I woke up this morning to a bunch of emails from people who read my
little article about “Dale” and responded in various ways. It looks
like there were basically four kinds of responses:
1) Some people decided they needed help with their poker game and
joined Royal Flush Club to learn more
2) Some people responded to me and said they thought the story was
made up and some kind of marketing ploy
3) Others unsubscribed from my mailing list
4) Others wrote me with something funny or useful to say…
For those who chose door #1, congratulations. You’re on your way
to becoming a winning player.
For those who chose door #2, you’ll find my detailed thoughts
below on this.
For those who bolted through door #3 by unsubscribing, what more
can I say, other than “BYE!“.
You know, if people aren’t interested in help with their poker game,
what are they still doing on my list?? (one must truly wonder sometimes)
By unsubscribing, it actually reduces my monthly email list costs and
leaves me with only those who are TRULY SERIOUS about their poker
game – which frankly are the only people I actually want to converse
with and expend any energy on these days… (I have too many other,
more important things to do, like fishing and running my online
businesses).
For those who responded with more interesting and valuable
comments and inquiries, THANK YOU!
I was hoping that email would stimulate a real conversation about
the real issues…
We have OPEN conversations like this all the time on our Club forums
and it feels good to share our frustrations over losing, taking bad
beats, etc… our fears about the poker rooms and cheaters… and
to celebrate the emotional orgasms associated with winning.
Am I trying to sell you on joining our Club?
Nope. You’re either already a winning player who’s on top of the
poker world or your not interested in improving (or you still
think playing more will help you learn to win). Only you know
whether you need and want help… (not my call)
So, why do we play this game? I think for a lot of us, it’s to feel
those emotions associated with winning (and losing), to learn
and most of all, to have fun and gain entertainment value.
P.S. Please post your comments on this blog instead of sending me
private emails or opening Support Tickets. That way we can bring
this entire conversation out into the open.
————– So, let’s have this completed conversation now ——————
By the way… I’m going to invite our Royal Flush Club Members to join in this conversation
here with me, so you’ll realize THIS IS TRULY FOR REAL…
Here’s some snippets of comments I received overnight:
“thats a pretty good story even if it isnt true i see the meaning
ill try to bare that in mind i dont play alot of my poker online
because of bad beats and i find i have less…”
“Ok i understand possibilitys and bad beats…What about
superusing, like some people say that it happend at Ultimate
bet (poker site). So one could see other peoples hands…what
about that?”
“Rick, I was waiting for you to say at the end of the story that
Dale started blaming the club because he could win no higher than
2nd place in your MTT’s. lol”
“Hi Rick, Hope you are well. In regard to Dales problem below, I
have often wondered the same thing. I continually have one bad
beat after another. I also have terrible luck. I mostly play on
pokerstars and have not had any luck. Here is the way my game will
go. Cards that I don’t play like 72.94.J6, keep hitting the nut
boat while the cards that I play from group one will continually
get bet. I know one of the problem is because I play the lowest
cash games or sng’s and there is always some one willing to check a
large bet or an all in with any 2 cards and then they get lucky.
Like Dale I have thought about quitting poker because ot this bad
luck. However I occasionally get into a freeroll and cash but
never number one. Just some comments since Dales story mirrors
mine. The only difference is that I am not much for making trouble
or calling people or poker sites names without real proof. Thanks
for the opportunity to voice my opinion. Take care.”
I’m sure there will be more (especially after this one :), but
here are some replies from me, and I expect some of our Club
members will also weigh in here as well…
——————— DOESN’T BELIEVE ME ———————-
“thats a pretty good story even if it isnt true i see the meaning
ill try to bare that in mind i dont play alot of my poker online
because of bad beats and i find i have less…”
Reply: Dude, Why would you say “even if it isn’t true”? Why don’t
you believe me? Everything about the story is 100% true – except
“Dale’s” name, which I said was a proxy to protect his true
identity (and save him some potential embarassment in public).
I guess since we offer our Club’s services for a fee, everyone just
assumes we’re only out for people’s money and so we just make stuff
up for marketing purposes. That’s understandable I suppose, as a
lot of sites online probably do that (we don’t).
Here’s a good one for you… I don’t need your money…
I’m retired with more money than I can spend on reasonable
things in this life, and everything I own is paid for due to me
being fortunate in my career (something I’m very thankful
for, and worked very hard to earn, I might add.)
Having said that, the fees the Club collects for its services goes
to a lot of good uses, like:
– Attracting poker pros like Gank to our Club to teach us how to
“swim with the sharks” and not get eaten alive at the tables
– Pay our Club’s staff from time to time
– Market and evangelize our Club to grow it and make it a better
place for everyone and to improve the game we love.
We have a mission at RFC… it’s really simple:
1) Help poker players become winners who have more fun winning
2) Support the movement for legalization and regulation of online poker
That’s it. There’s no hidden agendas or smoking guns or anything…
Our Poker Club is basically a “hobby” for me, a little business
that helps others improve their game and all to have more fun
with the game we love… because winning is a helluva lot more
fun than losing! Maybe someday it’ll make me enough money
to pay for my fishing lures and cigars 🙂
I shared Dale’s story because it’s a pattern I’ve seen repeated and
play out time and time and again over the years. I’ll sometimes
get people who unsubscribe from my email list, and tell me they’re
quiting poker… it happens all the time, where people get so
frustrated and there’s nobody who cares enough to help them, so
they just give up and abandon the game they actually love out of
frustration.
One of the things I’m very proud of at Royal Flush Club is we have
created a friendly, open environment where people actually do care
and help each other through some of the toughest times with their
poker games (and many of us have found some lifelong friends as
a result of it).
