Texas Hold 'em....
I recently played in my first serious tournament last weekend. There were 24 people who bought in for $50 + $5. Everything was well organized and the tournament went smoothly. We started at 8:00pm and it ended around 12:30am with the winner being ME!!!
Enough about me.
It's been almost a week for me to reflect back on my play and I'm pretty pleased with how I played (obviously). I went into the tournament with a plan to only play premium hands pre-flop and play pretty tight. The plan worked pretty well and only once did I have my entire chip stack at risk with an "all in" call. But with that hand, I had a very strong hand and I didn't get any calls so my chips weren't at risk.
While on the subject of premium hands, I read an article today which had some striking statistics which really surprised me. How great does it feel to be dealt two cards, take a peek at them and see two cards of the same suit? I have to admit, I always like to see that happen and I've played a lot of suited cards pre-flop hoping to hit the flush right away. But check these stats out:
Odds of being dealt suited cards: 24%
Which means if you're playing in an 8-man game, it's very likely that there's someone else at the table with suited cards. You're not the only one.
Let's say you stayed in the pot with your suited cards. What are the odds of flopping a flush draw? Meaning two cards on the table will be the same suit as the two in your hand.
10.9% Or 1 out of 11 times.
Then you're only going to get the flush by the river 35% of the time after that. Not good odds. Unless you paired up, it's a bad idea to stay in the hand.
Now how about flopping a flush right away? 5%? 4%? 3%? Nope
0.84%
I don't think I'll be playing suited hole cards as often anymore....
posted by Matt Dabney @ 12/02/2005 02:07:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Play the suited hole cards strong only when you're down to the last couple of people at a table in a tourney. There is obviously less chance of someone else holding the cards of your suit that will help you, but you also need to play hands that you normally wouldn't play otherwise at that point.
-heather
Heather - Obviously you play different cards when it's down to 3 or 2 people at the table as opposed to 8 at the table. I was just trying to point out that a J-7 of hearts dealt to you doesn't look as good as it initially did when you first took a peek at your cards once you start to figure out the odds of hitting your flush.
Matt- you say obviously as though everyone realizes that you play the same cards differently at different points in a tourney. A lot of beginners do not make this connection. If you know that, great, but I figured, well, he didn't know the odds of hitting his flush until this article, so... :)
I guess I internalize poker odds at this point. I was forced to memorize a lot of them when I first learned to play. Then I had to learn how to hide that I knew all that when I started sitting down at tables, convincing drunk men that I knew nothing about poker before stealing their money.
-heather
(a reformed poker nerd)
Heather,
You're right. Only 4 or 5 people regularly read my blog and they're all hold 'em players. Our small group of friends have been playing poker together for years, but only for about the last 2-3 has it been exclusively Texas Hold'em. I definitely don't know everything there is to the game and I think every time I play I pick up something new in my bag of tricks. The odds of being dealt a flush and then hitting the flush wasn't in my knowledge base. And in a few weeks I'll probably forget most of what I picked up from that article anyway.
I don't value knowing odds as much as picking up tells and mising up your style of play. Maybe that's because I'm lazy and never want to spend the time memorizing the stuff....
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