# I learned this new poker thing

1. Aug 6, 2005

### Physics_wiz

So, I learned this new poker thing a year ago. Long story short, I'm sure I can money playing it. The only thing I'm concerned with is the morality of the game. What do you think? Bad? Good? Neither? I'm Christian, but I really don't think the Bible says anything about it. If you're atheist then I guess the game isn't "bad" because if someone doesn't know how to play they will lose their money no matter what...to you or someone else. Any advice would be appreciated.

2. Aug 6, 2005

### Smurf

don't get into gambling. That's my advice.

3. Aug 6, 2005

### revelator

Don't play poker for the sake of gambling, play poker because it's a helluva fun game.

4. Aug 6, 2005

5. Aug 6, 2005

### Physics_wiz

Poker is fun but that's not really why I play it, I mostly play it for the money.

A bit of a background: I'm a math guy. For some reason, math is actually fun for me and I'm pretty good at it. I'm taking calc 4 in the fall and looking forward to it..might also get a math minor.

Poker is nothing but drawing cards from a deck which is basically probability. I'm not a guy who would just go throw his money away without knowing where it's going so I made sure I understand what I'm doing before I played poker for real money. I've played about 20,000 hands so far and made a good amount of money, so I am pretty sure I can make a bit of money doing this.

I guess poker can't escape from being classified as "Gambling" because it's actually risking money to get more money based solely on chance. However, unlike most other forms of gambling, you can give yourself an edge. I don't know of any other gambling game where you can give yourself an edge (blackjack, roulette, etc...all favor the house mathematically). You might say that there are two important unknown variables in poker (opponents' cards and opponents' future actions) and without knowing those you can't give yourself an edge. But, opponents' cards can also be taken care of using probability and opponents' future actions are usually unkown but the edge you give yourself using math takes care of that and then some. Also, I don't play the poker you see on tv where a guy can get lucky and double up or get unlucky and lose. I play limit (every bet is a fixed amount) where the math factor is a lot more important and basically takes over the game in the long run.

The problem is, I thought a bit about the concept of poker and it's basically just taking money from other people because you know more than they do. That's it...no more...no less. I feel bad sometimes when I take money from guys who are just throwing their money away and really don't know what they're doing. Pretty much all other jobs are getting money in an exchange for a service you give, but poker just isn't like that. I can't say that it's easy or that it's "making money the easy way", since if you really know what you're doing and are making enough money it won't be easy. I am not planning to play poker for a living or anything like that but just until I finish college, it could make for a good hobby.

6. Aug 6, 2005

### Smurf

Fine don't take my advice. But don't expect me to let you move back in when you're 40 and bankrupt with no degree because you dropped out of school because of a drug addiction and owed money to gangs for gambling away money you don't have!

7. Aug 6, 2005

8. Aug 6, 2005

### Physics_wiz

Ha! I can assure you that's not gonna happen.

My bad :shy: That's not what I meant at all. I shouldn't have brought religion into this in the first place. Please ignore the religion part.

9. Aug 7, 2005

### ek

Poker's not gambling unless you suck.

I've played poker 10-20 hrs/week (including live and online) for a year now and I've never had a losing week.

I've never had a job, and have already made enough money to pay for my first two and a half years of university. I plan to get the third year "paid off" (money in my bank) by Christmas. My fourth year money will be completed by this time next year or sooner. So I will have all the money I need for my undergrad degree before I turn 19, all because of poker. Is poker gambling? Not for me it isn't.

10. Aug 7, 2005

### closure

Great! Would you please teach me about the poker? It is the first time to hear of it. Why every guy win, nobody lost momey? It is amazing

11. Aug 7, 2005

### Pengwuino

Go play. Soon enough you'll either become a decently wealthy card shark or wind up broke. Remember, for every successful poker player, theres probably a few hundred who failed and the math behind the game isnt exactly hard to grasp.

12. Aug 7, 2005

### whozum

Only people who aren't good at poker see it as a game of probability. Poker is a game of skill. It's not the cards that empower the player, but the player that empowers the cards.

13. Aug 7, 2005

### Pengwuino

And thats the problem. Most people think they got one hell of a poker face when in fact there read like a book.

