Competition has a way of magnifying emotions. Throw money into the mix and a minor annoyance can become the basis for losing a lot of money. The problem is that the poker boom has brought in many new players who do not know what is acceptable behavior at the table. These players either haven’t had enough time at the poker table to learn the proper skills or have only played online poker where most etiquette issues are resolved by simply turning off the chat feature.

1. Poker Keep Getting Bad Hands
2. Youtube Poker Bad Beat Hands
3. Poker Hands Bad Beats

There are 4 cards in between 2 and 7. To make a straight, you want 3-4-5-6 or 4-5-6-8. The chances of this happening are thin. There are 7 cards higher than 7 in poker - 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K and A. Why do bad players always insist a Poker client is rigged? I've played 100's of thousands if not a million+ hands on pokerstars. It's not rigged, it makes no sense that it'd be rigged, Pokerstars would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Just accept that you're bad at poker if you can't win, or that you don't understand variance.

Television has exaggerated poor poker behavior and to many new players, this representation is all they have to emulate. True poker professionals maintain their composure at the table and are able to deal with less experienced players and their annoying habits. This is an acquired skill that takes time and patience to achieve. Once you advance to this level of professional play you will move to higher limit games and find yourself surrounded by more sophisticated players. As you continue climbing the poker ladder, recognize bothersome table manner and make sure that you are not exhibiting annoying habits of your own.

#1 – Wasting Time

Good poker players always consider their hourly rate of return at the poker table. Delays such as taking too long to act and “hollywooding” directly affect their hourly rate. This is especially true in a time-raked game. Interfering with the dealer and constantly forgetting to post blinds and antes also causes annoying delays that cost other players money.

#2 – Playing House

The dealer is responsible for maintaining order and solving problems when a situation arises at the poker table. If the dealer is unable to handle a problem or declare a ruling, he should call the floorperson. At no time should a player feel empowered to spout poker rules or attempt to take control of a situation at the table. It is annoying and often leads to inaccurate information that causes chaos rather than resolution.

#3 – Poor Sportsmanship

Excessive celebration or screaming and berating players is considered poor sportsmanship regardless of the circumstances. Both extremes are bothersome to opponents at the table and often cause players to leave the game altogether.

#4 – Teaching at the Table

Leave the analysis to Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten. No one wants to hear strategy techniques at the table, least of all an opponent you just beat. Do not explain what the player could have done differently to win or your strategy for winning the hand. Statistical analysis of a hand also falls under the category of “annoying teacher habits,” so leave all mathematical odds to the poker calculators and limit the use of the term, “coin flip”.

#5 – Asking to See a Hand

When a player is called at showdown, he will sometimes immediately muck the hand. That player is conceding the hand. Rules dictate that a player who suspects collusion at this point in the hand may ask to see the players mucked cards. If you do not suspect collusion, it is improper to ask to see the hand. Asking to see the hand in order to interpret the player’s strategy is inappropriate and extremely annoying to the player who has already admitted defeat.

#6 – Telling Bad Beat Stories

Once you have seen a player hit runner-runner against a near lock hand, you have seen the most significant bad beat. There is no sense in telling or hearing the same story over and over again. Most people have become adept at ignoring players in the lobby who shake their heads and shout, “You won’t believe what this donkey just did!” It’s the bad beat stories disguised as casual conversation players find most annoying. This includes openings such as, “Tell me how you would have played this hand,” or “You won’t believe what happened at my last table…”

#7 – Saying, “I Thought You Had Me”, While Raking in the Chips

It takes a lot of moxie to bluff on every betting round when an opponent keeps reluctantly calling. At showdown, after an opponent withstands all the pressure and makes that final crying call, the loss can be heartbreaking. The last comment the bluffer wants to hear after conceding the hand is, “I thought you had me.” This may be the single most annoying phrase used in poker. It can serve only two possible purposes: 1.) to prove that you do not know how to lay down a hand when you think you are beat or 2.) to admit that you are a liar. Which would you rather be?

#8 – Hit-and-Runs and Walkers

A player who wins a big pot and immediately cashes in and leaves the table annoys other players who want a chance to win their money back. It is especially bothersome if that same player sneaks to another table and buys in for a lower amount in order to reduce the risk of loss. More irritating than a player who hits-and-runs is a walker. A walker is a player who has chips at the table, yet spends most of his time away from the table. This locks up a seat that an active player could take. This includes players leisurely walking as well as those constantly taking bathroom, smoking and phone breaks. This category also includes players who avoid blinds and the worst offender of all: the player who takes an hour-long dinner break and then picks up his chips immediately upon return.

#9 – Talking or Gesturing While a Hand is in Progress

While action is in progress, it is improper talk or make gestures that affect the outcome of the hand. This includes comments such as, “Oh man, I folded ,” or “The flush got there,” as well as moaning or standing when three suited cards hit the board. Even announcing another player’s chip count, provoking action or saying anything at all on behalf of an active player is inappropriate.

#10 – Saying What They Had After Folding at Showdown

Once the hand is complete, there is simply no reason to announce what cards you folded. If you truly want to show the hand, you should show it to the table prior to mucking. If you do not want to reveal your hand, your mission is accomplished by folding the cards face down; no further explanation is necessary. The only clear motive for stating the hand is to deceive opponents, but this tactic is so obvious that any above-average player will pick up on it and simply become annoyed.

You probably recognize some of these annoying habits and may have others to add to the list. Identification is the first step to removing bad habits from your game. The ability to tolerate and not allow others to alter your game is the second and most important step toward becoming a successful poker player. On a positive note, players with poor poker etiquette are also typically poor players. So while their antics may sometimes delay the game and cost you money, in the long run they are increasing your bankroll.

As you continue to climb the poker ladder, maintain your composure and be a solid representative of the game so that other players will emulate your style.

