Texas Hold'Em Poker - Easy Or Not?
Texas Hold'Em Poker - Easy Or Not?
The other morning my husband laughed so hard he almost spit out his coffee as he related an episode of Two and a Half Men. Take a moment and imagine Charlie Harper, the balls-to-the-wall, full throttle character played by Charlie Sheen, sitting across from you at a poker table. PLEASE... invite me to THAT game!
Here's how the story went: Coming home staggering drunk from a card room, Charlie says to his brother Alan, "You know how easy Texas Hold'em looks on television when you can see all the hole cards? Well, at the casino, they don't let you see the other guy's cards, and it's not quite that easy. I'm down $8,000, and I threw up in my mouth three times."
What makes this simple card game so complex? Played with two private cards in your hand plus five community cards face up on the table, it looks astonishingly simple.
In fact, as long as you are in the hand at the showdown and turn your cards face up for the dealer to read, you don't even have to know you have the winning hand. In Texas Hold'em, like the rest of poker, your cards speak.
Sure good cards help, they help a lot, but I've seen many people play great cards so poorly they wasted the opportunity to maximize the profit potential from those cards. It was as if they turned their hole cards face up and placed them on their forehead for all the other players to see.
On the other hand, I've seen poker pros play weak cards as if they were aces. Doyle Brunson, the Godfather of Poker, won back-to-back world poker championships in 1976 and 1977, holding only 10, 2. That hand now even has a nickname: The Brunson.
The complexity in Texas Hold'em comes from the simple fact that, by our very nature, we are complex human beings. We come to the poker table with our bags packed full of our life experiences, which then, in turn, affect every decision we make at the poker table.
At the same time, when we sit down at the poker table something almost mystical happens. The rest of our life somehow goes out of focus, and we can detach ourselves from what is happening 'out there'. The poker game can literally give us a vacation from our everyday life while providing an opportunity to exercise our brains, our intuitive sense, and learn new skills.
The other morning my husband laughed so hard he almost spit out his coffee as he related an episode of Two and a Half Men. Take a moment and imagine Charlie Harper, the balls-to-the-wall, full throttle character played by Charlie Sheen, sitting across from you at a poker table. PLEASE... invite me to THAT game!
Here's how the story went: Coming home staggering drunk from a card room, Charlie says to his brother Alan, "You know how easy Texas Hold'em looks on television when you can see all the hole cards? Well, at the casino, they don't let you see the other guy's cards, and it's not quite that easy. I'm down $8,000, and I threw up in my mouth three times."
What makes this simple card game so complex? Played with two private cards in your hand plus five community cards face up on the table, it looks astonishingly simple.
In fact, as long as you are in the hand at the showdown and turn your cards face up for the dealer to read, you don't even have to know you have the winning hand. In Texas Hold'em, like the rest of poker, your cards speak.
Sure good cards help, they help a lot, but I've seen many people play great cards so poorly they wasted the opportunity to maximize the profit potential from those cards. It was as if they turned their hole cards face up and placed them on their forehead for all the other players to see.
On the other hand, I've seen poker pros play weak cards as if they were aces. Doyle Brunson, the Godfather of Poker, won back-to-back world poker championships in 1976 and 1977, holding only 10, 2. That hand now even has a nickname: The Brunson.
The complexity in Texas Hold'em comes from the simple fact that, by our very nature, we are complex human beings. We come to the poker table with our bags packed full of our life experiences, which then, in turn, affect every decision we make at the poker table.
At the same time, when we sit down at the poker table something almost mystical happens. The rest of our life somehow goes out of focus, and we can detach ourselves from what is happening 'out there'. The poker game can literally give us a vacation from our everyday life while providing an opportunity to exercise our brains, our intuitive sense, and learn new skills.
