Texas Holdem Poker
I started this week by setting up my laptop for poker. I got a Dell 5150 with 512 MB of ram which is six times what my desktop had. I got it for 950 after some rebate with no tax and free shipping. I experienced far fewer disconnects this week, maybe one tenth as many. I set up a second monitor later in the week so I could keep my main game up all the time and use other monitor for a second game or forum or tourney. The computer came with a Norton firewall and security system. I was happy with zonealarm so I guess I'll wait and see how this goes. The second half of the week, I wondered if I had any firewall at all.
Thursday: I switched over but forgot to get a mouse so I ended up misclicking several times and couldn't get much going at all.-134.
Friday: Again card and flop dead. I managed one semibluff raise with K10 on a QJ2J that worked on the turn when the board paired.+23
Sat: Started out ahead about 400, but ran into some of the runner runner crowd that kept on catching. I'm about ready to switch back to the desktop. -87.
Sun: I'm beating the 10-20 after 450 hours so I decide to give the 15 a shot and get turned or rivered 4 times in one hour losing 425, so I retreat back to the 10 and grind back 400.Then I try the 15 again and run my overpairs into the nuts twice sending me down about 350, then I catch a rush with the main hand a boat over boat and end up going from -350 up to +1100 and ending up +989 on the day. At this point I was ahead for the week and it looked like I would have another decent week. I had no idea that the next day would be by far my worst ever.
Monday: I was card and flop dead in the 15 and the game was pretty aggressive. Nearly every time I was in the pot got jammed pretty good, but I could not win a hand, constantly missing flops, bluffs and being outdrawn. Two hours winless in a ram-jam game and I finally get AA in the BB and everyone folds!! Then I take down a small ~3BB pot and go another 2 hours without winning a hand.
I was stuck 739 in about 4 hours so I go back to the 10 and again get hammered. My opponents can't help but notice that I can't win a single hand. It's unbelievable. I'm not tilting, but I'm sort of numb and stunned and irritated. I don't win a hand the last 1.5 hours so that's an incredible 5.5 hours out of 8 winless. I can honestly not remember a day quite so bad. I lose a record 1358. When I sat down at the 15 I told myself that I have to be ok with occasionally losing 1500 in a day, but it's much easier to say that than go through it.
Tues: The thing I learned the last time I played full time is how hard it is to put in hours when running bad. Playing becomes like getting back into the dentist's chair to get a root canal. I needed to see if I'm still in the funk, so I dropped down to play the 5 and yep, second hand I flopped the nut straight and get rivered by a runner flush. Bad beats are evidence that the game you are in is good, so I just have to wait it out and I did get back ahead for a while, but then I flopped a set of cowboys on a 2 flush board. Ks 10h 4s 6h and I 3-bet the flop and raised the turn. The river is Qd so I figured the draws missed so I end up 3-betting the river but my opponent chased the bottom end of a gutshot on a two-flushed board and caught.-79
Wed: Started out strong in the 5-10 winning about 300 in a couple hours. I was thinking that the luck funk was over so I played the 10 and was against one of those guys that plays about 70% of his hands and he was catching everything, if not on the flop, on the turn or river. He outdrew everyone over and over with runner two pairs, ect. I don't think I've ever seen someone play so bad and hit and outdraw every single time like that. He probably won 1100 in just a couple hours and he outdrew me every time except one, so I ended up stuck 54 bucks on the day to give me a 3 day losing streak and my worst week this year.-818. It's hard to say what the problem is or if there is a problem. It's easy to say I was painfully unlucky, but it may be something I'm doing. I do pay off too much when it gets like this. I guess it's time to review my hands and looks for leaks.
The only upside is my no limit tourney game is improving. I've been playing the GC 1k freerolls and finished in the money 3 times this week.
Just want to give you a little background on how random numbers work. Actually, they are pseudo-random and there are arguments that there can be no true randomness in a closed system, but that's really a philosophical argument.