By Kelli Mix

Kelli is the author of the 'Game Day Poker Almanac - Official Rules of Poker'. She lives in Carrollton, Georgia, where she is the state director for the Poker Players Alliance.

Poker Keep Getting Bad Hands

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Proper tournament play requires you to fight for pots. This doesn’t just mean you should raise and reraise before the flop. It also means that the big blind needs to defend with far more hands than in a cash game.

Under conditions where opponents are eager to take down the blinds and antes, and where those antes are improving the pot odds for the big blind, it becomes necessary to call opening raises with hands that are almost always too weak to call with from the same spot in a cash game.

There is, therefore, an under-appreciated skill that is largely tournament-specific: adjusting to the preflop viability of those bad hands.

In cash games, blinds who are defending figure to have the hands that get the most ink in the preflop chapters of strategy books — namely, Broadway hands, pairs, and fairly good suited and connected hands. But in tournaments, the big blind will sometimes be getting such a good price that worse hands than these will become tempting.

At the final table of last spring’s European Poker Tour Vienna Main Event there were two hands in particular that well illustrated these and other principles of tournament play. I’ll discuss one of these hands here and the other one in a future article.

Preflop: Pot odds compel big blind to call

For the first hand, the blinds were 40,000/80,000 and the ante 10,000 with seven players left. Anthony Ghamrawi, chip leader at the time, opened the action by raising to 165,000 from the hijack seat with . Simeon Naydenov then called the raise from the button with .

Although Naydenov’s hand was dominated in this situation, is an appropriate calling hand here. Ghamrawi ought to be opening the pot aggressively, so generally fares well in position in this situation.

The action folded to Pablo Gordillo (pictured above) in the big blind. There was already 520,000 in the pot and he had only 85,000 more to call, so his pot odds were better than 6-to-1. Holding , he had a clear call. (He appeared to need to think about the decision, however, leaving his cards unprotected before double-checking them and then finally putting in the 85,000.)

Although it would usually be correct to fold -suited out of the big blind in a cash game, it would have been a serious error for Gordillo to fold here. Indeed, even worse hands such as -offsuit and -suited ought to have called this bet.

Flop: Ghamrawi continues, Gordillo calls

There was 605,000 in the pot going to the flop. Gordillo had over 3 million in his stack, Ghamrawi had over 5 million, and Naydenov had just over 2 million.

The flop came . Gordillo checked, Ghamrawi bet 225,000, and Naydenov made an interesting fold. Much could be said about this fold. It is often incorrect to ditch hands with two overcards and a gutshot against a continuation bet. Perhaps he couldn’t justify either calling 10% of his stack or jamming (which would not have been such a severe overbet), especially with Gordillo left to act and in a tournament setting that encourages risk aversion.

Whatever Naydenov’s reasons for folding, it left Gordillo in an interesting spot. With a flush draw and an overcard, had good equity against any plausible set of hands on which he could put Ghamrawi.

Having such a strong hand would often be a reason to raise, but Gordillo decided just to call. There are many possible justifications for such a play. For one, calling instead of raising might disguise a flush, if Gordillo were to make one. Gordillo might also have figured that Ghamrawi would not have made a continuation bet with a weak hand and concluded that a raise offered little fold equity, and Gordillo’s stack size (roughly three times the pot after the 225,000 call) might have made it difficult to choose a proper raise size.

I think another set of reasons ought to be considered, though, for Gordillo calling, and they have to do with his preflop decision.

One reason that raising is often a strong play for a big blind on this board with a hand like a good flush draw is that many other hands with which the big blind figures to have called — e.g., , , , and so on — connect well with this board and indeed connect to make strong made hands. In this case, though, everyone knows that Gordillo was getting better than 6-to-1 before the flop, meaning he could have hands like the aforementioned -offsuit or -suited, or he could also have -suited, -offsuit, -suited, and the like.

In short, in this tournament setting, many more of the hands that connected in some way with this board connected with it weakly. This makes it somewhat harder to represent a strong hand, and especially a strong made hand, by raising. I’m not claiming that this was what Gordillo was thinking when he chose to call, nor even that Gordillo made a good play by not raising. It does, though, demonstrate how the preflop adjustments of tournament poker ramify through a hand.

As Andrew Brokos and I discuss in our tournament podcasts, one of the many ways in which players fail to evaluate their opponents correctly in tournament poker is by overlooking the differences between tournament play and cash games. These mistakes are easy to make, because they are often subtle and require multi-street thinking. This flop plays very differently here than it would in a cash game.

Turn and River: Ghamrawi slows down, Gordillo takes advantage

The turn came the , and both players checked. When the river brought the , Gordillo took the opportunity to bluff at the pot, and wisely so, both because king-high is very weak on this board and because even having a very wide preflop range doesn’t prevent the blind from having enough to value bet after Ghamrawi has shown weakness on this scary board.

The bluff worked. Gordillo bet 310,000, and Ghamrawi folded his ace — and justifiably so.

Whereas in cash games against good opponents, the big blind will often confine himself to decent preflop hands, in tournament play he often figures to be playing some stinkers, too. Accounting for these possibilities takes practice, and learning to do so will give you an advantage over your competition

Youtube Poker Bad Beat Hands

Be sure to check out Nate and Andrew Brokos on the Thinking Poker podcast, and for more from Nate visit his blog at natemeyvis.com.

Poker Hands Bad Beats

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!

• Tags

  tournament strategyno-limit hold'emstarting hand selectionpreflop strategypostflop strategyEuropean Poker TourAnthony GhamrawiSimeon NaydenovPablo Gordillo

• Related Room

  Full Tilt

• Related Tournaments

  European Poker Tour

• Related Players

  Simeon NaydenovPablo GordilloAnthony Ghamrawi