Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:58 pm GMT by mindgame
Imagine, if you can, the game of poker played in a room with no computers . . . by real, flesh and blood people (I am absolutely convinced none of them were bots…I’m almost 100% sure of it) who sit down at the same table and look at each other—muttering, joking, whining, wailing, wheedling, uttering oaths and insults and challenges and never touching a keyboard . Yes, real people playing (I know many of you will not believe this) ONE TABLE AT A TIME!!! What a rush! Yes, this is the experience I enjoyed over last week end.
And Cards! Cards you could hold in your hand, cards you had to memorize or risk being seen peeking at your KQo to see if either one was a heart after three of them flopped, cards with two of the suits in the very same colors, cards that had to be manipulated or marked the old fashioned way if you were being cheated, cards that got flashed, or folded out of turn, or prematurely exposed by players committing all sorts of telling mistakes that make the game what it’s supposed to be—we had CARDS! And Chips! To those who collect or hoard or trade I say “Try playing poker with them!!! They’re perfect for it!”
Here’s to the US Congress. I LOVE you guys. You’ve given us back poker as it was meant to be played!!!
Did you know that participating in a poker forum can help you improve your own game? Be it by sharing experiences or simply asking for help, participation in a forum helps you focus and keep 'on topic' which will help you improve your game. You can learn from other players feedback and from their experiences. Why the THP poker forums? We offer one of the best managed texas holdem poker forums available, and the community within is far more friendly than those typicaly found on other sites. We've made a 'lurkers edition' of the poker forum available here on Holdem Poker Online, but we encourage all visitors to register and join in on the conversations on TexasHoldem-Poker.com
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:13 pm GMT by raisebot
Man, there's really nothing like sitting down at a live table, it just never gets old or boring.
But I also enjoy being able to play without ever getting out of bed also. When playing online & people see where I'm from, I always get asked the same question- "If you're REALLY from vegas then why would you be playing online??" Like I'm trying to fake where I'm from or something...
There's a time and a place for online and being in a real casino. Some days, I prefer both- drive home from the casino, & immediately log on. Yes, I'm a degenerate 
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:21 pm GMT by mindgame
I'm not sure online-only guys can even get that a live game--players rarely seeing more than 35 hands/hour--has so much going on that you can't keep track of it all, much less get bored. Playing online is so one dimensional that you might as well do seven tables at once; you aren't getting even a hint of the real poker experience.
Contrast playing Playstation football with putting on an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and going out on a 45 degree fall day with a old leather ball and smashing people in the face. It's the same degree of difference, and the two games are as much alike.
Oh God I'm digging a hole here I'm likely to be buried in.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:27 pm GMT by supafrey
The logical fallacy of "poisoning the well" - an online player can't respond to your rant (not that there's really any logical argument attempt, even) because they wouldn't understand what "real poker is". What we play is a "caricature" so we wouldn't "get it". Play at correlated stakes (while almost universely considered to be easier live than on a computer) is going to be "tough" for online pros because they arbitrarily can't "slow down" or "understand this real game".
Baseless, incendiary, arrogant and illogical. Pretty much as expected.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:25 pm GMT by raisebot
| supafrey wrote: | The logical fallacy of "poisoning the well" - an online player can't respond to your rant (not that there's really any logical argument attempt, even) because they wouldn't understand what "real poker is". What we play is a "caricature" so we wouldn't "get it". Play at correlated stakes (while almost universely considered to be easier live than on a computer) is going to be "tough" for online pros because they arbitrarily can't "slow down" or "understand this real game".
Baseless, incendiary, arrogant and illogical. Pretty much as expected. |
Man, not meant as a flame or anything, but why do you have to look so deep into the original post and his reply to my post?
I know, I know, this is coming from someone that overanalyzes some of the most basic plays, and instead of me posting a simple thought about a hand I have to make a book about it, but all I could really see that mindgame was posting was that he just basically enjoyed playing live and it's a different experience... Nothing so wrong about that, is there?
Ok maybe his last comment aimed towards Congress might have been a bit uncalled for, maybe it was a half-hearted joke (maybe not?), but I really didn't see anything incendiary or arrogant about his post. Lighten up a bit!
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:16 pm GMT by mindgame
Raise, my thanks for the trouble you took in my defense. The effort, if well intended, is unnecessary.
Res ipse loquitor...the thing speaks for itself. Mine was no rant--instead an exhubirant celebration of what the game is supposed to be. Sup's attack is none that need be parried, for he jousts with windmills. He despises because he lacks the ability to comprehend. Announcing with uncharacteristic insight that he possesses not the experience (nor any other grounds) to comment, he is unable to resist the amusing contradiction implicit in his mindless litany of denunciation. But "incendiary"? Absolutely. And when Supe's got shot in front of the powder he explodes with I'll welcome a broadside, happy to return fire.
