but its great to kill kittens to

but it will make you fall asleep

Bill Bennett would hit it.

Nonsense! Next they'll be saying pornos don't make you better in bed.

though watching COPS has made me a better criminal.

Any comments from wil?

When I play poker, I dont lose money, just friends.

Jacks or higher, bet the house!

If you don't know how to play no-limit, play with limits. You should know texas hold-em inside and out before you take on the big boys. Anybody that needed to read this article to figure this out should come to our weekly poker table. We'd love to take your money.

Doesn't blackjack give you much better odds? I think it's
about the only game you can play in a casino and actually
walk away with something.

Probably because people are watching no-limit which is an entirelyt differnt playing style than limit, which is probably what most people play.

Still no regular NHL presence on ESPN.

Come to Sally's Saloon! Liquor in the front! Poker in the rear!

Poker? On ESPN? Huh?

Hint - if you play poker with strangers at a casino, this is what you look like to them when you sit down at the table:

ESPN has really gone to sh*t, btw.

you can observe techniques though...

Indian Poker anyone?

Yeah Arcas ESPN has the World Series of Poker on. As well as the World Championship of Poker. The Travel Channel shows World Poker Tour.

We play no-limit at our house. I don't think it's THAT uncommon. Anyone in Phoenix want to play?

Excellent! Two approved submissions in a row!
This one and the weather futures one are both mine.
Yes, I did have to mention it in both threads.
I should get a Madden card.
BOOM!

I've never played limit poker.

This article is pretty stupid, IMO, because it's basically saying, "Dont play Limit Poker, using what you learn watching No-Limit poker on TV."

NO CRAP, GENIUS

I watched the World Series of Poker and have made an amazing deduction:

I have no life.

People that don't play no-limit are pussies.
No-limit is the only way to play.

"Guys around here will tell you, you play for a living. It's like any other job. You don't gamble, you grind it out. Your goal is to win one big bet an hour. That's it. Get your money in when you have the best of it, and protect it when you don't. Don't give anything away. That's how I paid my way through half of law school; a true grinder."

Poker on ESPN? Please. The Bassmasters Tournament was SO much more interesting.
And by interesting I mean dull.

I think I watched that on TV once.

Is that the one where there's two commentators, and one is kind of a quiet color man, but the play-by-play guy is this loud, obnoxious flamboyant pissant who can hardly contain himself...and he over-emotes everything...

color: yeah, Gerald really needs to think about what kind of hand he--
paly-by-play: THE KING OF SPADES! THE KING OF SPADES! HE'S GOT THE KING OF SPADES! HE JUST NEEDS THE JACK TO COMPLETE THE STRAIGHT! GERALD HAS --NOW-- GOT THE KING OF SPADES AND HE RAISES HIS BET!!!

Go fish.

I play limit and no limit. I make about $1500 a month besides my regular job doing so. Andy knows what he is talking about. Alot of people see those shows and start playing cards that are absolutely unplayable and rasing like crazy with them.

Hey, I LEARNED how to play hold-em from those WSOP broadcasts. Besides, if you're a wuss, set a table limit and match chips to it.

At least ESPN shows billards sometimes when they must show crap. There's this one asian chick, and they always wear such nice outfits. Gimme that, or the beach aerobic workout crap they show in the moning. How I miss those days when I didn't have such easy access to porn.

Just for clarification, whoever said that blackjack has much better odds is a little confused.

Blackjack is played against the house, and it is probably the game with the best odds when betting against the casino. If you played long enough and using perfect strategy, memorizing the charts and everything, the house advantage would be very small, only a few %, which is much better than many other casino games.

However poker is different, you play against other players and their money, not the house's. The house makes money by taking some share of the pot or using some other fee, but there IS NO house advantage at a poker table game. Sure they are going to make money, but the rules aren't skewed to favor anyone, it's soley up to the skill of the players and the cards.

In that respect, poker is the very best odds in the casino, assuming that you know what they hell you are doing and aren't afraid to sit next to people who could be professional players.

I must be the only one who actually liked watching the WSoP. I love playing poker and Black Jack, more-so the latter. I'll play poker in the casinos around here, but when I hit the sparkling city of Lost Wages, it's all Black Jack baby! That and the hookers, but dont tell my wife.

I only play no-limit with my friends. Makes it much more interesting. I watch the tv matches all the time, it's damn cool to watch the amount of money that goes back and forth on a hand. 80k? No problem. That ballsy stuff is what keeps me hooked.

As for learning to play from watching the tv matches, you have to remember that the cameras won't show everything you need to get a proper perspective on the players. Sure, you see the cards and get commentary on the strategy, but you don't really get a sense of the personality that the player uses in the game. Crazy strategies and off the wall bluffing is stuff that shouldn't be used by newbies, unless you're playing at my table, at which point you're quite welcome to blow your money trying to look like a real player.

you're thinking of jeanette lee, the black widow. allison fisher is still the best, though.

and forget blackjack, (other than poker) craps is the only game worth playing in a casino.

In another gambling related thread awhile back, someone posted a website that was essentially guides to playing different casino games but also gave you the odds, strategies, and things like that...

Does anybody have that link?

