Imagine you’re in one of the famous poker rooms at The Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada. You’re playing with the big boys and the pressure to be on the top of your game is intense. The wait staff is bringing you all the free drinks you can handle, but you’re there to win so you are trying to be cautious about what to drink. Trying to determine what to drink is difficult when you’re feeling pressure to win. Do you choose wine, beer, or none of the above? What are the best choices, how do you choose?
The first thing you will want to consider is what everyone else is drinking. Specifically, what is the person who’s winning drinking? If you follow the lead of that person, you can’t go wrong. When you’re playing poker you want to lead, in more ways than one. But first you have to follow if you want to make it to the top.
If you’re the first at the table, carefully determine what type of drink will keep you alert during the game. Do you “go crazy” when you drink beer? What about wine? There are definitely advantages to each, assuming they don’t make you lose your mind. Drinking beer will make you seem more “manly” in the eyes of your opponents (even if you’re a woman.) Beer drinkers, especially ones that can “hold their liquor” inspire a level of respect that’s critical to you if you want to intimidate the players slightly. However, beer is often something that people drink quickly. This means it can affect you a lot more quickly and could possibly destroy your game.
However, wine also has some significant advantages. The tendency of most people is to sip wine, making its effect on you much less noticeable. The benefit is that, depending on your tolerance, you’ll still feel the confidence boost that drinking alcohol can give you. Being confident, but not overly confident, can be great for your game.
If you’re already feeling confident about your game, not drinking poker soda or anything at all will probably be best for you. Confidence, fuelled by alcohol, can lead to arrogance. Arrogance in a game of skill can be deadly. You may feel so arrogant that you give away your hand or slight the people you’re playing with. Poker players are a competitive bunch. They are certainly not the type of group that you want to offend.
If you must drink while playing poker, drinking poker wine is almost definitely the best option for you. It will force you to be moderate in your drinking and give you the confidence you need to do well in the game. However, if you drink outside the stereotype make sure to choose something that you are going to drink slowly. Otherwise, the effect on your game could be disastrous. If you’re going to be in a situation where alcohol is available, think ahead. Determine how you drink and what would be best for you to drink, if anything. Good luck and happy gaming!
Poker is a game of skill, strategy, a bit of luck, a lot of bluff and a touch of confidence. It really doesn’t even matter if you are playing with a group of friend, professionals or online. Understanding where your strengths are will help you learn how to manoeuvre the poker table and master your competitors. Success at the poker table means you are able to read others as skilfully as you can hide from them. The best way to do this is with a clear mind. So, as you pull up to a poker table, skip the poker beer and crack open a fresh bottle of water. Although the alcohol in the beer, wine and shots make give us a mask of confidence, it shadows our brains and puts us at an immediate disadvantage. The secret to poker success is found in a bottle of water.
Water makes up over sixty over of our body weight. Every system in our body is dependent upon water for optimal functioning. That means that without water, our brains do not work well enough to address all of the complexities of a poker game. For our brains to be able to apply the rules of poker, strategically play cards while bluffing, we need water. Not enough water means our brains are only functioning at low levels, not enough to win a game of poker.
Poker requires extended periods of concentration and focus. Water is the tool that promotes energy in both mind and body. If you are minutely dehydrated you feel tired and you think a bit more slowly. You lose some of the sharpness of thought that promotes success in poker. The more water you drink, the less chance you have of suffering from dehydration side effects such as fatigue, muscle pain, or even dizziness.
The brain is a very delicate organ. Perhaps the most important reason poker players should drink water is because it is water that keeps the brain from overheating. When the brain gets hot, there is an immediate decline in brain functioning and cognitive effectiveness. Some studies say that when someone is dehydrated, there is a 10% decrease in cognitive functioning. For a poker player, this is debilitating. A ten percent drop is a key to losing the game.
So, although we may be tempted to pop open a poker beer or sip a glass of red wine while dealing out hand after hand of poker, the alcohol may give you a temporary boost in confidence, but it will decrease how effectively you can manage the game. Poker is intricate in that it requires you to apply skill, act strategically, and bluff. Water is the secret to being able to do this well. It will make your brain quick and accurate. Knowing you have a strong advantage of a clear mind over your components will give you the confidence you need to bluff your way to poker success. So, if someone asks what your secret is, hand them a bottle of water.
