time. But the maniac is subject to these same probability parameters too. And if you go into the flop with the best holding, chances are that you'll come out of it with the best one too.
- But you can't allow this to influence your Fulltiltpoker play. You have to continue to invest chips in the pot when you have the best of it, or when you're getting the right price from the pot to continue with a drawing hand. If the numbers begin to bother you - if you are losing more money than you're comfortable with - then consider packing it in for the day. If you don't, you're likely to allow an already big loss to take you off your best game.
- But players who go to a Fulltiltpoker casino for a few days or a week a couple of times a year tend to think of their bottom line in terms of how much they won or lost that particular visit. The IRS, which takes a close look at those who gamble, looks at your bottom line on an annual basis. Whether or not you owe Uncle Sam taxes is based on whether or not you turned a profit within a given calendar year. But a year is just as arbitrary a unit of time as any other measure.
- If that were the case, you'd be betting $3,000 per hour instead of $600, and the same house edge figures to cost you $157.80. This "churning" factor means that even a low roller can actually wager significant sums of money over a couple of days of gambling. While you can easily determine the house edge in percentage terms, your experience at the tables is likely to be quite a bit different for any session -- or even for an entire vacation.
- Trust is paramount. All members of the team must have complete trust and faith in the integrity of everyone else. The Sinatra-like "I'll do it my way" ethic that most Fulltiltpoker players have will have to be abandoned. Team play can't work unless all members of the team are coordinated in their efforts.
There are reasons for quitting, but they have nothing to do with whether you're winning or losing some predetermined sum. If you quit when you're ahead and quit when you're losing, do you play only when your results are banded between your stop-loss and stop-win limits? Because it really makes no difference whether you gamble for two hours today and two hours tomorrow or just play four hours today, what is the logic behind money management theories?
Any pair of tens or higher are excellent starting Fulltiltpoker hands. Bet or raise to reduce the number of opponents you are playing against. Big pairs play better against a small field, while straight and flush draws play better against an army of opponents. If someone has already raised and you're holding a pair of Aces, Kings, or Queens in your hand, go ahead and reraise. Reraising protects your hand by thinning the field, which minimizes the chances of anyone getting lucky on the flop.
