Danny ChaiSo I’ve played No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em 3 times in the past 2 weeks, and I’m starting to get a feel for it.
One thing I realized is that it’s way harder to bluff in real life than on TV. Two reasons. One, since the stakes are way lower (or nonexistent), people are less hesitant about matching crazy bets. Secondly, newbies don’t know what they’re doing and people stay in way more than they should. So it’s really difficult to bluff someone out. Like Adrian the other day stayed in until the end with a 6 and a 7. Huh?
The other thing I realized is that I play poker like I live life. Since it’s easier, I’ll describe how I play poker. I play logical, sound poker almost all the time, but it’s punctuated by these rare occasions when I’m completely and illogically driven by emotion. As it turns out, in the end it doesn’t matter that I’m logical and sound 99% of the time. The 1% emotional outbursts wipe me out. Just like in life.
I’m also forming strong opinions on how a no limit game should be run. If it’s being played for money. And that is, they should be divided into 1 hour (or any other reasonable) blocks. At the beginning of each block, people should start out with the same amount of money. So if you lost money in the last block, you can buy back in, and if you won, you must sell the excess. And if you get wiped out in a session, you can’t buy back in until the next session. I think things work out best that way.