All Posts Tagged: Thoughts from the Felt

Life, like many things, has both a start and an end.

From our first breath to our last we're destined to play out the stories of our lives. Each one of us has a different story and we each live with varying degrees of uncertainty about what will happen next.

Our lives are like books. Each day is like a page and tells our story. Stories unravel in numerous ways and sometimes we neglect to question ourselves about how we are viewing it.

Ask yourself, objectively, who are you in the story of your life?

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After what happened earlier today at EPT6 Barcelona Roland de Wolfe will back me up on this, don't let go of your cards!

If you missed it in the live updates from the event Roland bluffed at a river with king-high and got looked up. He flashed a king and threw both his cards in the muck. As it turned out his opponent had queen-high and since he was the only one holding cards he was awarded the pot.

Suspicion of angle-shooting aside, Roland's nemesis did one thing right - he did not let go of his cards.

This lesson extends to anytime you have cards in front of you. You must protect them! I've seen dealers muck people's cards while they're all-in, knocking them out of the tournament regardless of what their opponents are holding.

I've even seen players hurl their own cards at another player's unprotected cards out of spite during multi-way pots. If you don't have something protecting your cards it becomes a dead hand the second someone else's cards touch them.

Roland found out the hard way today so learn from his mistake and protect your hand.

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There comes a time for every poker player when the only move they have left is to get up and leave the table. For me, this came on my first day in Vegas during the WSOP.

I sat at an empty seat at a $2/$5 No-Limit table and grabbed a rack of chips. The session started off ridiculously slow. I literally didn't have a single hand worth limping for close to an hour.

Any time I felt like raising a hand, such as 7 9, there would be a raise and a re-raise ahead of me. No big deal, just wait it out I thought.

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With all the ego and trash talking between the degenerates at every poker table, it may seem odd to get upset over the phrase "I'm sorry."

Like any competitive sport or activity, poker is a game of respect. You can be a lot of things at a poker table, and how you act and play is entirely up to you.

But at the end of the day you need to have respect for the rules, other players and the house for the game to function.

To an outside observer, poker may seem like a rogue game full of social miscreants. Players are bluffing, goading, needling, angling and juicing the other players, all in an effort to take as much money from everyone else on the table as possible.

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The other day I made a decent series of calls against an opponent for a nice pot. After the hand some of the other players asked me how I knew the other guy was bluffing.

I don't like talking strategy at the poker table, so I told them that I'd have to sit down and think about it to give them an answer.

Truth is, I knew exactly what I'd been doing, and why I'd been doing it. The only thinking I needed to do was how to put it into words.

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Live poker is all about taking control of a table, and manipulating its play to suit your own needs.

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Twice in my life I've been seated at a table with a player perpetually pushing. The game of poker completely changes when a player is all-in blind on every hand dealt.

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I remember hearing about a hand in the WSOP Main Event a few years ago that really entertained me. Even now, with thousands more hands under my belt, this hand still makes me smile.

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If you sleep all day and spend all night playing cards, the only ladies you're ever likely to meet as a single grinder will be at the table. Here, then, is a guide to help you pick up more than the pot.

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Somewhere among the lewd jokes, angle shooting, bad beat stories and outrageous boasts, I've managed to come away from poker tables with some valuable words of wisdom.

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Every time I sit at a table, I seem to find myself with players completely oblivious to standard poker etiquette rules (written and unwritten). As you can imagine, this makes me rather angry.

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Poker is one of the most diverse competitive activities on the planet. Race, religion, age, political views, social status and gender are irrelevant; if you have the cash, you're welcome to the game.

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With millions of people playing poker online day after day, it stands to reason there must be advantages to pushing the virtual chips around instead of the real things.

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When it comes to poker, I'm not easily impressed. It's rare that the lines and actions made by opponents at the felt are even worth noticing - never mind worthy of admiration.

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Unless it's for an amount of money totally meaningless to you, or you can really handle your booze, playing drunken poker is never a good idea.

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Poker players spend most of their time trying to gain and keep control of everything around them: hands, tables, odds, players, rolls and most importantly, themselves.

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I think fast, talk fast, drive fast, eat fast and play fast. Regardless of whether I'm playing live or online, I make decisions quickly; only once has anyone called the clock on me.

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Everyone makes mistakes, on and off the poker table. But when you know what you're about to do is a mistake and you still do it anyway, that's when it hurts the most.

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Some of the things that happen at a poker table are truly out of your control - such as taking a bad beat, or, say, having another player go completely insane. This story has both.

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My home court, seat one on a table smack-dab in the middle of the room, a hundred players to either side, and our dealer drops the river. I'm at a table with a player I know.

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Bad beats, big hands, big egos, fights, bluffs, angles, props, dates and jokes are just a few of the things that happen when you're sitting in a live poker room.

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The idea: pit two veteran poker players heads-up on either side of a contentious poker topic (not necessarily the one they agree with) and let them have at it. This week's topic: Is it better to study poker first or jump right in?

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The idea: pit two veteran poker players heads-up on either side of a contentious poker topic (and not necessarily the one they agree with) and let them have at it. This week's topic: Is a Naked Bluff Ever Justified?

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