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more_corn parent
One of the best life lessons I learned was while perusing a poker strategy book in a bookstore as a teen. I’ve never been into poker, not even sure why I picked it up. One thing it said was the most important thing to remember is that most of your hands will be crap. Don’t get attached to a bad hand and don’t convince yourself that an ok hand is a good hand. If you just fold the bad hands and play the good ones you’re already a better player than most.

I took that to heart and it has served me well in life.

tgijs
For me, it's "decisions, not results." Poker will teach you patience and acceptance of that which is out of your control.
wileydragonfly
That’s it. That’s the entire strategy. I pray that the Texas Hold ‘Em fad doesn’t come back. That was an insufferable decade of hearing how clever everyone was.
cman1444
That's "the entire strategy" for becoming a non-beginner. Poker game theory gets much more complicated at higher levels of play.
wileydragonfly
Someday, I hope you share your billions of winnings with us mere peasants.
albedoa
You are really having a normal one huh.
cman1444
Nowhere did I suggest that I am at those higher levels of play. I just know that they exist.
albedoa
How much did you lose?
oinfoalgo
I have never met a losing poker player.

That for me was the greatest life lesson from that time.

Also how there was all these poker strategy books but I don't remember a single one trying to model the strategy of the rake and how to determine if the rake made a game unbeatable. Basically, assuming all games at all levels of rake are beatable.

How convenient for the house.

wileydragonfly (dead)
thebigspacefuck
That just makes you a tight passive player which is not the worst kind of player to be but also not likely to win you a lot of money
btilly
Being a loose aggressive player is far more likely to lead to you losing a lot of money, than winning a lot of money.

Once you consider what the house earns, poker is a net negative for the players. In order for there to be some big winners, there have to be a lot of losers. And a shocking number of those losers will, thanks to our selective memories, consider themselves winning players.

owlninja
In popular poker you are just playing against other players, not the house.
eszed
Doesn't the house take a percentage of the pot ("rake", isn't it called?).

Not a poker player, just thought that was a thing.

bluGill
Depends on where you play. For some the house is a literal house not a casino, and thus no rake.
albedoa
Yes. The person you are responding to doesn't quite understand the comment they are responding to :) The rake can turn a breakeven or even winning player into a losing player. That's what we mean.
owlninja
Sorry, that is fair enough, he is describing a casino. I never played in Vegas during the hold 'em boom, but went to plenty of houses where there wasn't really a rake.
thebigspacefuck
Sure, that’s considered the worst player type to be and generally tight aggressive is considered the best strategy.

Zero-sum nature of the game aside, Meta developed an AI that wins consistently at poker, so it is possible to be good at poker and win consistently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluribus_(poker_bot)

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