My Poker Face

Lately, well I guess within this last year, I’ve been playing more and more poker. I started playing poker in my teens with my family for change, mostly quarters and dimes. I remember wanting to play with them at a young age but they wouldn’t let me play until I was 16 LOL. Then, I played a little in college but never played consistently. I guess I was more focused on school (just in case you’re wondering I’m trying to convince myself that this is the reason and that I was really more focused on school not other things). After graduating from school and landing my job, I definitely became interested in poker again but there weren’t many options to play besides online living in the DC area. I’ve never been a big fan of online poker. One of my strengths is reading people and this strength is drastically decreased in value in online play in my opinion. I played in a few home games during my years there, but still never played consistently enough to really hone my game.

I’ve been living in Florida a little over three years now and I’ve definitely enjoyed the opportunity of being able to play more live poker at home games and at the card rooms here. Poker is a challenge for me and I enjoy the challenge of the game and the challenge of reading/observing people. I am a problem solver by nature, which is one of the reasons I studied engineering, and when I am sitting at a poker table I am faced with a different problem to solve each hand that I am in. Sometimes I solve it correctly and sometimes I don’t. Either way I enjoy that challenge that I am faced with. There aren’t many things that I am challenged with in my everyday life and I missed that until I began to play poker more consistently. I’m not playing for stakes that will make or break my bank roll. Therefore, it isn’t about the money. If I get good enough at it then maybe one day it will be. Now, playing poker is about the challenge. During my time at the poker tables I am faced with figuring out the math involved in each hand, calculating the percentages of outs and pot odds, and using my observations skills to dissect the players whom I am in a hand with. This is not an easy thing to do. To be good at it will take a lot of time and more hours at the card table. But, for me it is all worth it when I make the right call on a river bet from another player trying to bluff me :D

Fred