Tuesday, September 21, 2004

What's worse than losing?

The only thing worse in online poker than playing a hand wrong is complaining afterward that somehow you were "robbed."

I joined a NL ring game at Royal Vegas and had to post my big blind. Every single player limped in and the button limped right along with every other player. The flop had a pair of 8s and I was out of there when the small blind bet, although he bet pretty small. Most everyone folded, except for the button, who raised. The small blind called and everyone else got out. The next card was a rag and the small blind checked and called a big raise from the button. River was the same, rag-check-bet-call. They flipped them over and the button showed KK, beat by 78s.

This is a huge error that anyone who has played poker for more than 6 seconds can see. What does this Poker Prodigy, who held the second best possible hand pre-flop in the best possible position say? "Big pairs never hold up." DERP! Yeah, when you play them completely wrong, they never hold up. When you try to beat NINE players with nothing but a pair. When you wait until you are BEAT to try and bet someone out.

I think there is a book in this somewhere. I want to save hand histories of the WORST plays I see over and over again and publish a book called "How NOT to play poker, the 20 biggest mistakes online poker players make." Each chapter would be a mistake, why people make that mistake and how to avoid them. There would also be advice on how to spot bad players based on these mistakes and exploit them.

There's a market for a book like that, isn't there? Sure it would be beginner level, but DAMN if there aren't a lot of people online that need a book like that.

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