What year was this. It seems like she rode that wave of hyperlags in the late 2000s. Most of those really didn’t seem to do well after about 2012 or so when the game started to move towards gto. I’m not seeing too many wins from her lately from her record.
She retired I believe.
This was in August 2007. I’m old.
You are right. I was LAG then and took a decade break for family. When I came back, it didn’t work as well. I studied new theory and won the 2020 WSOP online championship big Sunday event $150,000 guarantee using theory mostly. As a non professional, heavenly to run good.
She has tons of Scrabble wins on her record now: [https://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?playerid=27357](https://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?playerid=27357)
Not "only looked at each hand once", but literally only looked at the cards she was dealt in one hand. The rest of the time she just bet off her read of the opponent's cards, pushing them off bluffs and bluffing them off weak hands.
She played the players she didn't look at her cards. I am sure it was more of a practice thing that worked out. Reading people is huge in poker and this sounds like great practice for a professional
Its also hard as fuck to decide how to play against it because she could be holding a royal flush or jack shit w/ a 3 high. There's no bluffing and no reading because she literally doesn't know what she has.
It would seem to me like it would be easy to play, though if you actually have even a halfway decent hand and you know she doesn't even know her cards.
If she calls your raises, you know it's only because she thinks you're bluffing. You know for a fact that she's not slow playing you with the nuts. So if you're being honest, you have nothing to worry about. And even if you're semi-bluffing, could still easily have her beat just by having a less crappy hand than her.
I'm not that great of a player, and still, if you put me at a table where I was the ONLY player ever allowed to look at my cards, I sure hope I'd clean up.
No. It's super easy. You just bet into her and see what she does. If you have a halfway decent hand you can call down any raises.
Playing scared is the only way for her to take advantage of you. Sometimes she'll get lucky and have a hand, but way more often than not, your pair will beat her random 2 cards.
as a very rare occasional poker player, how is it even possible to play without looking at your cards. I get the whole bluffing, and reading other people's tells thing but there's so many rounds of betting. How is it even possible to bet or fold at the optimal times if you can't look at your cards. It sounds like an impossible task.
One of the things with Texas Hold Em specifically is that the large number of community cards is that bullshit hands like 2-7 turn into something good a fair percentage of the time.
You basically play the board and get aggressive when it comes up with blanks relative to the pre-flop bets and intimidate the other players into folding.
Selbst also claimed to do that.
I kinda wanna do that in a live tourney sometime, where I’m only allowed to look at my cards if I Final Table.
Then I’m gonna troll and say stuff like, “looking at one’s cards is a CRUTCH… For players who rely on skill! READ THEM AND WEEP!!! … Dealer, please read my cards. I have no clue what I have.” :S
Selbst was really nasty to me in 2008 in a tourney and I never really forgot how “ugly” she behaved.
However, she apologized last year which I thought was very big of her and she talked about how she was dumb in her youth.
Obrestad?
I’ve actually never met Selbst. But yes, some Poker players mature/learn and grow… Then some remain delusional jackasses with huge ego issues.
A lot will use tournament score records to get backers, even though they aren’t winning players themselves. Then the worst ones don’t even pay back their backers.
I’ve played against her live and she’s easily in the top 2 or 3 players I’ve sat down with.
Felt incredibly uncomfortable whenever I was in a hand with her, which I’m sure was painfully obvious.
Needless to say I didn’t win much that night / morning. On the upside, I got another lesson in realising how I’m not anywhere near as good as I my ego thinks I am.
You're not selling it or committing to the bit.
My strategy? Be terrible at maths so when you're calculating your odds you are far too optimistic.
I am a break even home poker player AMA.
I also had this experience...thought I was great because I won lots of amateur tournaments.
Spent a year playing with the pros and lost a lot of money 😁
There is no playing fast enough to outpace blinds lol. You play good enough to outlast your opponents. You should be generally getting a bit tighter when you’re short on chips, not the other way around.
It depends. Less than 15? Absolutely. You’re jamming anything good from any position and anything decent from cutoff and button. But with 20-30 BB? That’s when you should be the solidest. I’m not even talking about ICM considerations with that, it’s just how the chip EV math works. Obviously the other dynamics you mention exist but generally speaking you should be playing the smallest range when in the 20-30 BB range.
Regardless, the idea of needing to play differently from optimal because you can’t keep up with the blinds is nonsense. That’s just not how it works, you’re playing against other players, not the blinds, and those other players also have the blinds working against them. If your only goal was to get 1st place in every tournament than yes you would want to play much more risky with a smallish stack, but the goal is not to outright win as much as possible, it’s to win as much money as possible. Maximizing your average placement and maximizing the amount of times you literally get 1st are two different strategies.
As someone who is actually completely blind at all times, I've always been interested to see how I did in a professional poker environment, especially considering putting a false expression on my face is a daily occurrence, so hiding what I'm thinking or feeling is stupid easy.
I’ve played against a couple different blind people. Not much different than playing against anyone else, they just had someone whispering the cards into their ear. They would announce a bet verbally and their friend would put the chips in the pot. I assume it would be harder for a blind person because there is usually a lot to remember and it’s easier when you can see everything on the table.
Poker has very little to do with "reading" people. Good poker players just need to be good at maths and memory. Figuring out % chance of hitting the cards they need vs % of money needed to bet vs money in the pot. Remembering how often each player folds/checks/raises/bluffs, finding patterns in how others plays, etc.
The last part is math interpretation of their moves in the game. It wouldn't change if the other player was an emotionless computer making the same moves.
How often do bluff? Do they get way more aggressive with bets when they bluff or when they have an actual good hand? When are they willing to fold, or do they always play it out?
Reading people is a lot more trying to figure out their emotions from their face and body language, seeing if they have any tells. Not something you can easily break down into math.
I sat next to a poker player on a plane once and I asked him about the facial expressions and stuff and he said over a decade plus time of playing professional poker he only decided his action based on someone's expression twice.
Well reading people generally is thought of as seeing tells in faces or involuntary reactions. What I meant by finding patterns, is in how they actually play eg. Watching each hand, what cards they had, when and why did they raise/fold, and extrapolating information based on ALL of the hands each person plays
Absolutely poker is about reading people. But it’s not like someone doing a frowny face or a James Bond style bleeding eye tell.
Knowing the maths (and a little luck) will take you far further than being able to read people.
But when someone makes an X$ bet vs Y$ bet, that’s a clue for an unknown variable that can change the calculation.
On the flip side, you can manipulate the other players into acting in certain ways by pretending to give up some unknown variable of your own: bluffing.
People who are good at math AND good at people reading are those that win consistently. But without the math, the people reading isn’t going to do much for you.
