In the screenshot below you can see that Quiet Lion has around $14k, … but 10min before that he had only $7k. Hmmm, good job Quiet Lion, it’s a pleasure to see when a Pros is loosing

It was a pleasure to observe real time a game where thousands of dollars where traveling up and down. I was also amazed by the fact that Quiet Lion was sitting alone at another high stakes heads up table at the same time, waiting for another Big Fish to come and play against him.

Browsing the “Lion’s” blog I discover that poker is a life style for many people.

Poker is a popular skill game, and it was fun when I incidentally found this sand monument

But I was amazed when I’ve searched google for Dogs Playing Poker. I’ve found that Dogs Playing Poker (DPP) refers collectively to a series of sixteen oil paintings by C. M. Coolidge.

My astonishment was even bigger when I red that “New York auction house says two paintings set world record for the 1903 series“. Two “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings cleaned house at Doyle New York’s annual Dogs in Art Auction, fetching a staggering $590,400, the auction house said.

• Bluff mostly after the flop, when other players may not have good combinations and fold. But bluffing if the cards on the turn/river will significantly improve your hand.
• Don’t hope too much if you have a straight draw on the flop. Yes, you can bet/raise right after the flop in order to protect your cards, but if the turn is not giving you a straight it’s better to fold.
• If you have a good hand right after the flop, you may check instead of betting, thus giving a false signal to your opponents that you have nothing in your hand. Other players may bet, so you just call. In the last round of betting on the river you may raise, players that previously bet will be suspicious about your hands so they may bet or even re-raise. And voila, you win much more money comparing to the case when you bet/raise right after the flop. (Yesterday I had such a case: I’ve got a pair of twos as pocket cards and the flop was a 2, 5 and 8. I’ve checked … other players were betting … I’ve called. The turn was a 5. So I’ve got a full house. After a bet from my opponent, I’ve raised. … I won $6 at last)

I was playing less hands than yesterday, and played more aggressively with just one pair after the flop. Straight or flushes don’t happen too often, and the reality showed me that you can win more money if just protecting your hands after the flop.

I’m writing this post after 3 days of playing at $0.25/$0.50 tables. In short: I was loosing money

Players from $0.25/$0.50 tables are playing more hands, they rise and bet more often, … and sometimes they raise in order to scare you that they have a strong hand when in fact they don’t … if you bet or re-raise in such situations when you have good cards they will fold.

Most of the time I’m loosing money when I try to bluff. After a couple of rounds that I win consecutively, I’m starting to feel bold and bluff …. in the end the money I recently won are lost plus $2-$3 more Oh yeah, I’m learning the same lesson over and over again: don’t bluff when you have weak cards. I found out that one situation where you can bluff is when you have higher cards: you can bluff after the flop when someone is calling, and it may happen that on the turn or the river you’ll get a pair that sometimes is enough to beat the lowest pair of the opponent that he got on the flop. I saw many such situations.

I’ve decided to try my luck at another poker rooms. I’ve played at PokerStars and FullTiltPoker. Conclusion: the game style is the same. I don’t see any difference between players from AbsolutePoker, PokerStars and FullTilt.

A handy feature at PokerStars is that you are able to see your cards that you’ve folded: just move the mouse over your seat and the folded cards will appear.

At FullTiltPoker, $0.25/$0.50 stakes are the lowest, you’ll not see there $0.10/$0.20 tables. Because of that, I was hoping the at FullTilt players will be less aggressive, but I was wrong

The moral is that fixed limit games are tight, that’s it.

See you at the tables.

Today I’ve tried to taste the smell of No Limit Poker at fun tables at Absolute Poker. Hmmm, my first thaught was: “Those people are crazy”. How can you go All In from the very beginning without seeing the flop with a J and 6 ??? Have a look at the screenshot below, RUBENATERS lost all his money after two or three rounds when he entered with $2,000 fun money. Such kamikaze just whips off the pleasure of the game.

I was amazed to see numbers from the Average Pot column in the table of games!!! Around $2,000 for 5/10 NL in fun games. But I settled down when I checked the pot size in real games: $100 for 5/10 NL and $6 for $0.10/$0.25 NL.

It was a fun to go from $1,000 to $2,000 in a few rounds … and lose all your money after that

P.S. … and yes, I’m tired to close those popups. I wonder: what if I’ll sign-up using the deposit bonus code and start to clear it. Will the “$500 bonus” popup disappear?

