[jdurg]

I've written about it extensively in my blog, but I just have to talk about it again.  Last night was a DREAM night for a *Ignore me, I am dishonest* player.  An evening where you are getting great cards all night long, while other people are getting cards just slightly worse than yours which results in massive hands being won.  I swear that I won nearly 90%, or maybe more, of the hands that I played.  Every week, at least once a week, me and 6 or 7 of my friends and coworkers get together and play Texas Hold'Em for about four hours each night.  We each buy in for $20.00 and get twenty bucks worth of chips.  (8 $1 chips, 20 $0.50 chips, and 8 $0.25 chips).  The small blind is $0.25 and the big blind is $0.50.  The maximum bet is $4, but there is unlimited raising each round.  Now that doesn't seem like a helluva lot of money, but we routinely have people buying in for $60-$80 as the pots can get huge if the right people are involved.  Last night was a beautiful night, however.  When I was up against someone's flush, I had a full-house.  My pocket pairs were holding up left and right, and I was flopping trips like you wouldn't believe.  

One of the best hands of the night happened when I had pocket 9's, the guy to my right had pocket 5's, and the guy to his right (the really maniacal loose player) had Ace-Jack of clubs.  Everybody was raising like crazy, and the flop came down 9-5-4 with two clubs.  The guy with the flush draw bets hard, the guy with the pocket fives raises, me with the pocket 9's raises even more and everybody calls.  The same thing happened on the turn, and on the river a blank came.  I took down a HUGE pot with 3 nine's and the tight player with the three fives just couldn't believe it.  Stuff like that was happening all night long.  I wound up walking away with 187 dollars, so if you take away the $20 buy-in I earned a cool $167 bucks.  I really wish I could get cards like that every time I play, but I was most happy with how I dealt with the good cards.  I got as much money from those hands as I possibly could.  I made it very difficult for people to make reads on me, and they just could never put me on anything solid.  At one point, I started taking down pots just by betting with nothing since people were getting a bit intimidated by the gigantic chip stack in front of me and the fact that I was winning so many pots.  Good god that was fun.  

[arnyk]

You know what we should do, we should have a little online tournament with the chem guys here -- just for fun obviously no real money or anything.  I bet with all the brain power somebody's ego is bound to get bruised.  

By the way, I suck at *Ignore me, I am dishonest*.  But since luck is 50% of the game, and fluke is 45% of the game, I like my odds.

[Grumples]

Actually arnyk, luck is *maybe* 5% of *Ignore me, I am dishonest*.  the rest is skill.  Reading opponents is an incredibly important ability to have (as well as protecting yourself from being read).  Without them, I pretty much guarentee that you will lose nearly all games against all but the worst players.  

Jdurg, I had an experience similar to yours: I was playing a game with my friends, and two of us flopped nut straights- we each had 7-8 and the flop was 6-9-10.  Obviously we both started betting, but luckily, I had a straight flush.  

[jdurg]

Yeah, luck is there to help the good *Ignore me, I am dishonest* player, but it doesn't make a *Ignore me, I am dishonest* player good.  Luck will allow a less skilled person to think that they can succeed at playing *Ignore me, I am dishonest* by letting them win a few hands by playing poor cards.  The thing is, they'll continue to play bad cards and over a long period of time, playing all those bad cards will cost them a ton of money and give the good players the dough.    Luck will also help out the good players when they make a mistake.  Sometimes that luck will make up for a bad call, or a missed opportunity.  Most of the time, 'luck' is having your opponents have good cards while you have even better cards.  

I think the best, and only, way to become really good at *Ignore me, I am dishonest* is to play a live game with real humans.  Online *Ignore me, I am dishonest* will only teach you about the math and the probabilities, which don't get me wrong are VERY important, but they won't teach you how to read people or get a feel for what's going on.  Getting a sense of what players do in certain situations is crucial to playing *Ignore me, I am dishonest*.  When I had my Queen-9 offsuit last night, which admittedly isn't that great of a hand, I was able to tell by the way my opponent looked at his cards and the tone in his voice that he didn't have me dominated.  My Queen-9 was an underdog to his Ace-Ten, but it's not like he had me crushed with Ace-Queen, Queen-Ten, King-Queen, etc.  So the only way he beats me is if neither of us pair or if he gets an ace or a ten.  Even if he gets a ten, I can still beat him with my Queen and his ten may actually help me if there's a Jack as well.  All of these thoughts went through my mind before calling his large raise, and then when the other guy called the raise I had 2:1 on my money.  (For every dollar I put in, I could potentially win 2 dollars).  So by combining that 2:1 pot odds versus my fifty-fifty chance of beating his cards, in the long run I'd come out ahead.  (Let's say my odds of winning the hand were 1.75 to 1.  For every time I win, I'll lose 1.75 times.  Since my pot odds are 2 to 1, that 1 time I win will pay me more money than I'll lose in those 1.75 times.  So over a long haul, I'd make money by calling the raise).  So with those odds quickly running through me, I called and of course a Queen fell on the flop as well as a ten.  (Though the ten didn't bother me as I knew my queen was good).  So now my opponent HAD to catch another ten or an Ace in order to beat me.  Of all the cards in the deck, only 5 would help him.  So I won the hand and took down a nice win.

It's little things like that which make *Ignore me, I am dishonest* so much more complex than one would initially think.  

[hmx9123]

Yeah, online *Ignore me, I am dishonest* is much less skill and more odds.  So, time for my *Ignore me, I am dishonest* story.

This isn't as exciting, as it was a big family game at a New Years gathering and we were playing for pretzels and not cash, but it is the only time I have ever seen this happen legitimately, although I have made it happen by cheating a lot.  So, we're playing 5 card draw, and been at it most of the evening, so it's like midnight and the old folks were tired.  There were 6 or 7 players, I think.  We declared this would be the last hand, and dealt the cards.  My uncle started snickering to himself and biting his tongue to keep from laughing.  We all take cards.  He takes none, and we all are betting big, mostly because it's the last hand and no one cares.  My uncle is betting everything, and we're all in because it doesn't really matter, but we all think he's bluffing because he's been trying to bluff all night.  We show our cards--a couple of pairs, three of a kind, etc., and then my uncle lays down.  Royal flush of spades.  I have never before or since seen one dealt fairly.  The chances of that happening are so incredibly small it's unbelieveable.  We all threw in our cards at that point and my uncle started laughing his ass off.

[Mitch]

Thats it, I'm setting up a *Ignore me, I am dishonest* night at my house.

[Borek]

Royal flush of spades.  I have never before or since seen one dealt fairly.  The chances of that happening are so incredibly small it's unbelieveable.

As a teenager I have (almost) witnessed much less possible event.

I was at some summer camp back in seventies and four guys started to play bridge. We have nothing to do - we were in tents, near the sea and it was one of those rainy summer months, so they played almost all the time. One day they started to cry aloud, so - having nothing else to do - I have run to their tent. One of them was dealt 13 spades. He was white as a paper  

It could be a practical joke, but it seemed unlikely and we have discussed it to the death (remember, we had nothing else to do). Game was not interrupted, it was played deal after deal, so there was no time for preparation. They were playing all the time using the same deck (borrowed and the only we had). None of them was skilled enough to prepare the deal shuffling.

I remember they have written and signed some kind of paper to document the event for the lucky one.

[arnyk]

You guys do know I was joking on the luckage percentage right?  Lol I'm not THAT bad.