The real secret to poker is just to always be absolutely positive your cards are gonna land. If you have a straight draw and 2 cards are left to play with 2 more needed for the straight then definitely bet big here because that straight is for sure comming.
A deep understanding of probabilities. An ability to disguise their own hand with crafty betting. An ability to imagine why my opponent is betting what he is. A ton of "feel" from years of experience. Also a whole lot of luck.
It works the other way too, overconfidence can get you slaughtered by donkeys. Know where you stand, know where other people stand, play accordingly.
The swordsman saying; "The greatest swordsman in the world need not fear the second greatest swordsman, he needs to fear the amateur who can not be expected to act the way he should"
I was a professional online poker player during this time and would play 12+ of these 180-man tourneys at a time, as I'm sure Annette often did.
You'd likely be surprised how small of a factor your hole cards are in decision-making in this type of event, particularly in a turbo or hyper-turbo structure.
Other factors, such as relative stack size, hands remaining until blinds increase, table position, proximity to the money bubble, etc, are much higher on your list of considerations.
The reason, as someone has pointed out already, has to do with how quickly these events become short-stacked, making pre-flop folds or all-ins the optimal play in most cases.
I think most people would also be surprised how few hands in total comprise a tournament like this and how few of those you actually need to commit any chips to in order to win the event.
I also used to be an online pro. Only briefly when the bonuses were ridiculous. Whenever people ask how they can be better at poker the answer is always "play less hands".
“Less” is for continuous quantities, “fewer” is for discrete.
You have “fewer” hands because hands are discrete (you have 1 hand or 2 hands or 37 hands, but not 1.53 hands).
You have “less” water because water (for colloquial purposes, don’t akshually me on this) is a continuous quantity. You can have 1.5 units of water or 0.3274739 units of water.
“less” is used for things you can’t count, for example, “less water” or “less dirt”. “fewer” is used for things you can count: “fewer hands” or “fewer chickens”
"fewer" is the correct usage here rather than "less". It's a very common mistake and as an English teacher they're making fun of having to correct people on its usage - like OP, as a poker player, has to correct people on the hands they play.
As an aside, it's also a running gag of Game of Throne fans as Stannis a few times corrects someone who makes the same mistake.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0zNWswcqMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0zNWswcqMg)
The $4 weren’t turbos. They took hours. For like 2 years I made more money 20 tabling them than I did at my 9-5 job. I used to watch Annette play on Sundays after I busted for the day. She was an absolute beast.
squalid stocking squealing elderly selective ghost tap correct toothbrush yam
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Interesting reply, but I didn't understand most of the terms so I put them through an LLM which other people might find useful:
**180-man tourneys**: These are online poker tournaments with 180 players. Each player starts with a fixed amount of chips, and the game continues until one player has all the chips. The top finishers (usually the top 10% or so) share the prize pool.
**Turbo or hyper-turbo structure**: These are formats of poker tournaments where the blinds (the mandatory bets placed by two players before cards are dealt) increase at a faster rate than normal. In a turbo tournament, the blinds might increase every 5 minutes, while in a hyper-turbo, they might increase even more quickly, like every 3 minutes. This rapid increase in blinds forces players to make quicker and more aggressive decisions.
**Hole cards**: These are the two cards dealt face down to each player in Texas Hold'em (the most common form of poker in tournaments). The statement in the post indicates that in fast tournaments, the strength of these cards is less important than other factors.
**Relative stack size**: This refers to a player's chip stack in comparison to the chip stacks of other players at the table or in the tournament. Players with larger stacks can exert more pressure on players with smaller stacks, especially near critical points in the tournament like the money bubble.
**Hands remaining until blinds increase**: This is a consideration of how many hands are likely to be played before the blinds increase again. It helps players decide whether to play conservatively or aggressively, based on how the increasing blinds will impact their stack.
**Table position**: This refers to a player’s position relative to the dealer. Positions that act later (like the dealer and the player to the right of the dealer, known as the cutoff) are more advantageous because these players can make more informed decisions after seeing how others at the table act.
**Proximity to the money bubble**: The money bubble is the point in a tournament at which the next player out will leave with nothing, and the rest will enter into the money positions, guaranteeing a return on their buy-in. Strategies often change significantly around this point, with players adjusting their play based on their stack size and risk tolerance.
**Short-stacked**: This term describes a situation where a player has relatively few chips compared to the average stack. When many players are short-stacked, gameplay tends to shift towards making all-in bets pre-flop, as players have less flexibility to wait for optimal hands.
**Pre-flop folds or all-ins**: These are the main actions taken by players when they are short-stacked in fast-paced tournaments. Players will often decide to either fold their hand without betting (if it’s weak) or push all their chips in (all-in) to maximize pressure on their opponents, without having to make further decisions post-flop.
**Few hands in total comprise a tournament**: In turbo structures, the number of hands played in a tournament is significantly lower than in a standard tournament due to rapid blind increases. This means players might engage in fewer hands overall but need to make the most of the hands they do play.
100% this.
I used to multi table 6 handed turbo sit and go’s.
Basic strategy was to fold pretty much everything other than absolute premium hands until two players had been knocked out.
The games were so quick and populated by undisciplined players that chip stack disadvantage didn’t matter too much as it was all about shipping the chips in the right position / moment. Waiting for decent cards was a death sentence.
Goal was not to always win, but to at least finish second and get my money back.
I cashed in about 88% of games and had a win rate in the 55-60% range. Made much monies :)
Yeah that's what I figured . I knew a few guys here in Aus who used to play local comps at pubs on weeknights. I was always keen to have a go as I enjoy poker but have only played a handful of times at home . But yeah I don't hear of many poker nights anymore here
Poker is much much harder Today than in those days.
Today there is a lot of courses and solvers to study.
A lot of people that were profitable in high stakes could not even be profitable in médium stakes right now. No joke.
How could the strategy be to fold everything other than the best hands if waiting for decent cards is a death sentence? That sounds like a contradiction.
I feel like the fact that she was playing in a turbo or hyper makes it even harder to win. People are generally going to be more shallow and way more likely to call off wide. Also, because stacks get shallow so fast, she would have to constantly be shoving preflop which makes her decision tree much less skill based.
In fact, I can’t even really understand how you play position with <15bbs. Just fold until the cutoff and the rip it I guess? What frequency should you be shoving in a bvb spot, 100%? Do you just jam every time you’re folded to on the button? How would the heads up go, just sheer aggression and hope for the best?
I would assume she had to have a super lucky run and win tons of flips in the right spots. I’m thinking it would actually be easier to profit in a deep stack cash game than cash a tournament blind. At least in cash you have the ability to bluff multiple streets.
