I'm still having a hard time comprehending that anyone would think I was serious with that post. That's pretty sad.

It's alright Dan we all got our bad days too.

In all of this thread everyone can agree after saying how you play poker and talk about winnings its almost guaranteed that you are going to be asked

"But how much did you lose"

Or are you even?

eh what I meant was she was obv in her 30's but when she ASKED me to guess her age I said 25 or some ****...

Ya I think online investor is the way to go....still like the cig lighter repairman, which is funny, but def won't get you laid lol

Today was the scariest and dumbest conversation with my friends that I have ever had. A couple of things that I did to prove my epic failness as a poker player:

1) After 20 minutes of explaining cheating, unfairness to other players, and IP tracing, I failed to convince my friend that collusion was bad.

2) I failed to convince my friend why playing the Sunday Million with a $1200 bankroll (what he thinks I have) is bad long term and why I'm not a [kitty-kat] for refusing to do so.

3) I failed to convince him why cash games are a much steadier source of revenue than tournaments and have less variance (at least in my experiences).

4) I failed to convince him that online poker is not rigged just because he says that the "river is always an ace" and "2-8 keeps beating A-K"

5) I failed to convince him why he keeps going busto even though he'll catch a good string of cards and then suddenly take his $600 bankroll to the $1-$2 NL tables when I know for a fact that he cannot beat 10NL (not because of rake, but because the players are better than him).

6) I failed to convince him of the irony in the statement that "cash games are boring" right after he starts telling me of the time he went 7 hours into a $12 PS deep stack tournament and "lost his mind." He especially didn't understand the concept that you can leave a cash game any time you want, but cannot leave a tournament.

I have come to the realization that if I cannot convince my friend of these simple things, then I know less about poker than I myself thought.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot this beauty he told me: "I don't like cash games because I can lose all the money I have on the table, whereas in a tournament I can only lose the entry fee." I didn't even know how to respond to that one.

my friend just told me his genius plan... he's going to deposit a buy in for 3000NL and then grim someone out of a BB and leave(LOL)

^ bored reading through this thread, this guy should prob feel like a clown ha

hahahahahahah

this is awesome

bhabha

haahahah

i play cash poker for a living but have never played online. Pepole always think that i play the pokies/slots. The ones i cop are so oh did you play against hachem today? Or the can you play for me line.

Well the solution to this problem is clear. You need friends that aren't complete morons.

This is likely to have a vastly higher expectation than most other "genius plans".

just sell yourself out and get a baller watch and don't answer any of their questions directly at all and change subject

how much do you make?

eh...depends

man i'm ****en hungry

It's funny that my 1st post will be on this thread but I can't resist sharing my own experience

As I study in computer science there are some people around me that can understand something about maths and odds, and even though some of them can't resist to say stuffs like "omg u broke even after winning $200 that's so nice" as if it was a great performance. Also I use to play some $5 live tournaments with 20 to 50 entrants and some people also go to the casino or play online and they are always complaining about bad beats, say how they won a 500$ pot by bluffing someone with ppQ on a K high board with 2nd pair, and with nice strategy tips like "u see u should have called this multiway all in preflop with QJo, a Q came on the turn and u would have made the best hand".

But the funniest was my uncle who where telling me how he lost 4k (francs, about 600 euros) in a single night, then went to the bank to get some more cash, played the entire night to end up a thousand, because u know, he knows the game. And after this, he told me, "u should not gambool on teh internet cos there are no reads, but please, help me installing this poker software, I'm gonna show u some great bluffs". If it was just some random guys annoying me I would have help him just to see him go broke, but given that he's part of my family I didn't, just because if he does go broke, I wouldn't be able to play myself online with my family knowing that, they would have done stuffs like blocking my CB i bet.

Oh and I want to specify, I'm not basically a winner, I've just been able to double up my roll a couple of time and then tilting it up while moving up, but never went broke just thanks to a nit BR management, and never deposit again. Still playing micro stakes, mostly because I don't play much and for fun, trying to learn the game... But when I see some players playing and some people talking about the game I'm sure I would beat the game if I had the patience to play more focused, and the little bit I know myself makes me understand how tough it is for those of you who live from the game.

Please don't tell my friends that I play poker on the internet, they think I'm a piano player in a whorehouse....

[x] Gold

yes.. i like it when we can all share in the frustrations of poker

This is a great thread and I have yet to read most of it but wanted to contribute a little.

I have played in a friends 'home game' $10 tournament before, and it slipped that I played online (I forget how, but I think it came up that my friend played online, and they may have asked me). They asked if I did well to which I responded "yeah" and then drilled me for a few minutes how much I've made. I refused probably around 10 times before they shut up. Situations like these are really awkward, and it almost makes me mad because people don't consider the position you are put in while they drill you. It's like asking someone how much they make for a living, but they throw that out the window cause apparently you got lucky to win that money. And that'll piss you off cause they don't respect the work you've put into it. My mistake for telling people though, never will again.