14. Aug 7, 2005

### Smurf

Lets do some Math:
You're in Victoria, probably going to UVic, which means you're tuition will be about $4,300 per semester.$4,300 x 2 = $8,600 per year tuition.$8,600 x 2.5 = $21,500 you claim to have saved for college this year. How much more did you make that didnt go towards your university fund?$21,500 / 48 = $448 per week$448 / 10 = $45$448 / 20 = $23 You're making$23 to $45 an hour. 10-20 hours a week. Well, you're certainly doing well. 15. Aug 7, 2005 ### whozum I can't tell if you're agreeing or challenging. 16. Aug 7, 2005 ### Pengwuino Agreeing. Its true (well, less so for limit hold em) that a big part of the game on the more advanced levels is figuring out what the other person has without... well.. knowing what he has. You also need to convince the person that you may have cards that you don't really have. 17. Aug 7, 2005 ### Moonbear Staff Emeritus Famous last words. The house always wins, unless you're talking about "friendly" games with "the guys," in which case, do you really have to ask about the morality of supporting yourself off your "friends'" losses when you know they aren't at the same skill level as you are? This is very much how gambling addictions start. You do well at the low-stakes games, gain confidence that you always win, that you can make money gambling, then you move up to higher stakes games because of the lure of higher winnings, but as you do that, you're also playing more skillful players who, just like you, have moved up to a higher level because they felt invicible when playing against less skilled players. Then you lose a few games, but you're so confident you can just win it back, so you keep playing, keep losing, maybe you win a few here and there, just enough to keep the excitement up and to make you think you can just reverse that turn of bad luck as you sink deeper into debt. 18. Aug 7, 2005 ### gravenewworld It doesn't matter how much math you use, it is bound to backfire on you. Math is only 30% of the game, the rest is luck and pscychology. A lot of people who play can do the math, but don't end up winning. I can't count the number of times I have gotten burned on the river card when the guy I was up against had about 2/45 chance of pullling the card he needed on the river. Only a handful of people in the world can constantly play poker and in the long run make profit. 19. Aug 7, 2005 ### dduardo Staff Emeritus "Everything you do in life is a gamble. Poker just has bad odds." - Me The key to gambling is "Risk Management". For example, before purchasing a house you research the area, find out the assessed value, how much the previous owner(s) payed, etc. You then make a concious decesion as to the risk you'll be taking by purchasing the house. Will the value of the house appreciate or depreciate? By how much do you expect the value of the house to change? Are you better off renting? Should you turn around and resell the house? There are many questions you ask yourself in assessing risk. If you don't ask yourself these questions then your dumb. Risk management can also be applied to poker. By using card counting techniques you can increase your odds of winning. But then you also have to take into acccount the possiblity of being barred from casinos and thrown in jail. Again, you factor in all the risk before making a concious decision to invest in the game. It just happens that poker can be more risky then other activities. In conclusion, you can't compare gambling with morality. Only your actions can be right or wrong. 20. Aug 7, 2005 ### Physics_wiz First off, let me give some replies: Poker IS gambling...you can't escape it. The only thing that doesn't make it like other forms of gambling is that you can have a POSITIVE expectation. If you think you can go on living your life and relying on poker as your only source of income you're probably wrong. You won't be making$20/hr with health benefits, insurance, etc...playing poker.

I liked that one . I already told you I don't play the poker you see on tv where math completely goes down the drain. I play in the small stakes LIMIT games where there's ALWAYS a showdown and you can't get people to fold. One good example is Doyle Brunson who won the WSOP two times with 10 2...if I played hands like that in my games I'd go broke pretty quickly. Play a few thousand hands and try to empower hands like 10 2 offsuit then tell me how well you do.

I'm not playing against the house. In a game like roulette where people play against the house, the house gives itself a mathematical advantage so that in the long run the math ends up favoring the house and it makes money. The house also makes money when people play poker (against each other) but it's very possible for the both the house and the players (not all of them obviously) win at the same time because the house just takes a percentage of the winnings, it doesn't care who wins or loses. In games like texasholdem, there are two winners: the house and the players who make the fewest mistakes on their table (they could be making a lot of mistakes, but as long as other players are making more mistakes, the odds favor the ones who make the least number of mistakes).

This is 100% true and I've thought about this before. If everyone plays perfectly, only the house would win. The trick is not moving up. It's finding the highest beatable limit (online) and then just playing more tables.

That's interesting since at lot of the guys I knew in college were playing online poker while I was learning (they got me into it). I learned the math and made a small (10 lines or so) program to help me calculate stuff faster. After I started playing, I asked them whether they use math or not when they play. Not a single person said they used it...maybe they CAN do the math, but they don't do it. Also, what exactly is "luck"? If you have a 20% chance of hitting a card and you hit it...you didn't get lucky...you just hit a card that you expect to hit once every 5 times on average. It's deffinately a right move to chase that card if you're getting paid off to do it. If you don't chase it because you'll miss more often than not, you aren't playing right.

First, can you count the number of times someone chased a 2/45 chance, missed, and you ended up winning the hand?
Second, if you're playing with guys who chase a 2/45 chance and aren't making money then there's something wrong with YOUR play. People who make mistakes are exactly how money is made in those games...if you played with people who DIDN'T make mistakes you'd lose no matter what (in the long run).

Mind explaining how poker has bad odds?
Let me give an example:
Say we're playing a game where you have a basket with 3 balls in it. 2 black balls and one white ball. The rules are this: you pick a ball randomly and if you pick a black ball, you give me $1. If you pick the white ball, I give you$3. On average, every three picks you will pick a black ball twice and a white ball once. Therefore, you will lose $2 and gain$3 or you will gain $1. If I changed the rules around and paid you only$1 when you pick the white ball, it would be a losing game for you and you shouldn't play. Poker is the same thing except it has 52 balls. You see when you're getting paid off and you play. Otherwise, you fold.

I am probably wrong but I don't think Blackjack is a form of poker. I was talking about games like texas holdem anyways where you can't count cards (not that it's against the rules, but you just can't do it). Anyways, you DON'T NEED to count cards in texas holdem to give yourself an edge. There are always people making bad calls (like the guys calling gravenewworld with a 2/45 chance) and THOSE people right there is all you need to make money. On the other hand, when you play blackjack, you're playing against the house. The ONLY way you can give yourself a slight edge is by counting cards (obviously against the house's rules since the house can't afford to give you the mathematical advantage).

Why can't you compare gambling with morality? I don't think I understand. The only "bad" thing I see about it is that you're taking money from people for just being better than them as opposed to taking money from people in return for a service (pretty much all other jobs).

Ok, enough with the replies. I am not trying to make a living playing poker or anything. It could make for a good hobby during college, but all I am concerned about is the morality of the game. Do you think it's immoral to take money from people without offering a service in return?