Specifically, Texas Hold'em. I've been playing poker since I was a kid; my entire extended family is a proud gambling clan. But I've come to play cards quite a bit more seriously over the past year, and it's evolved from simply being a hobby, to it becoming a nice supplemental income, to the point now where I'm considering basically playing for a living. There are other sites and forums where they delve into complex discussions of theory and strategy, and this clearly isn't the place for that, but given the tremendous growth in popularity that poker has enjoyed of late, and the fact that many of the bbs'ers here are from Texas--the birthplace of hold'em--I just wondered if there are a lot of you guys out there who also play. On a broader level, it'd be interesting to gauge whether poker has entered the mainstream, so to speak. I mean, for young adult males, most of us share certain general pop-cultural interests: music, movies, tv shows, hot singers/actresses/pornstars, video games perhaps, and obviously, the focus of this site, sports. I'm wondering if poker has now crept into the consciousness and culture of the typical "guy," or if it's still only relegated to a relatively narrow segment of addicts like me.
I've loved poker since i was a little kid, can't get enough of it. Too bad I don't have the guts to actually play at a Casino Table... maybe someday when I've got money to throw around.
It is so funny you posted this.... I learned how to play Texas Hold 'Em at a poker game about three weeks ago. A buddy of mine that I grew up with organized it and about 8 of us who all grew up together played. I had never played Texas Hold 'Em before but I do like it alot. Kind of like 7 card stud with community cards.
Texas Hold'em is absolutely exploding right now. There are shows on espn, fox sports, the travel channel, and bravo. I've been playing hold em for more than a year now and have made some decent money from it. Also, it's a lot of fun to just play with friends, even for small amounts of money.
I try to Texas Hold 'Em with play money on partypoker.com, but it's the most frustrating exerience ever because morons go all in before the first community cards are even dealt. I try to play realistically, so I actually get to play maybe only 1 in 10 hands. I assume people play much smarter with real money?
I suggested that we play Texas Hold 'Em with my VC playing friends and now they play nothing else. They play once a week, sometimes small buy in ($100-200) sometimes they play no limit. That can get scary...
ttboy, about how much do you win a month to make you consider playing fulltime? Just curious... I absolutely love playing no limit Texas Hold'em. It's by far the best form of poker there is. I think it's starting to become mainstream because of the ESPN reruns of the WSOP & the travel channel's WPT weekly. Poker chips have been selling like hotcakes on ebay the last year. Everybody I know plays it. Some friends and I play it weekly with just 20 dollar buy ins. My coworkers and I are starting to play monthly also. Who are your favorites for winning the WSOP coming up? Ivey? Lederer? Or will another amature win it this year?
played my first game of hold em my senior year in highschool. had no idea what i was doing. then couple years ago, just flipping channels stopped on espn and watched 2002 world poker championships ( i think the year varkonyl won) and it all made sense. its kind of exploded the last couple years, and cant blame it.....its just that great of a game.
I started playing hold'em about a year ago and now i'm pretty much obsessed. do any of you guys know any good sites to play for real money?
I love to play at partypoker.net, but would love to get a group together to play a small buy-in tournament ($10-$20, nowhere near what Mulder can apparently afford, I work at a community college). Anyone game?
Who doesn't play poker with the guys? It's such a timehonored tradition. Anyone watch the celebrity Texas Hold 'em on like A&E? Gets you fired up to play.
So anyways I was playing no limit hold 'em with som friends the other day and get this...The flop is an A K 5, all different suits....I'm holding a K 4. 4th Street turns up another K and I sort of try to sand bag this guy who was a beginner, make him stay in longer. Well, he stayed in so I figured he must have 2 Aces or something, 5th Street was worthless, there was no hope for a flush and I'm sitting on 3 K's, so of course I go all in. Get this, the n00b was sitting on pocket aces, and when I laid down my 3 K, he laid down his 3 A's and my Heart sunk a mile into the ocean. Blah. N00bs.
We televise local Baltimore hold em now. They do almost as good as ESPN when developing the characters.
Well, over the last 3 months I feel like I'm hitting my stride; playing about 4 hours a night, at least 5 nights a week, I've been able to bring in just over 11k in the 3 months (don't tell the IRS). Obviously that isn't extravagant, and even if I devote all my time to it, it won't lead to any sort of lavish lifestyle, although as my game improves I will certainly try to move up to higher stakes as well. Fact is, I truly love the game, along with the intellectual and psychological challenges it presents. And isn't that what they say, if you can find a job you love, you never have to work a day in your life? It's interesting that everyone you know plays poker, and that a lot of the other guys here also play in home games with buddies. Most of my "regular" friends don't play poker. I suppose I wouldn't really want to play against friends anyhow, since for me it's not just recreation: I want to take people's money. Re: the WSOP, the old truism is that anyone can win. I prefer cash games rather than tournaments, since tourneys so often come down to a coinflip: a medium pocket pair racing against two overcards. No one's ever won a tournament without getting lucky and winning more than their share of those coinflip-type matchups.