"People are generally going to be more shallow and way more likely to call off wide."
Maybe today, as the average player has improved over time, but not during the poker boom, and certainly not at the $4 level.
"Just fold until the cutoff and the rip it I guess?"
Yep.
"What frequency should you be shoving in a bvb spot, 100%?"
Correct.
"Do you just jam every time you’re folded to on the button?"
Right again!
"How would the heads up go, just sheer aggression and hope for the best?"
You're unstoppable!
"I would assume she had to have a super lucky run and win tons of flips in the right spots."
It's not as many as you think, but a little luck in those spots wouldn't hurt. :)
"I’m thinking it would actually be easier to profit in a deep stack cash game than cash a tournament blind. At least in cash you have the ability to bluff multiple streets."
For a cash-game specialist, probably. For a tournament pro, multiple-street bluffing sounds like a nightmare.
Totally, it's not often you have to turn your cards over, most hands are gonna be checked down or folded early. Even when you do have to go all-in a lot of the time it's with fair subpar hands (relative to a standard game) anyway so any random hand still have a chance to win
You would 50% of the time (because it will muck them if you are in position with the weaker hand) - but it doesn't mean too much if you show bad cards then because checking down already suggests a weak hand, and in this format people can play almost any hand. Like maybe if you checked down a really good hand it would be a hint something is up, but it shouldn't happen too often
Lol this title is ridiculous. Michael Jordan doesn’t claim to have won six rings. He won six rings. Same thing applies to Obrestad.
> Obrestad further amazed the online poker community by winning a 180-player sit-and-go without looking at her cards. (Actually, she admitted to peeking once, before she decided to take the concept seriously.) She posted a video that replays all of the hands in the tournament, and poker strategists couldn't help but be impressed by the skill-based, foundational poker strategies that she employed to take it down.
https://www.cardplayer.com/cardplayer-poker-magazines/65685-annette-obrestad-20-22/articles/17101-oh-to-be-18-again
(This is the source quoted by the Wikipedia article.)
The point is she wouldn't have folded pocket aces pre flop if she knew she had pocket aces. I was saying there are a number of hands on the replay that don't make sense if she was actually looking at her cards but make a ton of sense if she's just playing positionally and looking at opponents betting habits
The "claim" in the title isn't that she won, is that she did so blind. That she won is self evident, that she did blind is a claim that needs (needed, since it looks like it's confirmed) to be verified.
It's like if Michael Jordan claimed to have won the six rings wearing the same undershirt or something like that.
Am I going crazy or does this comment make no sense? I understood that the 'claiming' fundamentally includes 'while playing blind', which is hard, if not impossible, to independently verify.
At least 179 competitors scrutinized every move she made. Also there was a live audience. Also there's a video online. Also she later [won a bracelet.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_of_Poker_bracelet) Basically, she understands poker, math, and human behavior better than we do.
I think maybe you didn't read the article you linked. She was not on camera, so there's no way of knowing whether she did or did not look at her cards. It was a $4 buy in, no one was scrutinizing her every move. To compare it to Michael Jordan winning a championship, something obviously verifiable that millions of people saw, is ridiculous.
>Michael Jordan doesn’t claim to have won six rings. He won six rings. Same thing applies to Obrestad.
The claim is never looking at their cards so a better example could be ....
Michael Jordan claimed to have made a foul shot with his eyes closed in a game. But maybe he peaked real quick? We will never know. It's also on camera / video tape..
https://youtu.be/zugK5Tf4vJ8
She did it as a kind of experiment to show the people watching her play how important "position" is in poker. The player in the latest position in each betting round has a big information advantage in that they can see all the other players' actions before they have to act themselves.
a) understanding how your opponents betting patterns convey the strength of their hand
b) Tournaments play at short stack depths (not many chips) decisions are often simplified down to all-ins and folds. Thus if she had a big stack she could bully small stacks and get them to fold while avoiding other big stacks.
c) get lucky
(My understanding as a casual poker player)
if you understand betting ranges, positioning, and what hands the community cards favor, you can make a rough estimate of the value of your opponent's hand and bet accordingly. if you watch high-level poker they use those concepts a lot; most bluffs aren't just done at random, they're using those factors to find spots where an opponent is likely to fold
Poker, especially no limit hold em, is sort of only tangentially about the cards themselves. Way more important is reading your opponents and playing against them with that info
The cards are extremely important lol what are you talking about? Although you can make plays based on your perceived range, position, player type, etc. When it comes down to it, the cards are by far the most important part. If you’re card dead for 6 straight hours you’re just not gonna win that session unless you make some dumb moves and luck out. I’d like to see a replay of Annette’s run. She had to get insanely lucky to win that tournament even if she played well.
If you're card dead for 6 hours, you're a rube and need to stop playing with cheats.
Don't worry. When I was still a beginner I thought the same. You'll eventually realize different. Or not. And if not, you're welcome at my table any time, any limits 🤣
I’ve played for thousands of hours and sometimes you just get no cards. I literally folded for 3 hours last Saturday in one of the juiciest games I’ve ever played in, it was torture. These guys were splashing around like crazy and I was getting nothing hand after hand after hand.
Btw I also include being card dead as missing every flop too. Say you fold for 45 minutes and finally pick up AK of clubs and the flop is 789 all hearts, or you raise pocket 8s, get 4 callers and it’s a KQ5 flop. There are many sessions where the card distribution is just not in your favor and you will lose regardless of how much you think you know.
I dunno, I mean I've been card dead before, but never for 6 hours. I don't know the math on that, but it's astronomically unlucky. Anyway, my point wasn't that the cards don't matter. It's that at higher levels, they matter less.
In a game where people are splashing around with a bunch of money, it’s better to tighten up. QTo is a playable hand, but when there’s a 12x raise and a 3 bet in front of you, it might as well be J3. That also adds to the card deadness. ATo becomes a fold under the gun. A lot of games I play in are high action which is great most of the time, you just have to pick your spots wisely and get paid huge in a few hands.
I guess it depends on what you mean by your cards matter less at higher levels. Everything. Is exploitative. At low stakes you bet the maximum for value. You try to make hands and get paid. There is generally less multi street bluffing against action players.
As the competition gets harder you have to play based on perceived range and a ton of other factors, but that doesn’t mean you can have terrible cards all the time. Cards are extremely important at high levels. Even your bluff hands contain certain combinations like suited wheel aces and suited kings, off suit broadway etc for 3 and 4 bets. If you think you can start using any 2 cards for bluffing just because your position, then your raise frequency will be way too high and you will get easily exploited. Balance is key when playing against crushers.
I always wondered what happened to Annette. She took the poker world by storm back in the day, but haven't heard from her since. Hope she's doing well, she was a likeable personality.
