You Play Poker so Bad

A player’s winrate in poker is always a very interesting topic. Simply put, this is the player’s winning ability over a set period of time. It can be expressed a number of ways. One is bb/100 or blind bets per one hundred hands. This winrate is the most commonly used in no limit Hold’em. Another way to compute a player’s winrate is bb/hour or blind bets per hour. While this is used in some forums, it’s not as common as bb/100.

You can also get your winrate by computing your $/100 or the amount of money your win per one hundred hands. Other players get their winrate by computing the amount of money they manage to win per hour or $/hour. Winrates aren’t very accurate, though, unless you have a million hands to go by. When you’re only basing your reading on 10,000 hands, you can be sure that your winrate will either fall or rise. Variance changes things all the time.

If you’re wondering what winrate is good enough, anything above 0 is impressive. Most poker winners play the game and lose money. Very few of these winners even win a dollar for every 100 hands they play, so be thankful, even if your winrate is only 1/100.

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Funny hand from Poker After Dark:

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I feel so bad for Phil Hellmuth on this Pokerstars.net Big Game thing. I mean, can the guy catch a break? Russ Harlow should have been ON HIS BIKE!

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In a lot of cases, online poker players feel confident enough to venture to live play. Live play poker inevitably gives the player a bigger experience. It’s pretty hard to hold your nerve when you’re face-to-face with your opponents when you’re so used to staring solitarily at your monitor. Below are the most common mistakes that you should avoid when you play real life poker.

String betting

A player string bets when s/he makes a bet and then moves back and forth from the chip stack to the pot while completing the bet. For example, when you intend to bet $40 and you move four stacks of $10 at a time, you’re string betting. While this is fine on an online play where all other actions are on pause while you make yours, this can cause a lot of confusion on a live play.

Reacting to cards

Remember the expression “poker face”? You have to train your face not to react to any card before you go for a live play. It’s pretty easy to hide your reaction when you’re playing online. This is because your opponents can’t actually see you. In a live play, even a twitch of your eyebrows can give away your hand.

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Laurens De Smet talking very candidly to Steven Smith of the Dutch Pokernews Site. I’m a big fan of Laurens, always honest, always open and from what I’ve heard pretty down-to-earth too.

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I’m from The Netherlands, so I know what he’s saying — and if you are too, you’ll love watching Lex explain how his thinking was in a hand, trying to justify bad play and a hugely lucky hit on the river…

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