Poker is a crazy game with crazy swings. Let me put like this, 0.5% of my showdown hands are fullhouses. I make a lot of money om my fullhouses, on average $25. In 2,000 hands, I expect 10 fullhouses for $250. God forbid that day I only get 5 fullhouses . . . easy to imagine, but that's $125 that I didn't make that day, and would usually expect to make. Fucking swings. Nothing you can do about it though.

Anyways, one other thing about poker . . . at least limit. It's a completely counter-intuitive game. Sometimes, you think you are making money but you aren't in reality. Take this for example I have AA, my opponent has JT. The flop is AK5. The turn is a 2. Giving me trips, and my villain an inside straight draw. He has 4 cards to catch it, 46 cards left in the deck, thats 4 to 42 or 1 to 10.5.'

I bet $1, he calls to see the river. The average Joe says, oh man way to go. That idiot just gave you a dollar. Here's the catch, the pot is already $10.5. If my villain could make this call for the rest of his life, he would break even. Now here's the problem. On the river, if the Queen hits, I'm betting anywhere from $2-$4. If the Queen doesn't hit, the villain is folding, so he isn't losing any more money. So I bet $1 on the turn, getting 10.5 to 1, but I'm losing $2-$4 on the river.

Of course, I win that $10.5 pot, 90% of the time. If I could play this hand, everyday the rest of my life, I would be a rich, rich man. My point is that I am not making one penny off the villain by betting on the turn. I am in fact losing money to the villain on the turn and river play! I would net more money if the guy folded on the turn every time in this pot. I am really just making money from the pot. This is why poker is counter-intuitive. The key is to play in a way to make money from both the pot and the villian. Not always possible in limit though. But say if the pot were $5, I would be making money off the pot and the villain.

I hope you learned something from this post.