Then there's the parents. Although I am 22 I have spent the summers at home, either taking additional classes locally for college credit or working, so my parents are around me. Basically they think its horrible that I win money playing poker, my mom roots against me all the time, I think just so she can say "I told you so". My parents think gambling absorbs my life, like I am a degenerate, and that I can easily lose everything (I play 2 hrs a day, I have friends, I play paintball, my GPA at a tough engineering school is HIGH). They have incredible nerve because they do not understand how careful I am with bankroll management and would never allow this to happen. Most importantly though, it pisses me off how they will never understand what I've learned from poker and why I am stronger because of it. Everything I say to them translates into "I am a degenerate for having interest in this", so there is never a possible way to show them I have taken something valuable out of the experience. FRUSTRATING. Like honestly, is my free time spent better playing video games and watching TV? I just can't wait to win a big poker tournament on TV one day (I probably won't, but you never know, I work hard), and I will thank my few friends that have supported me, and give absolutely no thanks to my parents.

I really began to understand that talking about poker with anyone that does not play consistently or play often at least is an utter waste of time. They don't get it, on so many levels, and plenty of people will JUDGE you for playing cards. They think you are a degenerate loser who can't stop his gambling urges. They don't see it as a competitive game with skill, they see it as chance, lottery, luck. They don't even accept the fact that some people play because it is interesting to them or mentally challenging. Don't make the mistake of imagining that people will respect you for what you've won and think you earned it. If anything, they'll think you are really lucky and probably stupid.

All in all, the lessons I've learned:

1) never hint that you are a successful player
2) never tell anyone over the age of 30 that you play
3) don't brag about anything you've won, ever, to anyone, player or not

Try to be understanding here. I am an experienced tourny player and often I have this feeling... it sounds donkish, but there is some merit to it.

I think partially what he is trying to say is that cash games are boring at levels that you can handle, and this is inherently the case I think (because losing money hurts much more than winning the same amount of money... this is actually coming from a psychological study). Tournaments force you to do something at some point or another, and when you enter a tournament you know you are losing that money unless you prevent yourself from busting out. I like to go into tournaments cause I know what I am in for, and I know that I am already in for it unless I do something to stop it -- and you can sometimes have a big win. In a cash game I might sit down and expect to win money, but come up losing big, which just sucks in my mind. A good cash game player doesn't mind this of course.. but that's why I typically avoid cash and only play it live when it is much more fun and enjoyable.

i went to the bank yesterday and the guy asks me wat i do fro income and i tell him i play poker and he feels its appropriate to tell me the time he had AQ and he was "pushing hard" and the guy called him with AK the whole way. like a 15 minute story and he forgot about what he was doing for me and **** what a terrible nightmare that was

Oh I just thought id add.. this is a little OT but about people not knowing **** about ****.... i remember a convo on some forum unrelated to poker about an argument between one guy, and another who seemed to think that "risking all your capital on AA preflop" was absolutely ******ed.

My closest familiy knows that I play poker, so obviously the word has spread to the rest of my family somehow (because I don't try to hide my pokerplaying..).

Well, like a year ago I was visiting my grandpa. He plays alot of cards (like bridge and whist etc.), so he began talking about poker and just out of nowhere started patronizing the game and my belief in the skill of poker. He himself is a big fan of lottery and has probably spent like 100k$ lifetime I suppose (playing many times a week). At first I was calm and tried to explain him why poker is a more skillful game than lottery fx. But he promptly refused to hear what I had to say and started jabbering about how in poker you would lose your house in one bet and it could destroy your life in seconds or something like that. While actually being very pissed off I calmly replied "That's only something that could happen in a Western. Most players play much more responsible nowadays. And by the way there is always a buy-in limit to a certain tablestake, so you can't just pull the deed of your house up from your pocket and bet that into the pot...". In disbelief he strecthed himself and replied "It's more boring too." Insulted I went at him "Atleast it requires more skill than simply guessing some numbers for the lottery". It did not take very long for him to answer a big fat "NO!!"... I shoke my head and requested that we should end the discussion. We instantly went back to discussing how good the candy he had served me was.

can anyone give me a simple explanation to give to people about cash games online. they always ask how it works (without ever being specific and never understanding) that you put money on a table and then take it off but other players still have money on the table and is it real and how do the other people get money if you took yours off the table, my god it is infuriating!

I think you missed the lesson learned from the thread topic.

"It's like Paypal"

WAAAY too much information--unless you're a girl, then it's OK.