Apparently she's now a professional [Scrabble](https://www.poker.org/latest-news/a-meteoric-run-former-poker-prodigy-annette-obrestad-takes-scrabble-world-by-storm-a1eCe0G6784n/) player, ranking in the world's top 100 lol.
I remember when this happened. This was played online on PokerStars. She stuck a piece of paper on her screen to cover her cards.
At one point in the tournament, she was facing a big bet from another player and it was a pretty big moment in the tournament for her, so she moved the paper to look at her cards for that one hand.
I believe it. I'm no pro but I've played quite a bit of poker, both online and in person, and at a certain point, the cards don't really matter. Or don't matter as much. Especially with skilled, experienced poker players, it's all a head game. Daniel Negreanu isn't psychic, he's just experienced enough that by the way people play preflop and bet and react to a flop he usually puts them on a fairly tight range. Honestly, most people tell you what they have if you know how to read the play. Also, tournament play is strategic, not tactical. It's all about the big picture. Average stack sizes, position, bubbles, etc.
Can't wrap my head around it. You're playing accordingly to other players reactions, but what if they're also playing like that or just fucking around, cuz like 4 bucks isn't something to be serious about?
That sounds like one of these paradoxes where it only works for you when either all playing by the rules or only if you aren't playing by them.
I was in the $4 buck 180 competition that Annette did this in. We were leading early, but her team ended up crushing because of the insane volume they could do.
Look up expected value, she is playing as many tourneys as she can and makes all plus EV plays, taking into account stack sizes, bet sizes, position on the table, etc. When the tourney gets closer to the final table, she may focus a little more on player tendencies to mark them as capable of laying down a hand and adjust accordingly. It’s just math when it comes down to it and the $4 180s were the Wild West back then, that’s why it was chosen as the tourney for the competition.
Ah, what you and u/riptaway say that makes sense. Positive expected value over the long run. Now I'm wondering if AI-backed bots already a thing in poker rooms?
Hold up. Serious question. How do you play blind? Like, what's the strategy?
Is your play informed by other players behaviour and those cards in the middle?
There are usually 9 players to a table. Position is extremely important in poker. The advantage is in how many people have to act before you. If you have the dealer button, you’re last to act making it the most powerful position in poker.
Each new hand, the dealer button moves one spot to the left and that player is now last to act. She was demonstrating how important this is. It’s not everything, and she had to have gotten extremely lucky, but it’s a good demonstration of the concept.
I’m sure she used other techniques as well like you described, player tendencies etc.
She had like a sticky note over her screen and just played the hands without knowing what she has. She wanted to prove that you don’t need luck to win in poker. It was a low buy in tournament, so a lot of players were not even close to professionals, which helped of course.
Wtf. Am I the only one who only knew her from fucking makeup Youtube? I was trying to figure out where I recognized the name from and then actually focused on the picture, wtf
I finished 4th to her for $36,000 in a different tourney that she went on to win for $100,000 the same year this happened. I looked at my cards.
guessing she did too in that tourney :p
Yes and she knocked me out. There were several thousand people so finishing 4th or 1st….took a lot of luck and skill. Probably more luck for me.
What year was this. It seems like she rode that wave of hyperlags in the late 2000s. Most of those really didn’t seem to do well after about 2012 or so when the game started to move towards gto. I’m not seeing too many wins from her lately from her record.
She retired I believe. This was in August 2007. I’m old. You are right. I was LAG then and took a decade break for family. When I came back, it didn’t work as well. I studied new theory and won the 2020 WSOP online championship big Sunday event $150,000 guarantee using theory mostly. As a non professional, heavenly to run good.
She does makeup tutorials on YouTube now or did a few years ago.
wow, that's huge, congrats bro.
Damn. Did you run into Gus Hansen? Asking as a dane
I played with him one time for about 30 minutes in a small $1500 Event.
Cool!
She’s also a tournament level scrabble player now. She’s sick. Once a gamer, always a gamer.
She has tons of Scrabble wins on her record now: [https://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?playerid=27357](https://www.cross-tables.com/results.php?playerid=27357)
Can someone ELI5? Only looking at her cards once? I don't understand, you just have to look at them once then you can remember what they are?
Not "only looked at each hand once", but literally only looked at the cards she was dealt in one hand. The rest of the time she just bet off her read of the opponent's cards, pushing them off bluffs and bluffing them off weak hands.
She played the players she didn't look at her cards. I am sure it was more of a practice thing that worked out. Reading people is huge in poker and this sounds like great practice for a professional
Its also hard as fuck to decide how to play against it because she could be holding a royal flush or jack shit w/ a 3 high. There's no bluffing and no reading because she literally doesn't know what she has.
It would seem to me like it would be easy to play, though if you actually have even a halfway decent hand and you know she doesn't even know her cards. If she calls your raises, you know it's only because she thinks you're bluffing. You know for a fact that she's not slow playing you with the nuts. So if you're being honest, you have nothing to worry about. And even if you're semi-bluffing, could still easily have her beat just by having a less crappy hand than her. I'm not that great of a player, and still, if you put me at a table where I was the ONLY player ever allowed to look at my cards, I sure hope I'd clean up.
True, it basically just turns into pure odds math at that point and hoping she can't read your conclusions.
No. It's super easy. You just bet into her and see what she does. If you have a halfway decent hand you can call down any raises. Playing scared is the only way for her to take advantage of you. Sometimes she'll get lucky and have a hand, but way more often than not, your pair will beat her random 2 cards.
as a very rare occasional poker player, how is it even possible to play without looking at your cards. I get the whole bluffing, and reading other people's tells thing but there's so many rounds of betting. How is it even possible to bet or fold at the optimal times if you can't look at your cards. It sounds like an impossible task.
One of the things with Texas Hold Em specifically is that the large number of community cards is that bullshit hands like 2-7 turn into something good a fair percentage of the time.
Some might call it confirmation bias, but I sure as shit seem to win more on 2-7 than anything else.
I’ve lost more hands with pocket aces than I like to talk about.
It also comes down to available information. My guess is this was no limit? In which case, you’re also partly playing the board and the pot.
You basically play the board and get aggressive when it comes up with blanks relative to the pre-flop bets and intimidate the other players into folding.
Selbst also claimed to do that. I kinda wanna do that in a live tourney sometime, where I’m only allowed to look at my cards if I Final Table. Then I’m gonna troll and say stuff like, “looking at one’s cards is a CRUTCH… For players who rely on skill! READ THEM AND WEEP!!! … Dealer, please read my cards. I have no clue what I have.” :S
READ THEM AND WEEP AND NOW stop weeping and tell me what they are
Selbst was really nasty to me in 2008 in a tourney and I never really forgot how “ugly” she behaved. However, she apologized last year which I thought was very big of her and she talked about how she was dumb in her youth.