His post is self-parody elevated to an artform. He mocks himself and fails to get the joke.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:38 pm GMT by supafrey
| mindgame wrote: | Raise, my thanks for the trouble you took in my defense. The effort, if well intended, is unnecessary.
Res ipse loquitor...the thing speaks for itself. Mine was no rant--instead an exhubirant celebration of what the game is supposed to be. Sup's attack is none that need be parried, for he jousts with windmills. He despises because he lacks the ability to comprehend. Announcing with uncharacteristic insight that he possesses not the experience (or any other grounds) to comment, he is unable to resist the amusing contadiction implicit in his mindless litany of denunciation. But "incendiary"? Absolutely. And when Supe's got shot in front of the powder he explodes with I'll welcome a broadside, happy to return fire.
His post is self-parody elevated to an artform. He mocks himself and fails to get the joke. |
| Quote: | | Res ipse loquitor...the thing speaks for itself. Mine was no rant--instead an exhubirant celebration of what the game is supposed to be. |
Fallacy of begging the question - you're using what you have yet to prove as fact in its very own proof. Circular reasoning and completely illogical. (You're saying that what you earlier stated was fact, not a baseless rant because it was explaining the TRUTH about poker - yet you have still not proven that what you're speaking about IS the truth.)
| Quote: | | Sup's attack is none that need be parried, for he jousts with windmills. He despises because he lacks the ability to comprehend |
Fallacy ad hominem.
| Quote: | | Announcing with uncharacteristic insight that he possesses not the experience (or any other grounds) to comment, he is unable to resist the amusing contadiction implicit in his mindless litany of denunciation. |
Fallacious appeal to self authority - one that your previous posts, current exhuberance and limited knowledge all do not grant you. Prove to us that you have any right to tell us what "real" poker is, and then maybe we'll believe you're doing anything more than trolling.
I think I'm not the only one who has trouble arguing against your points, Mindgame, because they rarely seem to come from any logical or reasonable standpoint - you speak with flowery and obtuse rhetoric, illogical statements and endless streams of fallacies. These kinds of posts simply get ignored by most people with half a sense, because to reply to them just leads anyone with a bit of common sense to sounding completely condescending. I treat you with the same paternalistic tone of the guys at my 1/2nl game telling me that I'm not playing the "right cards" and that "check-raising is immoral".
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:03 pm GMT by mindgame
Let us start with the observation that poker is what it is.
It is a CARD game.
Played BY people in the company of other PEOPLE. . .
Using (gasp!) cards.
Should you insist that this video game you wish (speciously) to term "poker"--played at lightning. multi-tabling, reflexive (NOT, by necessity, REFLECTIVE) speed--is in fact the game played for decades as I have above described...
My good (and I must now insist upon holding you to "logical") friend....
the burden of proof must OF COURSE fall upon YOU.
Yes, I am afraid you are QUITE STUCK with proving it is you who are engaging in poker--while I am entirely confident that what I am playing is decidedly so. Much of what you do online would actually be prohibited in a poker game.
I think there I have an incontrovertable argument: one can scarcely indulge in behavior patently against all rules of a game and still pretend that he is playing it.
That, good sir, is game, set, match.
(And if you will indulge me with this moment of condescendsion--and you've no right to deny it since you write with little else--God save us from insufferable undergraduates and little-league logicians who've take a course in rhetoric. Argument abounds, Supe, but clear thought would serve you better.)
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:08 pm GMT by zinn0
I can't figure out how you are still a moderator on this site after your continuous bashing of online poker when probably 90% of this sites traffic plays online.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:14 pm GMT by mindgame
Speaks to the quality of my intelligence and sharpness of my wit, say you not?
Seriously, it's about spice, Zinno. Who wants to read nothing that challenges, nothing that piques the emotions or the mind? We credit all of you with higher faculties and a zest for engagement.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:25 pm GMT by misterjokerboy
Mindgame,
I'm confused, are you saying the US ban is actually a good thing?
I have to say from my point of view (and I'm sure the case is true of a lot of others as well), I would never have got into poker in the first place if it hadn't been for online poker, and therefore as a result would never have set foot inside a casino or poker club.
I agree that it is a totally different experience playing live, but surely the rise in online poker has led to a big increase in numbers of people visiting casinos and other poker clubs.
I have no figures or fancy words to back this up, just my thoughts
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:29 pm GMT by raisebot
| misterjokerboy wrote: |
I have no figures or fancy words to back this up, just my thoughts |
I really need to spend part of my bankroll on a dictionary so I can figure out what the hell they're saying.
