An Eye Opener

[Monty9]

Hello all,

Just got back from vacation and didn't play any poker for 5 days. WOW....

It is a good thing and I highly recommend it. Clears the mind.

One thing I did to pass some time ( waiting for the family ) ( 3 girls and a wife) was to deal out cards at full and 6 max and see how the hands play out.

I highly recommend this to beginners. If you really study the cards and imangine playing each of the delt hands you can see alot of what is talked about here.

You see how position is very important, that most time the cards that are delt are not that good over all and that alot of people will play with crap.

How that the more people you let draw the more of a chance you will be sucked out on. This is huge for folks that love to slow play big pairs and shows why you should raise these most always. I myself was surprized how many times a pocket pair lost to a draw.

It is a good way to pass the time and I found it very helpfull myself.

[Kessler]

I do this a lot too. I have a deck of cards at my desk at work, and while I'm waiting for a progress bar to finish or on a conference call, I'll deal the cards out just to see how they fall. Helps you see how often KK really goes up against AA, any 2 suited flops a proper flush draw, and how rare it REALLY is to have set over set. You can also look at the 9 "hands" and practice your pre-flop hand selection in regards to position.

-Kes

[spoonitnow]

Used to do something similar... sorta.

Would take 2 cards at a time and rank that preflop hand by what % range of hands heads-up it ranked based on HOH2's chart. I'd write down the hand and my answer for 15-20 pairs of cards, then check my results by the chart.

Random.

[jyms]

On the same basic practice, I used to deal 5 cards face up and try to figue out the nuts. Just to get used to learning to see the board first then my hand. Helps ya learn to see hidden straights easier