Keyboard Shortcuts

You are spending most of your time at the tables, so let’s dissect the Absolute Poker table. The first thing that annoys me is the lack of handy keyboard shortcuts! I think that it would be easier to move only a finger and not the whole hand. Actually, I’m used to hit F5 – F9 buttons with the right hand. It means I should use both of my hands. Furthermore, it seems that hot keys are working only when it’s your time to make a decision. i.e. in the figure illustrated below hot keys are not working.

Figure 1. Multiple Choices

I propose the following shortcuts: C – Call, F – Fold, R – Raise, B – Bet. Notice that F, C, R buttons are situated vertically in a row on the keyboard, and the B key is near them: now you are able to play with a single finger! (Figure 2)

Figure 2. hit F, C, R or B

Regarding the situation in Figure 1: pressing F, C or R will check one of the options in the first row: Fold/Check, Check or Raise ($10.00). If you hit the same button twice, it will select the option from the second row. The third time you press the same button will uncheck your choice.

I also wonder why the ESC button is not working in Hand History or Options windows? It should be equivalent to the Cancel button.

Window Sizes and Positions

Almost any software remembers the position and size of its windows… When you start Absolute Poker, the lobby is always desktop centered, I’d like it to be at the same position when I closed AP. The problem get worse with the tables. I’d like to configure the position and size of a table and never waste time with repositioning/resizing it.

The D button at the top-right corner of the table have a hint: Default Size. Well, nice: it’s a useful button, but stop, why it changes the position of the table instead of reverting only to the default size? In this case the hint should be “Default Size and Position”.

Miscellaneous Remarks

I was confused when I selected the Classic View … where is the Options menu ?! I was very amazed when I finally found it hidden in the poker chips (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Can you easily find the Options menu in this image?

I like Absolute Poker graphics, the smoothness of the software. But I found a micro visual bug When you resize the table and make it a little smaller than the default size, you may notice that the “clepsydra” that displays the remaining time is not “clean” inside: see the green points inside the circle in Figure 4 (the image is 8x magnified). Of course it doesn’t affect the game too much, but for pedants like me it’s annoying

Figure 4. Dirty clepsydra

Another disturbing thing are promotions popups. I don’t like to be distracted when I’m taking the decision to bet a solid amount of money. It would be better to have a checkbox: Display Promotions Yes/No. I like the fact the you can hide Blackjack from the lobby My Account menu. By the way, My Account should have an Exit submenu item.

I don’t get the idea of displaying the Type column in the tables list in the lobby? Fun and real money tables are separated, so this column is not informative.

Conclusion

It was more criticism rather than analysis. I’ll play in other poker rooms and after that I’ll be able to give some comparison overviews. I just tried to outline that there is room for improvement for Absolute Poker. I’d be glad if other people will agree with my remarks and AP will take into account this.

One slip of the tongue regarding fun money poker: Now I’m playing poker at Absolute Poker, there you can reload your fun money chips at any time once your fun money account drops below 200 chips. You can reload up to three times per hour. I wonder why people are playing to build a fun bankroll ? I saw players with $50,000 fun money and more. Can anyone explain why the heck do they waste time for virtual money? I’m curious.

Ok, after a few hours of fun poker I’ve entered the real money tables. I started with the lowest stakes: $0.02/$0.04. I was very happy when after a few minutes I won my first pot! I quickly earned a few cents, but the pleasant thrill ended soon when I lost my winnings plus a few of my initial bankroll. Hmm, I’m impressed.

I riffled the first pages from The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky and understood that:

1. I was relying on luck too many times
2. I wasn’t aware that low limit games are very tight
3. Bluffing in low limit games will cost you money

But the most important is that when you play poker you are not playing against the cards – you are playing against the other players.

I became more careful (I also switched from $0.02/$0.04 to $0.10/$0.20), and started to play only good hands: AK, JJ, QJ, etc. … and it worked for most of the cases. Well, you waste a lot of time waiting because you play only a little number of hands, but the game is more stable. I was folding if the flop didn’t suit me, but the money I was wasting to see the flop were regained when I won games with lots of raising (yes, I was raising because I Had good cards).

But the mega-cautious strategy will not bring you a lot of money. People will fold too soon when they see you are raising, and the pot is not big enough in order to compensate previous losses. So yes, sometimes I was checking instead of betting in order to make others think I have nothing in my hands.

I played for two days consecutively for one or two hours per day and won around $5 each day. A few days later when I came back home in the evening I said: “I’ll play poker until I win $10″. …. That was a terrible day. I played all night long, I saw the sunrise, I won only $5 … and in the morning I lost $10 very quickly. I slept the whole day, and didn’t played poker for a week, analyzing my faults.