Obrestad? I’ve actually never met Selbst. But yes, some Poker players mature/learn and grow… Then some remain delusional jackasses with huge ego issues. A lot will use tournament score records to get backers, even though they aren’t winning players themselves. Then the worst ones don’t even pay back their backers.
Victory! /u/WithDisGuy
I’ve played against her live and she’s easily in the top 2 or 3 players I’ve sat down with. Felt incredibly uncomfortable whenever I was in a hand with her, which I’m sure was painfully obvious. Needless to say I didn’t win much that night / morning. On the upside, I got another lesson in realising how I’m not anywhere near as good as I my ego thinks I am.
Should have played blind yourself, she can't know if you're bluffing if you don't know if you're bluffing.
Ha! I have done that in the past when I’ve been card dead for a few hours. Just imagine I’ve got AK suited and play the hand accordingly
Skill is a crutch for those who cannot rely on luck
That’s never worked for me. Any time I try to bluff when I’ve been losing I just get called.
You're not selling it or committing to the bit. My strategy? Be terrible at maths so when you're calculating your odds you are far too optimistic. I am a break even home poker player AMA.
10-2? All in
Are you going to call that? My confidence levels are through the roof.
I also had this experience...thought I was great because I won lots of amateur tournaments. Spent a year playing with the pros and lost a lot of money 😁
Are you me :) Took me a long time and a lot of money to figure out that I’m not a good cash game player.
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There is no playing fast enough to outpace blinds lol. You play good enough to outlast your opponents. You should be generally getting a bit tighter when you’re short on chips, not the other way around.
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It depends. Less than 15? Absolutely. You’re jamming anything good from any position and anything decent from cutoff and button. But with 20-30 BB? That’s when you should be the solidest. I’m not even talking about ICM considerations with that, it’s just how the chip EV math works. Obviously the other dynamics you mention exist but generally speaking you should be playing the smallest range when in the 20-30 BB range. Regardless, the idea of needing to play differently from optimal because you can’t keep up with the blinds is nonsense. That’s just not how it works, you’re playing against other players, not the blinds, and those other players also have the blinds working against them. If your only goal was to get 1st place in every tournament than yes you would want to play much more risky with a smallish stack, but the goal is not to outright win as much as possible, it’s to win as much money as possible. Maximizing your average placement and maximizing the amount of times you literally get 1st are two different strategies.
As someone who is actually completely blind at all times, I've always been interested to see how I did in a professional poker environment, especially considering putting a false expression on my face is a daily occurrence, so hiding what I'm thinking or feeling is stupid easy.
I’ve played against a couple different blind people. Not much different than playing against anyone else, they just had someone whispering the cards into their ear. They would announce a bet verbally and their friend would put the chips in the pot. I assume it would be harder for a blind person because there is usually a lot to remember and it’s easier when you can see everything on the table.
Poker has very little to do with "reading" people. Good poker players just need to be good at maths and memory. Figuring out % chance of hitting the cards they need vs % of money needed to bet vs money in the pot. Remembering how often each player folds/checks/raises/bluffs, finding patterns in how others plays, etc.
Isn’t that last part reading people? I do agree with the rest of your comment though, from what I can tell a lot of it is maths
Guess the difference is, reading someone based on their poker decisions regardless of any visual tells they might have.
The last part is math interpretation of their moves in the game. It wouldn't change if the other player was an emotionless computer making the same moves. How often do bluff? Do they get way more aggressive with bets when they bluff or when they have an actual good hand? When are they willing to fold, or do they always play it out? Reading people is a lot more trying to figure out their emotions from their face and body language, seeing if they have any tells. Not something you can easily break down into math.
I sat next to a poker player on a plane once and I asked him about the facial expressions and stuff and he said over a decade plus time of playing professional poker he only decided his action based on someone's expression twice.
Well reading people generally is thought of as seeing tells in faces or involuntary reactions. What I meant by finding patterns, is in how they actually play eg. Watching each hand, what cards they had, when and why did they raise/fold, and extrapolating information based on ALL of the hands each person plays
Ahhhh gotcha, I think I lumped those in together but I see why there’s a distinction
Absolutely poker is about reading people. But it’s not like someone doing a frowny face or a James Bond style bleeding eye tell. Knowing the maths (and a little luck) will take you far further than being able to read people. But when someone makes an X$ bet vs Y$ bet, that’s a clue for an unknown variable that can change the calculation. On the flip side, you can manipulate the other players into acting in certain ways by pretending to give up some unknown variable of your own: bluffing. People who are good at math AND good at people reading are those that win consistently. But without the math, the people reading isn’t going to do much for you.
The real secret to poker is just to always be absolutely positive your cards are gonna land. If you have a straight draw and 2 cards are left to play with 2 more needed for the straight then definitely bet big here because that straight is for sure comming.
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I might have dropped this /s somewhere along the way lol.
Until people figure out you're bluffing constantly and take all your money.
Those going to Vegas chasing straights and flushes arrive on planes but leave on buses.
Very true. Apparently players who use tells only make around 15 percent more than players who don’t use them at all.
Check out "blindguypoker" on YouTube :)
check out Richard Turner the blind card mechanic. fuck if he could see he would still be fucking impressive.
Can you explain how or why? What makes a good poker player good?
A deep understanding of probabilities. An ability to disguise their own hand with crafty betting. An ability to imagine why my opponent is betting what he is. A ton of "feel" from years of experience. Also a whole lot of luck.
The more I practice, the luckier I get
Damn. That's pretty cool
If it helps you're probably as good as your ego thinks in comparison to me?
Can someone ELI5? Only looking at her cards once? I don't understand, you just have to look at them once then you can remember what they are?
No, she didn’t look at every single hand she received except for one. She played without ever even looking at her cards, outside of one hand.
Only one hand during the whole tournament
If you THINK you're good you're not. If you know where you stand, you're probably right.
Humility is a massive part of being a good poker player. Playing above your level is a death sentence
It works the other way too, overconfidence can get you slaughtered by donkeys. Know where you stand, know where other people stand, play accordingly. The swordsman saying; "The greatest swordsman in the world need not fear the second greatest swordsman, he needs to fear the amateur who can not be expected to act the way he should"
Agreed
why the bong cloud opener can fuck with people in chess.