I thought this was a poker site, not training for your bachelors degree.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:37 pm GMT by supafrey
this is trolling, little more.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:37 pm GMT by Dave B
Supa is surely the expect in areas where he has zero experience.
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:39 pm GMT by supafrey
I've played in 5 casinos now, and 4 "card rooms" in toronto. I also play in a regular live game 1/2nl 200 max about 3 days a week now, to help pay for school.
I exhaggerate when I say I have "no idea".
Posted Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:48 pm GMT by mindgame
mjb: My initial post was tongue-in-cheek, with a small dose of self-mockery. I will be the first to concede that online poker, with TV broadcasting of the World Series, is responsible for an exponential explosion of interest in poker. It's been wonderful and exciting for old farts like myself who've labored in the trenches for decades...and who have powdered the asses of some of you upstarts that, on occasion, humble us by taking us apart with such savvy that we are left with dents in the bankroll we can't deny.
But the game is a card game, and if this congressional spasm of stupidity gets you into a casino, or forces you to the drudging labor of creating your own "regular" game...well that wouldn't be so bad a lesson.
You are accustomed to an endless and near-infinite supply of opponents, available 24/7 at the click of a button. Games of every kind, stakes at every level, for the asking. OMG, you should have to experience, just for a year or two, what it is like to have to build, maintain, support, and nuture a poker community to support a weekly game: dozens and dozens and dozens of calls, constant vigilance against cheats and colluders, and the necessity of maintaining the delicate balance which keeps your key losers coming back. You have no idea, really.
Casinos are like a gift from the poker gods to those who have labored hard and long. Online games are something else entirely...and whatever it is, I'm not sure poker is the word for it.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:14 am GMT by Dave B
wow, 4 Canadian casinos and a home game.
I stand corrected. 
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:21 am GMT by mindgame
lol
I know, I know...you and I play in four different casinos in a week, but give him a break. At least he's trying it, and he's got to start somewhere.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:33 am GMT by supafrey
1. If you really play that much Mindgame, and are still at your skill level/stakes, I'm sad for you.
2. Again, you're begging the question. Then stating irrelevant points that fail to give you any authority on the subject - you sound like a long term break even / small loser at the game with limited theoretical knowledge. I don't see how you have any right to an opinion.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:34 am GMT by misterjokerboy
| mindgame wrote: | mjb: My initial post was tongue-in-cheek, with a small dose of self-mockery. I will be the first to concede that online poker, with TV broadcasting of the World Series, is responsible for an exponential explosion of interest in poker. It's been wonderful and exciting for old farts like myself who've labored in the trenches for decades...and who have powdered the asses of some of you upstarts that, on occasion, humble us by taking us apart with savvy that dents in the bankroll can't deny.
But the game is a card game, and if this congressional spasm of stupidity gets you into a casino, or forces you to the drudging labor of creating your own "regular" game...well that wouldn't be so bad a lesson.
You are accustomed to an endless and near-infinite supply of opponents, available 24/7 at the click of a button. Games of every kind, stakes at every level, for the asking. OMG, you should have to experience, just for a year or two, what it is like to have to build, maintain, support, and nuture a poker community to support a weekly game: dozens and dozens and dozens of calls, constant vigilance against cheats and colluders, and the necessity of maintaining the delicate balance which keeps your key losers coming back. You have no idea, really.
Casinos are like a gift from the poker gods to those who have labored hard and long. Online games are something else entirely...and whatever it is, I'm not sure poker is the word for it. |
I did wonder if it was tongue in cheek or not
I actually had my 1st real experience of playing live recently in a poker club, and thoroughly enjoyed it too
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:49 am GMT by mindgame
Supe, you fancy yourself a debater, but you throw Latin phrases at us when ideas are required. Falling back next upon personal attacks, you resort finally (and once again) to denying me the right to an opinion. Sad? It's you who are sad, and lacking in social graces (sadly so).
Answer if you can my last point:
How can you maintain you are playing a game when you are engaging in behavior which violates the rules?
(Ie, multi-tabling, computer tracking, using electronic means to keep track of size of the pot, the amount of money in front of the opponent, and the exact odds of hitting your hand, allowing more than one person to play a hand--here recall your recent post on "coaching"--rountinely looking at opponents' folded cards (allowed once/hour in a casino)...need I go on and on?)
You can't answer this argument, so--ever aggressive, I'll give you that--you stoop to personal attack.
That's just sad, supe.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 1:46 pm GMT by shorn7
OK, I will jump in too.
