Texas Holdem Poker

[maingate]

Cheers Trev. My thunks are that if you have money to waste, do something useful with it, support a charity, help towards a defib, or do many useful things with it but don't feed those whose only aim is to screw you for as much as they can and then pay a small percentage as a prize. Perhaps I'm just a grumpy old soul but I fail to understand why folks are so gullible, it's just human nature I suppose, but just think before you put a fiver on a donkey at the Grand National, that could feed a family for a day or maybe help a neighbour.
Sorry I'm at it again

In all gambling formats, the odds have always been tilted (slightly) in favour of the 'house'. That's fair enough i suppose, they have expenses.

Anyone who does online gambling of anything from Bingo to Poker and Roulette are setting themselves against a computer generated program which can switch the odds by algorithm to ensure that you lose, they win.

As a young man I bet on the horses, this was before the days of Betting Shops. I only bet small stakes but tied the bets together in doubles and trebles. All I will say is that I studied the 'form' and was unpopular with the bookies runner and the bookie himself. For a bet of 2/6d on a Saturday, I could almost double my apprentices wage. I could stand the loss of half a crown but that was rare as I mostly had at least a 'double' and a small profit. I never ever bet on a horse ridden by Lester Piggot as he was as bent as one of Uri Gellers spoons.

As a footnote: When I met my Wife (best thing to happen to me) my luck on the horses stopped overnight and I stopped gambling and I have virtually won nothing ever since (in nearly 60 years), including Raffles, Bingo or any other game of chance. But I am not complaining.

 

[Jollyrodger]

I've been playing it for fun. Over the last couple of years on or off.
Mostly tournament games of stud poker. With vip status
And play against friends online
Ups and downs biggest win 40mil
At the mo a mere 7.9mil
All for free

 

[St3v3]

I've been playing it for fun. Over the last couple of years on or off.
Mostly tournament games of stud poker. With vip status
And play against friends online
Ups and downs biggest win 40mil
At the mo a mere 7.9mil
All for free

I'll bet a tenner you can't replicate that with real money.

 

[Jollyrodger]

I'll bet a tenner you can't replicate that with real money.

Your on
I used to play for real back in the 60's, stripped deck around Bristol, killer game that and Nap.

 

[trevskoda]

Cheers Trev. My thunks are that if you have money to waste, do something useful with it, support a charity, help towards a defib, or do many useful things with it but don't feed those whose only aim is to screw you for as much as they can and then pay a small percentage as a prize. Perhaps I'm just a grumpy old soul but I fail to understand why folks are so gullible, it's just human nature I suppose, but just think before you put a fiver on a donkey at the Grand National, that could feed a family for a day or maybe help a neighbour.
Sorry I'm at it again

100%, wifes mother ans aunt buy loto tickes every week, i ask if they won what would they do with the millions at 82 years of age, all i got was a blank look, fact is those that i know of who did win some either lost the plot or were targeted by paramilitery groups for a cut, bonkers

 

[oppy]

My gran and my mum used to put a couple of bob a week on Littlewoods pools, Lit Plan I think it was called way back when, and on occasions they won 10 bob and were over the moon, heaven knows how many 2 bobs it took but they were happy

 

[maingate]

I was addicted to the Hokey Cokey ....

.... but I turned myself round.

 

[Rogerdodger]

I must confess that I adore Poker.
I organise and play once a week in a local pub. The game is tournament Texas Hold 'em. Buy in £40, rebuy or top up £40.
Usually 2 or 3 tables with 14 to 24 players. It is (a bit) illegal, but we have a private back room in the pub with excellent waitress service.
Once a month I organise a tournament that starts at 3:00 and finishes around midnight. £40 buy in, unlimited rebuys and a top-up (£40) finishing around 11:30 to midnight. Usually 3 tables - 18 to 24 players.
You can plan the finish of a tournament fairly accurately as it will end when there are 20 to 40 big blinds on the table. Once the Freezeout stage starts, the blinds length can be adjusted to hit this target..
I also have a weekly private game on-line for £5 plus rebuy and top-up for some old friends.
Once or twice a year I go to a casino in Plymouth or Bristol and play in a big tournament.
I adore the game, have read many books on it, and am IN PROFIT (not a lot though) at the moment.
There is no "house" taking a rake.