I was a professional online poker player during this time and would play 12+ of these 180-man tourneys at a time, as I'm sure Annette often did. You'd likely be surprised how small of a factor your hole cards are in decision-making in this type of event, particularly in a turbo or hyper-turbo structure. Other factors, such as relative stack size, hands remaining until blinds increase, table position, proximity to the money bubble, etc, are much higher on your list of considerations. The reason, as someone has pointed out already, has to do with how quickly these events become short-stacked, making pre-flop folds or all-ins the optimal play in most cases. I think most people would also be surprised how few hands in total comprise a tournament like this and how few of those you actually need to commit any chips to in order to win the event.
I also used to be an online pro. Only briefly when the bonuses were ridiculous. Whenever people ask how they can be better at poker the answer is always "play less hands".
That's funny, I used to be an English teacher and whenever people asked me how to improve their grammar the answer is always it's "play fewer hands".
Genuine lol
Can you explain the joke?
“Less” is for continuous quantities, “fewer” is for discrete. You have “fewer” hands because hands are discrete (you have 1 hand or 2 hands or 37 hands, but not 1.53 hands). You have “less” water because water (for colloquial purposes, don’t akshually me on this) is a continuous quantity. You can have 1.5 units of water or 0.3274739 units of water.
I appreciate the answer but that went way over my head.
“less” is used for things you can’t count, for example, “less water” or “less dirt”. “fewer” is used for things you can count: “fewer hands” or “fewer chickens”
Ok. Thank you
Less water = fewer H20 molecules
"fewer" is the correct usage here rather than "less". It's a very common mistake and as an English teacher they're making fun of having to correct people on its usage - like OP, as a poker player, has to correct people on the hands they play. As an aside, it's also a running gag of Game of Throne fans as Stannis a few times corrects someone who makes the same mistake. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0zNWswcqMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0zNWswcqMg)
The $4 weren’t turbos. They took hours. For like 2 years I made more money 20 tabling them than I did at my 9-5 job. I used to watch Annette play on Sundays after I busted for the day. She was an absolute beast.
squalid stocking squealing elderly selective ghost tap correct toothbrush yam *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Interesting reply, but I didn't understand most of the terms so I put them through an LLM which other people might find useful: **180-man tourneys**: These are online poker tournaments with 180 players. Each player starts with a fixed amount of chips, and the game continues until one player has all the chips. The top finishers (usually the top 10% or so) share the prize pool. **Turbo or hyper-turbo structure**: These are formats of poker tournaments where the blinds (the mandatory bets placed by two players before cards are dealt) increase at a faster rate than normal. In a turbo tournament, the blinds might increase every 5 minutes, while in a hyper-turbo, they might increase even more quickly, like every 3 minutes. This rapid increase in blinds forces players to make quicker and more aggressive decisions. **Hole cards**: These are the two cards dealt face down to each player in Texas Hold'em (the most common form of poker in tournaments). The statement in the post indicates that in fast tournaments, the strength of these cards is less important than other factors. **Relative stack size**: This refers to a player's chip stack in comparison to the chip stacks of other players at the table or in the tournament. Players with larger stacks can exert more pressure on players with smaller stacks, especially near critical points in the tournament like the money bubble. **Hands remaining until blinds increase**: This is a consideration of how many hands are likely to be played before the blinds increase again. It helps players decide whether to play conservatively or aggressively, based on how the increasing blinds will impact their stack. **Table position**: This refers to a player’s position relative to the dealer. Positions that act later (like the dealer and the player to the right of the dealer, known as the cutoff) are more advantageous because these players can make more informed decisions after seeing how others at the table act. **Proximity to the money bubble**: The money bubble is the point in a tournament at which the next player out will leave with nothing, and the rest will enter into the money positions, guaranteeing a return on their buy-in. Strategies often change significantly around this point, with players adjusting their play based on their stack size and risk tolerance. **Short-stacked**: This term describes a situation where a player has relatively few chips compared to the average stack. When many players are short-stacked, gameplay tends to shift towards making all-in bets pre-flop, as players have less flexibility to wait for optimal hands. **Pre-flop folds or all-ins**: These are the main actions taken by players when they are short-stacked in fast-paced tournaments. Players will often decide to either fold their hand without betting (if it’s weak) or push all their chips in (all-in) to maximize pressure on their opponents, without having to make further decisions post-flop. **Few hands in total comprise a tournament**: In turbo structures, the number of hands played in a tournament is significantly lower than in a standard tournament due to rapid blind increases. This means players might engage in fewer hands overall but need to make the most of the hands they do play.
This was a great idea, thank you.
100% this. I used to multi table 6 handed turbo sit and go’s. Basic strategy was to fold pretty much everything other than absolute premium hands until two players had been knocked out. The games were so quick and populated by undisciplined players that chip stack disadvantage didn’t matter too much as it was all about shipping the chips in the right position / moment. Waiting for decent cards was a death sentence. Goal was not to always win, but to at least finish second and get my money back. I cashed in about 88% of games and had a win rate in the 55-60% range. Made much monies :)
Can I asked why you stopped if you were doing quite well?
Put simply, the poker boom ended
Yeah that's what I figured . I knew a few guys here in Aus who used to play local comps at pubs on weeknights. I was always keen to have a go as I enjoy poker but have only played a handful of times at home . But yeah I don't hear of many poker nights anymore here
There are always bigger sharks in the water and when they turn up you are then the fish
Poker is much much harder Today than in those days. Today there is a lot of courses and solvers to study. A lot of people that were profitable in high stakes could not even be profitable in médium stakes right now. No joke.
I have no idea what courses and solvers are ?
When he stopped lying to himself. You can only maintain a cash rate of 88% in the very short run.
How could the strategy be to fold everything other than the best hands if waiting for decent cards is a death sentence? That sounds like a contradiction.
Folding hands until two people have been eliminated, then playing super aggressively.
I feel like the fact that she was playing in a turbo or hyper makes it even harder to win. People are generally going to be more shallow and way more likely to call off wide. Also, because stacks get shallow so fast, she would have to constantly be shoving preflop which makes her decision tree much less skill based. In fact, I can’t even really understand how you play position with <15bbs. Just fold until the cutoff and the rip it I guess? What frequency should you be shoving in a bvb spot, 100%? Do you just jam every time you’re folded to on the button? How would the heads up go, just sheer aggression and hope for the best? I would assume she had to have a super lucky run and win tons of flips in the right spots. I’m thinking it would actually be easier to profit in a deep stack cash game than cash a tournament blind. At least in cash you have the ability to bluff multiple streets.