I have t say Mind that while you consistently attack supa for making personal attacks, it appears from this observer that you are pretty well versed in them yourself. In fact, it appears that the whole reason for this post was to inflame the on-line folks by your comments. I find it interesting that someone who is most likely older than most of us and supposedly wiser would "stoop to our level" in even writing this post.
The bottom line is that no one is an authority on what "is" poker and what "is not" poker. Not me, not you, not supa, not anyone. Is the online version of the game different? Absolutely. In fact, it is better than live in many ways as live is better than online in many ways. I think it best for all players to embrace both and enjoy their many virtues.
Why limit yourself to brunette's only when you can enjoy all of the fairer sex? Same thing with variations on poker by game, stakes, and venues.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 1:52 pm GMT by arras
| shorn7 wrote: | OK, I will jump in too.
Why limit yourself to brunette's only when you can enjoy all of the fairer sex? Same thing with variations on poker by game, stakes, and venues. |
Game over 
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 1:58 pm GMT by Dave B
| shorn7 wrote: | | Why limit yourself to brunette's only when you can enjoy all of the fairer sex? Same thing with variations on poker by game, stakes, and venues. |
I, myself, DO chose to limit myself to women. Are you saying we should all be bisexual? I am sorry, that is not for me.
Like Michael on the Office (US version) to the gay guy "why dont we sit down, have a beer, and you can tell me how you can do that to another guy".
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:03 pm GMT by mindgame
I won't deny that there is merit to this last argument, although I think this thread is exhausted and we might try a different tack entirely, as I have just proposed elsewhere. Jump in, then.
On the matter of personal attacks, you will find I made none except in response. As I said, I was happy to fire broadsides and willing to take the battle to as low a plane as my opponent chose to contend upon.
My entire intent was to squelch the fruitless complaining about loss of internet poker and suggest with some humor that there is much to learn about the game by actually engaging in what I still insist is "the real deal."
I truly feel that an online player's ability to play 7 or more tables at once, using techniques that would be patently illegal and unethical in any other setting, makes an ironclad case (or at least prima facie, if you can tolerate any more Latin at this point) that the game as played on the poker sites that sponsor this conversation is one-dimensional in the worst sense.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:29 pm GMT by aaronw
I think it should be kept in mind that not everyone has access to cardrooms on a daily basis. Not everyone can go to a casino to play poker whenever they choose, thus leaving online poker as the way to go.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:40 pm GMT by Skribbles
| Dave B wrote: |
Like Michael on the Office (US version) to the gay guy "why dont we sit down, have a beer, and you can tell me how you can do that to another guy". |
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:43 pm GMT by mindgame
I know that, of course. That's why I suggested that some might accept the challenge of trying to put together and hold together a regular game--man that is a BITCH, but for years that's all we had.
I guess I'm just guilty of trying to get you guys to appreciate how hard us old-timers had it "back in the day." You know, how we walked 20 miles to school back before global warming and mid-September temps sometimes plunged to 36 below, how it was uphill both ways, blah, blah, blah.
Joplin: "you don't know what you got 'til it's gone..."
So suck it up and do the work to play the game.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:54 pm GMT by aaronw
| mindgame wrote: | | So suck it up and do the work to play the game. |
Do you mean play live poker instead of online when you say "work to play the game" If so, I think you are really missing what I was saying. For some people online poker is the only choice. Not everyone lives near a casino or even has that as an option. Some people do not make the choice to play online, that is just the only way for them to have an option to play. I am included in that. There is 1 casino near where I am and they do not even have poker. If I did not play online I would rarely play. I would only play at the occasional home game.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:00 pm GMT by shorn7
I think what he meant was that if you don't live near a casino, then get a bunch of players together for a home game.
OK mind...fair enough. I agree that keeping a home game together is difficult, even more so now with the online game as many are inclinced to stay home and play instead of going somewhere.
Does the online game lose some of the cameraderie (sp?) of the live game? Absolutely, and one reason why I still like to play live when I can. But, I live 105 miles from the nearest casino and all my poker playing friends are either married with kids or have relatively demanding jobs that include travel or long hours. That doesn't bode well for keeping a game togwther consistently. In fact, I do play in a home game probably once a month when we can actually scrape enough folks together.
But, it seems to me that your line of thinking is that we should play live or not play at all. I would argue that this is much more close minded than using all available forms of poker, be they "pure" in your mind or not.
Unfortunately as others have said, online might be the only way they can play consistently. To look down upon those for which this is the case doesn't make a lot of sense.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:10 pm GMT by aaronw
I find even getting a home game together pretty difficult. All of my friends have jobs, goto university, etc. Even then it is hard to get alot of experience and improve your game in home games (in my experience anyway).