 

[trevskoda]

Fact is life is a gamble, some get a full house while other a 2 of clubs.

 

[witzend]

https://cardgames.io/ selection of card games here i play most days helped me thru the covid lock down euchres my game

 

[gasgas]

My late gran used to say cards are the work of the devel, we were not allowed to have them in the house.

As are a set of drums, and a guitar. as I saw on a poster in a Baptist Church in 1972. Things Of The Devil. Quite right . . . . . . . . but try as I might, I can't see anywhere in the Bible that says that cards and guitars and drums are evil . . . .

I was cured of gambling in 1967 when on a Youth Hostel holiday, a long way from home. My dad had given us the money for the hostels which we had booked, including breakfast. Also I had calculated (wrongly) how much we would need for lunches and evening meals. We got to Swanage where it was pouring with rain so we took shelter in an amusement arcade. Promptly we lost all our food money, and had to make a lot of marmalade sandwiches at each YHA breakfast and stuff them in our anoraks to eat the rest of the day, cycling 40 miles a day.
I have never put a penny in a slot machine since, or bought any lottery tickets. I despair when I see all these TV adverts persuading gullible people looking joyous when they are losing money using their mobile phones. No wonder the country is full of debt, and the govt encourages young people to rack up £60k in debt before they even get a job by going to university.

 

[Sonar]

The only gambling and I say only gambling I do is usally with the traffic lights

 

[clewless]

There's Gambling and gambling. Buying a lottery ticket is pure Gambling with absolutely no skill attached. Whereas Texas Holdem (or any poker) requires a tremendous amount of skill and hard mental work. Yes, you can lose a lot of money by playing like an idiot, but the point of the game is to get the better of your opponents by any means within the rules. Luck does not come into it. Only the really skilled players consistently make a profit. It can be a a very enjoyable game and you can easily limit any potential loses so that win or lose, it can be a good night out.

 

[Campervanannie]

Never gambled never played in penny arcades not even when on holiday as a child my dad would not let us he drilled into us at a young age that the only winner was the man who had the keys to the machines I don’t even do the lottery I do the postcode lottery and that’s my lot, Bill my other half is the same though he was in a lottery syndicate at work and they did have a couple of decent wins nothing life changing but enough to put a smile on your face.

 

[trevskoda]

Never gambled never played in penny arcades not even when on holiday as a child my dad would not let us he drilled into us at a young age that the only winner was the man who had the keys to the machines I don’t even do the lottery I do the postcode lottery and that’s my lot, Bill my other half is the same though he was in a lottery syndicate at work and they did have a couple of decent wins nothing life changing but enough to put a smile on your face.

As are a set of drums, and a guitar. as I saw on a poster in a Baptist Church in 1972. Things Of The Devil. Quite right . . . . . . . . but try as I might, I can't see anywhere in the Bible that says that cards and guitars and drums are evil . . . .

The bible was penned many years after the so called event by the romans to control the jews, later reformed by monks to there agenda, many bits of old scriptures were not put in as it would upset the apple cart, one old scripture tells of jesus murdering a 11 year old boy, no mention of that in the bible which is pushed in you face 24/7.

 

[gasgas]

........... the only winner was the man who had the keys to the machines ...........