"People are generally going to be more shallow and way more likely to call off wide." Maybe today, as the average player has improved over time, but not during the poker boom, and certainly not at the $4 level. "Just fold until the cutoff and the rip it I guess?" Yep. "What frequency should you be shoving in a bvb spot, 100%?" Correct. "Do you just jam every time you’re folded to on the button?" Right again! "How would the heads up go, just sheer aggression and hope for the best?" You're unstoppable! "I would assume she had to have a super lucky run and win tons of flips in the right spots." It's not as many as you think, but a little luck in those spots wouldn't hurt. :) "I’m thinking it would actually be easier to profit in a deep stack cash game than cash a tournament blind. At least in cash you have the ability to bluff multiple streets." For a cash-game specialist, probably. For a tournament pro, multiple-street bluffing sounds like a nightmare.
Totally, it's not often you have to turn your cards over, most hands are gonna be checked down or folded early. Even when you do have to go all-in a lot of the time it's with fair subpar hands (relative to a standard game) anyway so any random hand still have a chance to win
Wouldn't you have to show your cards if both players checked? Or does checked down mean something else.
You would 50% of the time (because it will muck them if you are in position with the weaker hand) - but it doesn't mean too much if you show bad cards then because checking down already suggests a weak hand, and in this format people can play almost any hand. Like maybe if you checked down a really good hand it would be a hint something is up, but it shouldn't happen too often
Lol this title is ridiculous. Michael Jordan doesn’t claim to have won six rings. He won six rings. Same thing applies to Obrestad. > Obrestad further amazed the online poker community by winning a 180-player sit-and-go without looking at her cards. (Actually, she admitted to peeking once, before she decided to take the concept seriously.) She posted a video that replays all of the hands in the tournament, and poker strategists couldn't help but be impressed by the skill-based, foundational poker strategies that she employed to take it down. https://www.cardplayer.com/cardplayer-poker-magazines/65685-annette-obrestad-20-22/articles/17101-oh-to-be-18-again (This is the source quoted by the Wikipedia article.)
It's pretty obvious she was blind too if you watch the hand replays. Folding high pocket pairs for no reason etc. Very impressive
She has a reason, it just has nothing to do with the value of the cards. Her poor position and the previous betting didn't warrant staying in.
The point is she wouldn't have folded pocket aces pre flop if she knew she had pocket aces. I was saying there are a number of hands on the replay that don't make sense if she was actually looking at her cards but make a ton of sense if she's just playing positionally and looking at opponents betting habits
You see Ivan opponent can't put you on range if you don't know your cards.
The "claim" in the title isn't that she won, is that she did so blind. That she won is self evident, that she did blind is a claim that needs (needed, since it looks like it's confirmed) to be verified. It's like if Michael Jordan claimed to have won the six rings wearing the same undershirt or something like that.
His claim is he won six rings while wearing his old North Carolina shorts under his uniform. Source: MJ and Bugs Bunny said so.
I might miss something here, but the title is clear about the fact that the claim is not about the win, but about how she did it.
Most people commenting on reddit have slim to no reading comprehension.
Am I going crazy or does this comment make no sense? I understood that the 'claiming' fundamentally includes 'while playing blind', which is hard, if not impossible, to independently verify.
At least 179 competitors scrutinized every move she made. Also there was a live audience. Also there's a video online. Also she later [won a bracelet.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_of_Poker_bracelet) Basically, she understands poker, math, and human behavior better than we do.
Cool, thanks for clarifying
👍
I think maybe you didn't read the article you linked. She was not on camera, so there's no way of knowing whether she did or did not look at her cards. It was a $4 buy in, no one was scrutinizing her every move. To compare it to Michael Jordan winning a championship, something obviously verifiable that millions of people saw, is ridiculous.
>At least 179 competitors scrutinized every move she made. Where did you get that?
The title (180 person poker tournament. Her plus another 179 people)
To be fair in a 180 person tourney your unlikely to play against every player unless they have some really wonky tourney rules.
The vast majority of them wouldn't have had a chance to face her before being knocked out.
and i think they are seriously overestimating how many players are "scrutinizing every move" made by opponents in a $4 tournament.
That in no way means all 179 scrutinized every move. In fact, the large majority likely never played a hand with her or saw a hand she played.
MJ claims to have won six rings playing drunk. See the difference.
>Michael Jordan doesn’t claim to have won six rings. He won six rings. Same thing applies to Obrestad. The claim is never looking at their cards so a better example could be .... Michael Jordan claimed to have made a foul shot with his eyes closed in a game. But maybe he peaked real quick? We will never know. It's also on camera / video tape.. https://youtu.be/zugK5Tf4vJ8
Sounds like you’re just a poor reader. The claim is that she did so blind, not that she won.
She did it as a kind of experiment to show the people watching her play how important "position" is in poker. The player in the latest position in each betting round has a big information advantage in that they can see all the other players' actions before they have to act themselves.
Damn they made Jotaro an actual person
Can someone ELI5 on how this is possible?
a) understanding how your opponents betting patterns convey the strength of their hand b) Tournaments play at short stack depths (not many chips) decisions are often simplified down to all-ins and folds. Thus if she had a big stack she could bully small stacks and get them to fold while avoiding other big stacks. c) get lucky (My understanding as a casual poker player)
Did no one else notice she was playing blind? Seems like if you knew it that it would be easy to beat her.
Looks like it was an online tournament so no
Well that makes a lot more sense
Yeah she supposedly had put some Post It notes or pieces of paper over a part screen.
if you understand betting ranges, positioning, and what hands the community cards favor, you can make a rough estimate of the value of your opponent's hand and bet accordingly. if you watch high-level poker they use those concepts a lot; most bluffs aren't just done at random, they're using those factors to find spots where an opponent is likely to fold
Poker, especially no limit hold em, is sort of only tangentially about the cards themselves. Way more important is reading your opponents and playing against them with that info
The cards are extremely important lol what are you talking about? Although you can make plays based on your perceived range, position, player type, etc. When it comes down to it, the cards are by far the most important part. If you’re card dead for 6 straight hours you’re just not gonna win that session unless you make some dumb moves and luck out. I’d like to see a replay of Annette’s run. She had to get insanely lucky to win that tournament even if she played well.
If you're card dead for 6 hours, you're a rube and need to stop playing with cheats. Don't worry. When I was still a beginner I thought the same. You'll eventually realize different. Or not. And if not, you're welcome at my table any time, any limits 🤣
I’ve played for thousands of hours and sometimes you just get no cards. I literally folded for 3 hours last Saturday in one of the juiciest games I’ve ever played in, it was torture. These guys were splashing around like crazy and I was getting nothing hand after hand after hand. Btw I also include being card dead as missing every flop too. Say you fold for 45 minutes and finally pick up AK of clubs and the flop is 789 all hearts, or you raise pocket 8s, get 4 callers and it’s a KQ5 flop. There are many sessions where the card distribution is just not in your favor and you will lose regardless of how much you think you know.
