does anyone know why this bet might be getting rejected?

it keeps flashing "your balance is too low to make this bet" before showing "something went wrong". my balance should cover the bet and i've tried lower amounts as well.

when i press "max bet" it shows 0.

ah ok, i thought you were hinting at a bad beat.

i see this kind of play a lot---limping (or checking from the big blind) with a premium pocket pair then being unable to fold postflop. nicely taken down.


it depends on the table IMO. at a very aggressive table, limping is terrible. at a passive table, you can see cheap flops and capitalize on them.

i don't think that applies at SwC Poker. i've never heard of anyone getting hit with KYC. this is what their terms say: https://swcpoker.eu/house-rules#require-dox


that's a big plus in my book. i hate giving out my dox. that goes for exchanges, casinos, whatever. they just can't be trusted to secure your data.

according to this post, there is a 10 day hold: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/fqwwgx/do_i_really_have_to_wait_10_freaking_days_to_send/


a 10 day hold on debit/credit cards is standard. the same policy applies at coinbase.

i'm really surprised to see binance.us applies the same hold to ACH deposits. i've never seen that before. i was about to recommend switching to ACH to avoid this.

you should still switch to ACH to avoid those massive 3.4% debit card deposit fees.

inevitable, why?

there has been longstanding disagreement between russia's central bank and the ministry of finance about how to address cryptocurrency. the former wants to ban it, the latter wants to legalize and regulate.

meanwhile the duma has been at a standstill on the matter for many years, state-owned utilities are building mining farms, and local governors are trying to attract bitcoin miners to their provinces.
https://www.coindesk.com/a-russian-nuclear-plant-is-renting-space-to-energy-hungry-bitcoin-miners
https://news.bitcoin.com/russian-governor-cryptocurrency-miners-mining-farms-leningrad/

i have a feeling too many russian political elites are already invested in bitcoin or bitcoin infrastructure to allow this sort of bill to pass. considering the shaky crude oil market and their dependence on it, russia also needs to consider the tax revenues and diversification that regulated crypto mining and trading could bring.

this proposal means nothing. the russian government always waffles on crypto legislation. one year they say using bitcoin is illegal. a few years later they are moving to legalize and regulate it. now we have another bill trying to ban it.

i'll believe it when i see the bill passed into law.

if the money was sent fraudulently, won't it be clawed back by zelle and the sending bank?

either the sender gets refunded (classic BTC for reversible payment method scam) or OP gets his money back. it can't be both. i hate to say it, but my money is on the payment getting reversed and OP permanently losing his account.

this is why i only deal in cash when it comes to p2p trading. it's too risky giving up precious bitcoins for reversible online bank transfers.

coinbase's name has been peppered throughout this thread. supposedly they've never been hacked before, but an insider recently suggested otherwise.

Coinbase was once hacked and nobody knows about it, alleges author


coinbase denies his claims:

i guess there is a possibility he is semi-bluffing the heart flush draw, but obviously he's drawing dead since you have a boat.

he checked from the BB, so he could have anything going in. random ten combinations come to mind.

the bet-call on the flop and small bet on the turn (rather than shoving) suggests he could be holding a T. if he's holding KT or AT, i could see a potentially nasty river outcome here.

i'm still not folding.......


it's better this way. posting the full results at the same time encourages "results-oriented" analysis. this way, we can run through the likely possibilities without being influenced by the actual hand result.

the odds of a trump victory (47%) dropped 2% since i last checked. biden (42%) did not pick those points up though. https://odds.watch/trump-2020


obama was essentially a neoconservative. the fanfare around him among liberals was largely based on the contrast to GWB and him being black. his entire legacy is one of selling out poor and working people to giant corporations and wall street.

democratic power brokers were grooming hillary clinton to be his successor, but they underestimated 1. how publicly detestable she truly was, 2. how quickly obama/clinton style neoconservatism was falling out of public favor, and 3. how destructive and insulting obama's economic policies were for the working class. remember, obama was ushered in as a populist liberal who was supposed to indict wall street for causing the 2008 collapse and tilt things back in favor of ordinary americans. he did the opposite. by the time he was leaving office, a strong majority of americans wanted an anti-elitist populist (like trump) in office, not an elitist neocon like hillary clinton.

this is where the fracture between the leftist/sanders wing and the centrist/biden wing comes in. the sanders wing taps into america's populist anger, but democratic fundraisers and power brokers know the leftists are too great of a threat to the big banks and other powerful corporate interests to be allowed a seat at the table.

