Why we love Poker and poker Lesson 1

I started playing Poker after watching a few movies with a little poker in it. Texas holdem to be specific and not the typical showhand pokers you see in Stephen Chow's movies.

One of the movie was James Bond with Daniel Craig as 007 and the other... i can't really remember. There are many lessons you can draw from playing poker, i think everyone should play this game if not at least draw lessons from it. I am no Poker Pro but just want to share my experience after playing online poker for about a year now.

The poker game has evolved over the years and attracted many interest all around the world especially with the huge interest in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) after Chris Moneymaker an amateur won the WSOP in 2003. Everyone called it the Moneymaker effect. Chris a former accountant who earns $40k a year won 2.5 million in cold hard cash in the WSOP. It was every grown up poor man's wet dream... to put it crudely. Moneymaker delve into poker after watching Rounders, starring Matt Damon. If anyone of you is interested in Poker, you should watch it, it should at least stir some interest to play.

After the moneymaker effect, the participation in WSOP skyrocketed. Prize money for the main event in 2006 was an obscene amount of more than 12 million dollars! Jamie Gold won it that year. It was the highest ever prize money in the history of WSOP. Without further bantering, here is lesson 1.

No 1 Lesson: Read your opponents

The ability to read and understand your opponent is very important in poker. To be able to read your opponents allows you to know what hole cards they are holding. Daniel Negreanu is one of the few i seen who is able to read his opponents card so well that it sometimes it's as if he has x ray vision.

There are a few ways to do to read your opponents. One way is to look for tells. Certain action that your opponent do when he is bluffing or has a good hand i.e talk alot or start looking away from the table.

Another way is betting pattern, some players like to raise pre flop when they are bluffing and slow play when they have big hands. The way they raise, check-raise, on the turn, on the river etc.

Sometimes its just experience that allows you to read your opponent. I am sure legends like Doyle Brunson don't even have to actively think about what to do anymore. It is all automated in his mind.

Application in life:

Interaction with friends, family and even strangers or aquaintance are part and parcel of life. The ability to understand and "read" your friends intention without them telling you straight in the face is an asset. The ability to size up someone you meet for the very first time is invaluable. From their body language, the way they speak, the questions they ask. It is sometimes enough to tell you more than what can be miscommunicated through words.

This ability will make you more than a million bucks if you are in sales or in business. The ability to to size up a prospect, and learning to speak his/her language in the first 5 minutes of interaction will help tremendously in closing the deal.

The way the prospect's eye drift towards when thinking can tell you if he is an audio or visual person. The speed of his speech can tell you if he is deliberate in his thoughts or doesn't care much for details. His sitting posture can tell you if he is wasting your time or interested.

This invaluable skill can be horned with experience with your daily dealing with people and playing Poker! So start playing poker right now. There are hundreds of free site on the internet offering free poker. The easiest way is to play on facebook. That way you can play and learn the game and lose zero money. Poker in its purest form is cash games. Only this way will you learn the game properly and seriously. Even Tournaments are not its purest form. We will talk about tournament plays in another entry. I will only say one last thing:

"Let's Shuffle up and Deal!!!"