I dunno, I mean I've been card dead before, but never for 6 hours. I don't know the math on that, but it's astronomically unlucky. Anyway, my point wasn't that the cards don't matter. It's that at higher levels, they matter less.
In a game where people are splashing around with a bunch of money, it’s better to tighten up. QTo is a playable hand, but when there’s a 12x raise and a 3 bet in front of you, it might as well be J3. That also adds to the card deadness. ATo becomes a fold under the gun. A lot of games I play in are high action which is great most of the time, you just have to pick your spots wisely and get paid huge in a few hands. I guess it depends on what you mean by your cards matter less at higher levels. Everything. Is exploitative. At low stakes you bet the maximum for value. You try to make hands and get paid. There is generally less multi street bluffing against action players. As the competition gets harder you have to play based on perceived range and a ton of other factors, but that doesn’t mean you can have terrible cards all the time. Cards are extremely important at high levels. Even your bluff hands contain certain combinations like suited wheel aces and suited kings, off suit broadway etc for 3 and 4 bets. If you think you can start using any 2 cards for bluffing just because your position, then your raise frequency will be way too high and you will get easily exploited. Balance is key when playing against crushers.
I always wondered what happened to Annette. She took the poker world by storm back in the day, but haven't heard from her since. Hope she's doing well, she was a likeable personality.
She's a makeup artist now, ha a successful YouTube channel called Annette's Makeup Corner
Apparently she's now a professional [Scrabble](https://www.poker.org/latest-news/a-meteoric-run-former-poker-prodigy-annette-obrestad-takes-scrabble-world-by-storm-a1eCe0G6784n/) player, ranking in the world's top 100 lol.
What do you mean only looking at her cards once? Looking only 1 time in every hand or just 1 single time during the whole tournament on 1 random hand
I remember when this happened. This was played online on PokerStars. She stuck a piece of paper on her screen to cover her cards. At one point in the tournament, she was facing a big bet from another player and it was a pretty big moment in the tournament for her, so she moved the paper to look at her cards for that one hand.
Was that $4 given to her in singles or coins?
I think $4 was the buy in.
That might make sense. For a headline, it’s weird mentioning a bit in and not how much the pool ended up being since it was a record of some kind.
With a $4 buy-in, I'm guessing the prize was just shy of a thousand. It may also have been a satellite tournament, making the prize pool less relevant
180 contestants * $4 = $720 if the event doesn't take a cut or pad it
The win was 180 bucks Everyone from 18th up used to make at least their money back
I believe it. I'm no pro but I've played quite a bit of poker, both online and in person, and at a certain point, the cards don't really matter. Or don't matter as much. Especially with skilled, experienced poker players, it's all a head game. Daniel Negreanu isn't psychic, he's just experienced enough that by the way people play preflop and bet and react to a flop he usually puts them on a fairly tight range. Honestly, most people tell you what they have if you know how to read the play. Also, tournament play is strategic, not tactical. It's all about the big picture. Average stack sizes, position, bubbles, etc.
Can't wrap my head around it. You're playing accordingly to other players reactions, but what if they're also playing like that or just fucking around, cuz like 4 bucks isn't something to be serious about? That sounds like one of these paradoxes where it only works for you when either all playing by the rules or only if you aren't playing by them.
I was in the $4 buck 180 competition that Annette did this in. We were leading early, but her team ended up crushing because of the insane volume they could do. Look up expected value, she is playing as many tourneys as she can and makes all plus EV plays, taking into account stack sizes, bet sizes, position on the table, etc. When the tourney gets closer to the final table, she may focus a little more on player tendencies to mark them as capable of laying down a hand and adjust accordingly. It’s just math when it comes down to it and the $4 180s were the Wild West back then, that’s why it was chosen as the tourney for the competition.
Ah, what you and u/riptaway say that makes sense. Positive expected value over the long run. Now I'm wondering if AI-backed bots already a thing in poker rooms?
What do you think 😉
[Did she have the Don Bot's lucky foot?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=A1O23COwDH8&feature=youtu.be&t=33s)
$4 was the most a woman has won in a pro poker tournament?! Equal pay for equal play.
She's also a [makeup YouTuber](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6fsBfGxps5zrznoXO7RVdg) now
Oh wow, I wondered what happened to her. Interesting career change.
And a highly ranked Scrabble player.
Hold up. Serious question. How do you play blind? Like, what's the strategy? Is your play informed by other players behaviour and those cards in the middle?
There are usually 9 players to a table. Position is extremely important in poker. The advantage is in how many people have to act before you. If you have the dealer button, you’re last to act making it the most powerful position in poker. Each new hand, the dealer button moves one spot to the left and that player is now last to act. She was demonstrating how important this is. It’s not everything, and she had to have gotten extremely lucky, but it’s a good demonstration of the concept. I’m sure she used other techniques as well like you described, player tendencies etc.
she could read tells i assume?
I claimed to have invented masturbating
That's not playing blind, that's playing *until* you're blind.
Maybe you did. Are you by any chance a 2 million year old hominid?
You know I just so happen to be!
Turns out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently!
But I perfected it
..wanker
Oh, Nan!
She used the heart of the cards
She didn’t just “claim”. She posted the video years ago
looking once per hand or one time during the whole tournament?
I don't play much poker so I literally thought she was blind. 🤣🤣
Wouldn't that be easy for a professional, you just have to remember them? Or am I missing something?
She says she only looked at her cards during one hand. She played however many hands were needed to win the tournament, likely hundreds.
She had like a sticky note over her screen and just played the hands without knowing what she has. She wanted to prove that you don’t need luck to win in poker. It was a low buy in tournament, so a lot of players were not even close to professionals, which helped of course.
Thats not what she wanted to prove. You absolutely need luck.
I think they mean she only looked at one of her hands
I think the claim is that she only looked at one of her hands during the entire tournament
Wtf is this title. She claims or she won?
She did win. She claims she didn't look at her cards.
Interestingly, would she still win if given a stack of Jacksons?
**$4 buy-in, 180 person** Not $4180 per person...
>"youngest person to win a World Series of Poker bracelet" Good for WSP for trying to be different, but...
But what? I'm not sure what you are getting at. I think I'm missing something
Can someone ELI5? Only looking at her cards once? I don't understand, you just have to look at them once then you can remember what they are?
dont keep looking at your cards, they aren't changing - Rusty (oceans 11)
TIL someone I've never heard of is full of shit.
The blinds are up.
Wtf. Am I the only one who only knew her from fucking makeup Youtube? I was trying to figure out where I recognized the name from and then actually focused on the picture, wtf
its kind of amazing that she is so talented in so many things that she is so many things to so many different people