Well, I don't play live that much (relatively) so I have never thought about it too much. But I think the reasons are:

- The rake is generally reduced when we get down to that few players playing.

- There will be more situations where it folds to the SB; this barely happens at a full live table where almost everyone plays way too loose, but 4 handed it will happen a lot probably;

- Some other reasons, but I think the above 2 are pretty significant.

He will only freeroll me once. After that we will always be playing.

If I am going to stop chopping because the table is shorthanded, I always announce my intentions before the issue comes up.


--klez

I think we have a winner!

I was playing drunker 1/2 at South Point one night a couple weeks ago. I had a stack of about 1k and was getting ready to leave, but there was one guy with a similar-sized stack who was really bad, and I gave myself one more orbit to get into a big hand with him.

Bad Guy is directly to my right and raises to $12. I call with 87 off suit. He gets two more callers.

FLOP: (~$50)
Qx6x5x

Bad Guy bets $35. I call. Other two fold.

TURN: (~$120)
4x

Bingo!

Bad Guy bets $65.

I make it $200.

He tanks for bit, but then HE SHOVES ALL IN. Yes, he over-shoves roughly 400 bbs.

I call, obviously, and I'm really hoping the board doesn't pair.

RIVER: (~$2050)
5x

Dammit1 (I mean, the guy has to have QQ, right?

Bad Guy turns over AA.

Huh.

I turn over my straight.

Bad Guy stands up and starts bitching. "Are you kidding me? 87? Why would you play that trash to a raise? How bad are you? That's ridiculous."

I shrug as I scoop his chips.

"I mean, playing that hand is so unsportsmanlike."

I look at him. "Huh?"

"Really. It's just bad sportsmanship to play that hand to a raise."

The rest of the table is laughing now.

I ask him, "Bad sportsmanship?"

He finally walks away, muttering.

...

So now I call 87 os the "bad sportsmanship" hand.

Talking about sportsmanship at the poker table. That's some good **** right there ��

Lol nice one Dominic.

Some of the poorest logic I've witnessed came from a friend of mine playing in a pub tournament in Ireland. Flop was QQ3, he bet, got raised all-in and called, turning over A3. When I asked why he called his response was, "I had two pairs!".

... another two are

i) players complaining that online poker is "rigged". And they're totally convinced too. It's rigged to create huge pots to generate rake apparently.

ii) online poker is flawed because computers can't generate real random numbers. Which is true, but the sake of simulating a 52-card deck in a game of poker it's just fine. For any gaming purposes - or virtually any purposes at all - it's random.

Last one was a tournament at work. I was down to about 6BB and shoved preflop with my tiny stack. One of the players commented, "you have to have really good cards to do that". I actually ended up in second place.

I once had this actual conversation with my friend while playing video poker.

Him "did you heard about these new machines, they're more random now"

Me "more random is impossible, it's either random or not random"

Him "no, they really are more random now"

The same guys will also tell you that the shufflmaster/deckmate systems are rigged. (Although I'm not thrilled with the idea that the new ones can tell you exactly which cards are missing.)

Actually, unless you know that the machine's RNG is true random as opposed to pseudo random, your friend may be closer to being correct.

It's not really binary. If, as some think, true randomness has not been achieved, then the RNG in the machine may be closer to truly random than earlier models.

Or, I could be complete off base.

So what you are saying is it's either random or it's not. Right?

Yeah, but "not random" is a continuum, not a single point.

Oh, hell, I'm going rapidly down a rathole here.

Hey, my girlfriend is almost pregnant, so I know what you mean.

If I memorize something stupid somebody says after I beat him in a pot, I'll be like Kelly Bundy and forget who scored 4 TDs in a game for Polk High.

I was in a LLHE game and noticed the player to my right only looked a one card before the flop. I asked him why he did that and he replied "It's unlucky to look at both cards before the flop".

Make sure you call it out loudly.

I'm speechless

He might be on to something, in every pot I've ever lost, I've always looked at both cards pre flop.

Sorry, I'll be finished with that any second now.....

Bazinga!

Was playing against some ****ty reg and he overbet £200 into about £100 with the obvious nuts on the river. I said 'You bet £100 I probably call' and the guy says 'What's the difference between me betting £100 or £200? You think you're ahead you call' and then some other ****ty reg at the table who plays pretty much every hour of the day agreed with him. I wanted so badly to explain the concept of basic odds but I'm not that guy.

Why educate, even if they're not listening? I prefer "Eh, good bluff, but your hand was probably better than my draw by accident anyway" - half the time they'll turn their hand face up for free just to show off.

Here's a new one, it'd been a while since I had something legitimate to post here:

Part 1:
2/5 table, Friday night, 10:30pm, the drunks are just starting to peek their little heads out and join our table on the main floor. A few guys with beers in their hands were hesitating to sit down in our 2 free seats, I turned around and welcomed them in and 1 sat down to my immediate left.

So an aggressive regular raises PF to $20 on the BTN, fish to my left gets into the hand with him, with $80 left behind, he's in the SB, 1 more guy calls. Pot's $65 or so, dry board, and the fish donks $10. The other guy calls, and the PF raiser makes it $100 and gives this speech:

Raiser: "You know....You realise you bet into the PF raiser, right?"
Fish: "I know what I'm doing."
Raiser: "Oh ok. 'Cause from here it looks like...Looks otherwise to me..."
The Fish looks obviously angry...And folds....(Both of them do).

Part 2:

2 or 3 hands later, the fish from above gets all in with his remaining $20 or so he'd dwindled down to, and loses. The next hand he puts $30 or so on the table, with the dealer reminding him the minimum re-buy is $100. He says ok and keeps dragging $5 after $5 chip from his pocket. I for one, don't care, as it's not going to be his for long. But the PF raiser from the story above, decides to chime in:

"Jesus Christ mate, lets' go, come on!"
I encourage him to just let the guy buy in, but he's having none of it.

The fish finally has ~$100 in front and guess what the guy does?
He requests the dealer count it....
Dealer stands up and as he's dividing the chips up to count them, the guy says "Mate I was joking. Let's just play."

What a ****ing ****tard this guy was, omg.

And you know what happens next? The fish takes his chips, stands up and leaves, giving the guy a few choice words on the way.

Couldn't believe it. The guy's excuse for pushing him off the table (even though we already had a spare seat) was that "He was too slow, he was holding the game up." Yeah now there's nothing but us regs here and you've scared the other fish away, thanks *******.

Will try to give a brief description for those who are unfamiliar with the table game Ultimate Texas Holdem. Essentially, player is dealt two cards, dealer is dealt two cards, there are five community cards, best hand wins.

One time a lady made the max raise (4x the ante) preflop with a pair of 5s. Flop is KQJ. She groans. Turn and river are turned over at the same time... TT. "Yes, two pair!". She exclaims in relief.