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:26 pm GMT by raisebot
Speaking of home games, the crazy thing is, is even living in Vegas I still miss the old days of playing in home games back when I lived in NYC (~6 years ago). Occasionally we get a home game going out here in Vegas, but yeah I agree, it's difficult. Home games are where the real fish are at.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 5:31 pm GMT by supafrey
The supposed glamour of live games is a bubble that gets burst pretty fast the second you beat up some degenerate at the tail-end of his losing session. Atleast online you get the decency of not having to see pathetic people face-to-face as you break their bank.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 5:42 pm GMT by gumbie
| mindgame wrote: | Let us start with the observation that poker is what it is.
It is a CARD game.
|
Poker isn't a card game, it's a wagering game.
But anyway I agree with you that live play is much more fun.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:16 pm GMT by supafrey
too bad i don't play poker for fun.
poker to me is a tool for money. the best and most real poker is the one that makes me the most. live poker is a cheap imitation.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:06 pm GMT by mindgame
I just finished emailing gumby that the guy who makes the definitions wins the debate.
My idea of a great game is one that involves a lot of interaction with people--but then again, you aren't looking at poker as a "game" at all, and I have to concede that's your perogative. If you have ever seen David Mammet's (sp?) House of Games, you have seen what I consider the best game of poker ever done on film. That game is what some of the games I've played in are like, and it's dance of human interaction on many levels, with statements meaning 2 or 3 different things, depending on what level you take them to. The banter is clever, quick, and sometimes brilliant. That's what I love about good poker games (besides the money), and all of that is missing online because in so many ways it is a solitary, even frenzied pursuit of nothing but the $.
If, as you suggest, the only point is the money, there is no point in bothering to debate--we don't have enough in common for meaningful dialogue. We seek different things, and you are welcome to your prey.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:21 pm GMT by jeffonline
I play a live tournament weekly not at a casino but in a hotel, I can honestly say that say that the smell of beer and body odour now that they have banded smoking at these venues is uplifting.
The point is I always play a sit and go online when I get home. I seem to do very well after a live game, I think the concentration level needed is higher in a live game and I am able to continue it on when I sit down at the computer.
Does any one else find this.
Posted Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:21 pm GMT by tame_deuces
I think most people put something into live games which just isn't there. Sure there is maybe a slight aspect of better reads than in an online game, but mostly I would wager that is because most people don't pay attention when they play online, not because some godlike insight into people come into play at live games.
As far as homegames go, I've been to a few and the players tend to suck. *edit* Which is a good thing ofcourse.
Posted Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:51 am GMT by mindgame
Between Jeff's remark about the uplifting qualities of BO and stale beer and Supra's observation about busting out a loser who's got to drag up and go home without the paycheck he shouldn't have put on the table in the first place, I can admit that my high-blown and romantic picture of poker's pristine qualities when "played as it's supposed to be" looks quite comical--if not hypocritical.
I have huge issues with the online game though, and they center on the fact that much of it resembles feeding sheep to wolves. I was astounded by the power of poker tracker software when I bought it. I had no idea the level and quality of surveillance I was under as a "casual" player. You couldn't possibly do that to anyone in a casino or any other live game without committing the most unethical violations of his privacy, but it happens 24/7 to online players and many haven't a clue it's going on.
That said, I am chagrined to admit that the most helpful thing about that software was what it told me about my own game.
Posted Wed Nov 22, 2006 12:51 pm GMT by MrDarling
I'll try my best not to get into personal attacks, but my GOD, does someone stuck in the past.
First let me start by saying that I would love to play live poker. I got into this game after watching EPT on TV and dreamt about playing live ever since.
So What?!
Even if what you say is true and live game is 10000000 times better then online, So What?
Does it make playing online wrong, or immoral ?
And true, if one think about it one do need to appreciate you old timer had in getting a game. So in behalf of all us 'young' players, I officially salute you!
Does that mean we shouldn't use online poker? Do you honestly tell me you still MORS code telegraphs to your family and friends? keep your money tacked in your boot and still shoot your way out of an argument?
Technology is here to help us my friends. Sure the experience is different, so what! Grow up and stop fearing the unknown.
No personal offense is meant by this post.
Danny
Posted Wed Nov 22, 2006 1:21 pm GMT by suitedaces84
| mindgame wrote: |
Joplin: "you don't know what you got 'til it's gone..." |
This is Joni Mitchell.
| aaronw wrote: | | I think it should be kept in mind that not everyone has access to cardrooms on a daily basis. Not everyone can go to a casino to play poker whenever they choose, thus leaving online poker as the way to go. |
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