IMO, the centrist democrats would rather lose this election to trump and retake control in 4 years rather than let the sanders wing take over. in some sense that may explain why they backed such a dud like biden in the first place, knowing the left lacked enough momentum to win the primaries. 4 more years of trump---especially if they are characterized by fiscal austerity---and then obama-like centrism becomes palatable again for centrist leaning conservatives and the lesser of two evils for disenfranchised progressives.

at these chip stacks, the guy is pot committed either way.

even if he 3bet preflop (suggesting possible QQ) there's pretty much no way i'm getting away from this hand on that board at these stacks. second nut boat, no quads possibility, and you've already put in damn near your whole stack. this is one spot where i'm smooth calling the turn and getting the rest in on the river.

i'm assuming you're setting us up for an epic beat? QQ or JJ/KK/AA hitting a better full house on the river?

that's also the beauty of poker and why it's so popular.

think of it this way---terrible poker players are still willing to put their chips in the pot with bad odds. they do that because there is an element of chance, and because they win sometimes even as total donks. this is why the pros can make a living playing against amateurs and tourists.

compare that to chess. who wants to play chess against a grandmaster for money? not me!

it's obvious the democrats are a broken party with a fractured identity. there is an increasing push towards the left within the party (the progressive wing) and this has been exemplified by the moderate success but ultimate defeat of the bernie sanders campaign.

the centrists and center-leftists are cannibalizing the party. on top of that, the push towards the left may make moderate democrat voters (who normally back fiscal conservatives like "the blue dogs") swing republican.

biden was their best attempt at a purely centrist candidate capable of retaining the moderates. IMO they were hoping to stimulate nostalgia for the obama years and also may have underestimated his cognitive dysfunction.

unlike many in this thread, i don't think trump is a shoo-in. if the economic recovery does not pan out as promised over the next few months, he may be facing a big reversal in opinion. i roughly agree with the odds bookies are giving. if it's either biden or trump, i would expect trump to win 11 or 12 times out of 20.

only in a freeroll (albeit one that has lots of value) does the action get this crazy.

my luck eventually ran out, knocked out in 39th. one donk at the table had been raising every hand. i shoved KTs from the button with 10 or 11 bbs left and got called by K8s from the BB. i was thrilled with the all-in odds (70-30), not so much with the board:



good game, and thanks for the shot steve!

technically all sports can be played without an audience. it just may not be profitable for venue owners. taiwan's pro basketball league is still playing.

are we talking in the context of sports betting? like betting on snooker matches and WSOP tournaments and things like that?

sadly the 2020 WSOP has already been postponed. it was originally supposed to begin later this month. https://www.wsop.com/news/2020/Apr/12325/2020-WORLD-SERIES-OF-POKER-POSTPONED.html

now it's tentatively scheduled to run in the fall. too bad. i had never considered betting on pro poker players, but it sounds like a good way to make the WSOP more interesting. i also wonder if i might even have an edge in it.

+1, i'm with that. the regular prize pools are enough to keep me coming, let alone the championship prizes. what can i say? i like to play cards.....

i wouldn't mind getting a regular cash game together either. or maybe some low stakes stud hi/lo or omaha just for kicks. i haven't played any lowball games in years.


anyway i have known live regs who have played 24-36 hour sessions at the casino. 6-8 hours is nothing. maybe have a beer and a coffee at the table.

playing huge pots against flush draws is always a big gamble. if i can get in a 3-way or bigger pot with a strong flush draw on the flop, pot odds generally make it worth it. especially as the raiser since sometimes you can just get made hands (like top pair) to fold.

keep in mind, the J8 villain also had an open-ended straight draw. exact odds on that hand after the flop:



i'm back in the game after 2 hands won vs that guy who knocked me down to 376 chips at the beginning.





wednesday poker with steve---always a roller coaster!

underpair vs overpair is always a terrible position to be in.

i'm pretty sure suited connectors (like T9s or 76s) are the best possible hand vs AA. but i don't wanna overstate their chances though. there is still only a ~22.5% chance to win with 76s vs AA preflop, compared with an 18% chance to win with KK. it's not a huge difference.

the problem with limping is there are 3 more to act preflop. we're guaranteed at least 3 in the pot (if no one raises) and i may not be in position postflop. in terms of preflop equity a limp seems fine but the problem is the difficulty in playing it postflop with a small stack.


AA vs KK......not much to be said. you both played it correctly.

there's a big element of chance involved in preflop all-ins. KK beats AA nearly 1 in 5 times. that's poker!

in the first 2 minutes of play:



preflop: i raised first, he 3bet, i shoved. i figured it was a decent gamble to get a big stack early. 60-40 favorite here but my tens couldn't hold.

i've managed to miraculously 10x my stack from there on a few all-ins, so i'm back at 1/3 the starting stack, but it'll be an uphill battle from here.....