I was with my elder brother at the Swanage arcade I referred to. He was a genius from primary school until later in life he had some sort of breakdown and since then he couldn't do a newspaper round. I was 15, he was 16. In the arcade, after we had run out of money in the other machines, we noticed the back off one of the machines. He looked inside the back and worked it out. He said lets go and get a candy floss stick. You pretend to put money in the front and I'll poke the relays in the back. This we did, and emptied the machine. We then lost all the money we had gained and were back to nothingpencehalfpenny. More or less. Then we looked closely at another machine which had light bulbs from one to twelve flashing randomly. You had to put a penny in the slot of the number you thought the lights would stop on. My brother said I bet it has a sequence. We got a pencil and paper and stood away at a distance and noted all the numbers it stopped at, and sure enough there was a sequence. So we then put pennies in if it was going to stop at 9p or more. We won some money back. Then the blooming thing changed its sequence! How inconsiderate of it! This was in 1965, when transistors had only recently been invented. How do you do that without any electronics, just relays?
We continued to lose all our food money on the other machines, constantly thinking we would win it back. Wrong diddly wrong wrong. As I say I don't do any more of what they call "Playing"; a non-description of gambling that really annoys me.

 

[trevskoda]

I detest arcades and money grabing flashing lights bandits, its a legal form of robbery just the same as war is a legal form of murder.

 

[GMJ]

Myself and my first wife went to Las Vegas many years ago. We changed $40 into dimes and quarters and played the slot machines just because we were there. After an initial frisson of excitement, tedious doesn't describe it and it was good that you could put up to 5 coins in at a time on the machines so it made the time go quicker.

At the end of the session we counted our winnings and found that between us we had won $44...so we beat the bank by $4.

It didn't help us get our time back though!

We went out for the evening and upon coming back to the hotel around 11pm I noticed a couple playing the machines. When I got up in the morning and went in search of coffee, the same couple were there in the same clothes playing the same machines!

They walk among us.....

 

[wildebus]

I was with my elder brother at the Swanage arcade I referred to. He was a genius from primary school until later in life he had some sort of breakdown and since then he couldn't do a newspaper round. I was 15, he was 16. In the arcade, after we had run out of money in the other machines, we noticed the back off one of the machines. He looked inside the back and worked it out. He said lets go and get a candy floss stick. You pretend to put money in the front and I'll poke the relays in the back. This we did, and emptied the machine.

Naughty boys! I remember back in the early 80's my main game was "Defender" in the arcades. Used to walk over to a specific arcade on the Tottenham Court Road on a Sunday Morning and spend a few hours playing it. Didn't cost me anything as I found if you put a 2p coin in instead of the 10p, it would go down the reject coin slot, but if you kept your finger on the slot to stop it coming out you could flick the coin up again and it would activate the credit microswitch before dropping down again. A couple of minutes of that and you could have an hours worth of credits. As said, no cost, at least in money terms, but I did end up with two fine parallel lines dug into my finger from the flicking.

Used to have a friend who was REALLY good at "Defender" and in the 'pool room' where I worked part time, he used to rack up the maximum 99 lives and then sell then off 10 at a time until they ran a bit low, then took over the game again to get the lives up and repeat the process. I don't know if he still plays the game in a mini-arcade at his house/s (he is now a famous and well-known film and TV actor who anyone reading this will have seen )

We then lost all the money we had gained and were back to nothingpencehalfpenny. More or less. Then we looked closely at another machine which had light bulbs from one to twelve flashing randomly. You had to put a penny in the slot of the number you thought the lights would stop on. My brother said I bet it has a sequence. We got a pencil and paper and stood away at a distance and noted all the numbers it stopped at, and sure enough there was a sequence. So we then put pennies in if it was going to stop at 9p or more. We won some money back. Then the blooming thing changed its sequence! How inconsiderate of it! This was in 1965, when transistors had only recently been invented. How do you do that without any electronics, just relays?

Not a fruit machine, but you may find this video of the working of a Pinball game interesting. I bet a fruit machine of that era would be very similar

We continued to lose all our food money on the other machines, constantly thinking we would win it back. Wrong diddly wrong wrong. As I say I don't do any more of what they call "Playing"; a non-description of gambling that really annoys me.