Ishkur -
I think you might be thinking of the Poker Million tournament that they have in Britain. The color commentator on that show is perhaps the most annoying person in the history of the world. If I had to live the rest of my life in a small prison cell I would rather be with Hitler, Bin Laden, that guy that ate another guys penis before killing him and then eating his body, or 2 each of the 100 most poisonous creatures on earth than that annoying Brit. I swear to god if I ever hear that pre-pubescent voice yell "he's got the world fair" at one more hand i am going to _______ (fill in the blank so I don't have to get arrested)

Chug try poker in Vegas. The poker o TV has brought so many fish that the games are juicey. Easy pickens at the lower limits.

lol, or you can just play no-limit games with friends. 10 guys , $20 buy in, money for first second and third. It works well, and coupled with beer, food, and 9 other guys around the college age, makes for a kickass evening.

You know what really sucked. Travel Channel's Million Dollar Blackjack Tournament. The way they televised it was horrible.

They took forever to give the home viewer the complete picture. That is, they'd show player x's cards, and talk about it for a bit, still not having shown the dealer's up card. Then they'd maybe show the next player, or cut to the life story of player y.

One time, a player went totally against basic strategy and hit on something like a 15 when the dealer had something like a 5 or 6 showing. Of course the commentator said nothing about that.

Worthless television. So much so that I can't even find any information about the show at Travel Channel's site (travel.discovery.com)

I normally don't care for reality TV, since it's almost always just a bunch of low-brow dating scene nonsense. I could really care less if two dumb people fall in love or not. But man do I love World Series of Poker. True it's not really a reality show, it's presented much more as a sport, but I think it's cool because the 'reality' being presented is really interesting: high stakes poker. What gets me is that they rarely let you actually here the players talk, they just have commentators going the whole time.
Particularly with guys like Moneymaker and Phil Ivey though, when you do get to here a few snippets of their table talk, it's really funny and interesting. I honestly don't know why they don't focus on the players table conversations, with commentators unobtrusively making everything clear for the viewer... it would be so much better than any of the other reality TV stuff ESPN does, even And1.
Wheee that kind of turned into a rant.

Poker isn't really that challenging. The rules and strategy are very rudimentary. To be successful you mostly need an amount of practice, a little luck, and brass balls. These criteria account for the high ratio of stupid people who enjoy poker, i.e. people who don't mind practicing a bland, repetitive game, and who are stupid enough to take high risks for bad odds.

Hey, no reason to post articles like this. I know lots of people who watch the World Series and think if they wear sunglasses and shuffle their chips around it'll make them better. No reason to rob them of their illusions, they're making me rich.

The World Series of Poker is one of the most entertaining and engrossing series ESPN has produced. If playmakers had the drama and intensity of the WSOP it would be up for eleventy-billion awards.

And I don't even like poker.

I have to admit, I watch it.

Every time me and my buddies get around the poker table on
Saturday night, we play nickle/dime No Limit games.

We obviously aren't in it for the money, it's just the

point of "earning" a couple bucks from your friend, and

watching his face as you take his change.

Guess what? Every time we play, that damn show seems to be

on, which is good, because it get's their attention elsewhere :)

blankman: are you seriously that stupid? Poker is one of the most challenging games on the planet. There are a LOT of stupid people who like to play poker. But there are only a small percentage that can play it well. There is so much depth to the game that it takes a long time to learn to play well. And as you get better, you generally start playing against better players... which means that you need to alter your strategy again... because while you're thinking two moves ahead, they're thinking three.

The rules are rudimentary, yes. But the strategy takes a brilliance that you clearly don't have, otherwise you wouldn't be making such a half-brained comment.

and if you think it's so easy... come on over to ParadisePoker and play me head-to-head. I'm up $500 this weekend... I could use a few more bucks from a fish.

I'm with the 1% (along with apparently quite a few people here) who DO play no-limit poker among friends. Granted when I played it was only around a $20 or $30 buy-in, not thousands, but hey, we're college kids. Once we bought in, there were no limits to any bets. We played texas hold-em., just like they do on TV, except we didn't do any blinds. Not sure why, but I seem to remember it was because one guy didn't really like them, so we went without. Those don't REALLY change things a lot, in my opinion. But that's neither here nor there.

I really couldn't imagine playing poker any way other than no-limit. It takes such a huge amount of the skill out of it, just as the article says. It's obvious why the casinos would play limit poker - because it makes people rely more on the cards (aka luck) to win, rather than skill, which the casinos want. As for why people would play limit poker on their own ("for fun"), I have no idea. Either you're gambling ot you're not fellas, if you wanna play a "nice," "toned down" game like limit poker, you shouldn't play poker. Play go fish or something.

I'm no big fan of Poker, I don't play myself, but after watching some Poker games on TV, it's really a superb spectator sport. It combines the competition of regular "sports" with the drama of reality TV shows. (Who's bluffing? What do they look like when they're bluffing? OMG, this guy has *no idea* the other guy's got a full house!!!)

Plus the people who play Poker professionally are real characters.

What about staying at a Holiday Inn Express?

Stuff like this is great. It attracts more novices to the game, giving people who know what they are doing some extra cash. I'm up almost $2k from the beginning of the month playing 3/6 Stud H/L, probably the hardest game for a novice to beat, unlike Hold'Em.