——————– SUPER-USING ——————–
“Ok i understand possibilitys and bad beats…What about
superusing, like some people say that it happend at Ultimate
bet (poker site). So one could see other peoples hands…what
about that?”
Reply: Yep, unfortunately our worst fears are sometimes true.
There are isolated incidents of cheating by some. This is probably
less than 1/10th of 1% of the games being played online, but
there is definitely “dangerous stuff” out there in our world…
and sometimes a few people are running bots (oh my, let’s all
quit poker because we can’t beat a few stupid-ass bots)
Is anyone out there afraid to play a bot? I know I’m not. Bring
it on!! Where the hell are they? I’ll go kick those bots butts.
You see, bots can’t really “think”. That’s the beauty of human
beings. We’re still smarter than computers (fortunately). Bots
can’t detect bluffs, they can’t “float in” to pots and steal them
effectively, and they can’t make “double continuation bets”
because the flop and turn look “drawy” (just a few of the
techniques we teach our members)
Human poker players who are properly trained can do all these
things, and a lot more.
Are there still a few evil people at some of the unsavory,
unregulated poker rooms out there? Probably. But based
on the ass-kicking the ones who got caught recently
took in the market (do you still play at those places??),
I’ll bet most of the poker room owners and management
teams will kill (er, uh, “fire”) anyone who gets caught
cheating their players – because it WILL definitely
ruin their greatly profitable online poker business.
I for one am not going to stop playing poker because
I fear these noises in the night. Instead, I’ve learned
enough to recognize when I’m at a table with other
players who are better than me (for whatever the
reason – better skilled, better at cheating, etc.),
and I have the discipline to just stand up and walk
away and find another game somewhere else
(it’s not like there aren’t plenty to choose from).
————— FUNNY, BUT PERHAPS TRUE —————-
“Rick, I was waiting for you to say at the end of the story that
Dale started blaming the club because he could win no higher than
2nd place in your MTT’s. lol”
Reply: Very funny! Yes, that would’ve been par for the course… like
I said, he still whines a little from time to time… (LMAO)
Well, that would’ve been a nice ending to our story… hey this story
isn’t over yet. Dale is still with us and we’re expecting big things
from him as he continues to mature as a poker player.
————– HAND ANALYSIS REQUEST —————
“Hi Rick, Hope you are well. In regard to Dales problem below, I
have often wondered the same thing. I continually have one bad
beat after another. I also have terrible luck. I mostly play on
pokerstars and have not had any luck. Here is the way my game will
go. Cards that I don’t play like 72.94.J6, keep hitting the nut
boat while the cards that I play from group one will continually
get bet. I know one of the problem is because I play the lowest
cash games or sng’s and there is always some one willing to check a
large bet or an all in with any 2 cards and then they get lucky.”
One of the things you’ll find in our forums are entries exactly like
the one above. A player is struggling and taking “bad beats”,
having “terrible luck”, etc. (sounds like our “Dale” doesn’t it?)
Here’s my reply… RFC Members… please reply to this player
as you would on our RFC Forums, and please introduce yourself
as an RFC Member…
Sounds exactly right. You get a lot of looser players at lower
limit tables; however, do you realize what the odds are of
these “fish” actually winning with these inferior starting
hands, which they are probably playing out of position
often?
Here’s a quick analysis of the odds of each of
those hands you mentioned against a random
hand:
33,561,158,400 trials (Exhaustive)
| Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|
| J6 | 48.53% | 15,582,014,728 | 1,413,573,268 |
| ** | 51.47% | 16,565,570,404 | 1,413,573,268 |
33,561,158,400 trials (Exhaustive)
| Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|
| 72 | 35.48% | 10,955,258,000 | 1,902,272,908 |
| ** | 64.52% | 20,703,627,492 | 1,902,272,908 |
33,561,158,400 trials (Exhaustive)
| Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|
| 94 | 41.47% | 13,060,703,152 | 1,713,401,492 |
| ** | 58.53% | 18,787,053,756 | 1,713,401,492 |
Here’s another one, but where you hold AK offsuit:
438,349,824 trials (Exhaustive)
| Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|
| 94 | 33.13% | 144,161,000 | 2,115,936 |
| AK | 66.87% | 292,072,888 | 2,115,936 |
Notice that in all of the above cases, the “donk hand” has
the probability to win that’s far from non-zero. But let me
ask you this. Would you bet on a hand that’s guaranteed
to lose between 51% and 67% of the time? Hopefully you
answered No.
But that’s the beauty of this game. There are PLENTY of
people who will!! And because they win that minority
of the time, they keep on with their “negative EV” play!
If it weren’t for the “fish” and “donks” at our tables, this
game wouldn’t be worth playing…
Another quick point. Once you get a sense for the hand
range of your opponents, you can almost always end up
ahead by simply playing hands that are better than their
range. Sure, you’ll occasionally take bad beats, but not
more than 51% of the time.
The typical response you’d probably get on our forums
to the above question is “please provide us with some
specific examples with a hand history so we can discuss
things in more detail with you”, which is how we are
then able to really help players make more progress.
Incidentally, in case you’re interested in what tool I
used for those hand stats above, you’ll find it here:
http://www.propokertools.com/simulator/simulationEditor.jsp
———————————
So, like I said, please post your Comments here on the blog
and DO NOT email them to me. If you email them to me, I’m
going to post them, along with your email address here in
this blog (then all the Internet SPAM spiders will find your
email address and you’ll have lots of fun… so please do
as I’ve asked and respect my request, as I’m serious about
this).
We need this conversation to be in public, not hidden or
buried, because this is the REAL conversation that many
poker players need to get past their fears and get on the
road to becoming winners at the game they love.
Wishing you all the best!
Rick
www.RoyalFlushClubMembers.com
Creating Winners Every Day… One At A Time
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