The "player action" is used to generate a seed for the random number. I'm not sure if you know anything about how random numbers are generated using computers, but it's pretty standard to use some uncontrolled, mostly random source to feed the algorithm that will produce the random number. One limitation is that if you input the exact same number into the random generator twice, it will yield the same results. For basic randomness, most operating systems use the current microsecond, which is generally random enough for most basic purposes. For more bulletproof randomness, then there are systems that use radiation output from slightly radioactive elements to generate the seed or input from some uncontrolled (by the program) source, such as the party poker function that uses the amount of time it takes to click on an action or somesuch. Since we're human and we can't do one thing *exactly* the same twice, then this produces a result random enough for the purposes at hand. In the end, the number is about as random as it can get.
However, there are limitations in the underlying computer system storage of large numbers that have been cracked. In the late 90's, there was an online site that a group developed an actual turn/river card predicting utility that worked because the underlying RNG was faulty. This specific RNG only had about 2 billion unique possibilities of orders of a deck, where there's actually 52! possible orders of a 52 card deck. 52! (52 factorial) is a number with over 26 zeros on the end compared to the 9 zeros at the end of a billion. See the huge difference in numbers? Since this particular site generated the deck's order once, you could succesfully figure out the order of the deck by comparing your holecards and the flop. By partypoker continuously shuffling the deck, so to speak, then the order is not set but each remaining card has an equal chance of coming into play. That's the reson that a set deck is not generated at the beginning of the hand.
Partypoker actually gives out all their RNG information on their website, if you're willing to believe what they say. Before I ever looked into playing online poker, I looked into the randomness of the shuffle because I wanted to be certian and confident in the shuffle myself. it'll look like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo if you don't have any computer backround, but here's the link.
http://www.partypoker.com/about_us/rng.html
It should also be pointed out that a live shuffled deck is not truly random, but again it's random enough for the purpose of fairly distibuting the cards.
If a casino wanted to shuffle the deck the whole time, as long as only the burns but not the muck were included back into the deck then it would not be a problem because as you said, the odds of one specific unseen card falling would not change in the slightest. You would still have the same expectation and equity, much similar to how "running it twice" works.
Honestly, I'm not one to really gamble heavily. I like to make $10 bets with friends on the hockey game or put a pitcher of beer on the line when bowling with a friend.. but I dont play blackjack our roulette or make large wagers with sports.
About half a year ago (early January) me and some friends had tickets to a big hockey game here in Calgary. We we're approaching the saddledome when we mutually decided we didnt want to watch the game, so we sold our tickets on the street and scored around $200 each!! We we're already somewhat drunk and decided to head to the nearby poker room (my regular room) and play some cards! The night was all about fun and we figured we we're just going to gamble with our newly found cash. All three of us sat down at the same game which was playing 6 handed until we showed up and I started playing like a maniac (as did my friends)... i'd play anything preflop and call to hit my gutshot straight on the river and chase backdoor flushes (aka all the things that make people lose money) and I must have won 300 dollars that night, playing like an asshole. not included in that profit was all the money I spent on beer and food and EXCECIVELLY tipping our very attractive server (who was new and now a good friend).. I had the time of my life that night and i really wasnt myself, I came with the ambition of having a good time and probably blowing the 200 bucks I made on the hockey tickets, but instead left with 500 dollars and in the morning, a horrible hangover.
the next evening I went to play as usual, sober and focused. It seems all the regulars didnt forget me from the night before, and they were very angry about how many times I rivered them and how stupid I was playing and they just assumed i'd be the same way that day. I played for 3 hours with absolutely no respect for my bets or raises from the other players, and managed to prosper greatly. it took the other players on the table 180 minutes and alot of money top realize i wasnt doing anything stupid. I thought it was hilarious, seeing as the day before i was a different person. That is the only time i've ever done anything like that and I thought it was funny.
See I was in the party mood because I travel most of the winter, and I was home for about a 1 week window and just trying to have a good time with some friends. I'm happy I got away so lucky!
you guys should try playing poker totally wasted and without fear if you ever get money from selling you're hockey tickets! you wont regret it. probably the best bad decision of my life.