Today it is very likely for a normal person to get overwhelmed by the cheer variety of beers that you can find lined up on shelves in grocery stores. But before you get too confused, you should always keep in mind that there are only two major categories for beer and that are ale and lager. Other than these two main types of beer, you might come across some hybrid types which use methods used in both styles of beer, but in that case too most experts are able to identify which category that beer type falls into. It’s mainly the fermentation process and the yeast used that distinguishes different poker beer varieties from one another.
I’ll begin by first explaining how yeast impacts the final outcome of beer. Basically when you talk about ale yeast, this type will always flocculate at the very top of the fermentation tank in which beer is being prepared. You need to give it a temperature between 60 and 72 degree Fahrenheit to let your yeast thrive well. For larger yeast types you will need to give it a lower temperature which mostly varies between 46 and 55 degree Fahrenheit. Larger yeast varieties tend to flocculate at the bottom of the fermentation tanks. Since larger yeast can ferment more aggressively in comparison to ales, you tend to get lesser amount of residual flavor and sweetness.
The main difference between beer varieties is not only because of the yeast. The brewing technique employed also has quite a major impact on the type of beer you will get. Once the fermentation process is over, the ales are not allowed to age for more than a few weeks. This process of aging is given a temperature between 40 and 55 degree Fahrenheit. The aging process in the case of lager is quite similar except that the temperature it is given is much lower around 32 to 45 degree Fahrenheit. For lager the aging time is quite long extending up to several months. This is why this type of poker beer is given the name lager because it becomes much cleaner and is also quite clearer when you look at it.
When you compare both processes utilized with ale and lager they say that ale is more complex and warm whereas lager is more efficient and cold. This is why there is a clear distinction between the two beer varieties just like you can notice a difference between white and red wine. If you taste lager beer types you will notice a lighter flavor and aroma and a much refreshing and clean look. This is why this beer type is usually severed cold along with food. In comparison, ale is more flavorful and rich and is served at room temperature rather than cold. This is also a reason why ale is usually not served with food and pairs with only a few special types of foods.
Always check on the label of the beer bottle you are buying if you are not yet expert on judging beer types on your own.
Hosting a game of poker? You have to have the right drinks to top off with your game of poker. For poker players, it’s not just the game they enjoy but the round of drinks that they keep coming with it. To be able to serve drinks to your players while they concentrate all their attention on the game you should best get some holders to place with each player to ensure any spilling that could mess up the whole place and even ruin the game. When players are fully concentrated on the game, they often forget where their drink glasses were placed and in haste, end up knocking them over. This is why you should really get some good glass holders to prevent all that mess your poker party can create. You wouldn’t want to clean up after them with all the sticky poker chips, ruined stack of cards, the table, and not to forget mopping the floor afterwards.
When it comes to choosing the right drinks for a game of poker, there are a lot of options to choose from. Once you have all the holders set in place, you do not have to worry much about the drinks. Just make sure that whatever drinks you choose to go with, you should have it available in ample amount, because the rounds will just keep on going, and players love to gulp down their favorite drinks while they play. If you have enough budgets, another good idea would be to stock up on two or three different drink varieties so that you can offer each player a drink choice of his or her own. This would make you an even classier host of poker games and would definitely keep all your players very happy.
Your choice of drink can be determined by the type of poker game that is going on. You can even arrange the game around a whole theme. For example if your players have chosen Texas Holdem as the poker game to play you can tell all guests in advance that you will be hosting a cowboy style party. All guests can show up in cowboy get ups wearing jeans, boots, and cowboy hats. You can perfectly arrange this party outdoors too to minimize all the mess inside. All you will need is some checkered table cloths to go with, some country music, and most importantly huge pitchers of poker soda. Soda is the perfect drink to serve in a Texas Hold’em game of poker as it flawlessly matches the whole theme.
Other than that famous drinks include wine and champagne for a fancier and up class gathering of professional players. Always look at your audience and analyze their taste in drinks to determine what should be served. If a group of young players who are not yet of age for drinking are getting together to enjoy a game of poker, you can even serve punch to them. Therefore, simply analyze the tastes of your players and serve what you know they would love the most.
Tasting wine is an art on its own that unless you learn you can never fully appreciate the work of wine makers or the wine itself. You have to sharpen your own senses first by knowing how to recognize the quality of wine by judging through its taste, smell, and look. In general, our senses can recognize four major types of tastes and that include salty, bitter, sweet, or sour. But when these tastes are combined, you need to be able to use both your senses of taste and smell to recognize the distinct flavors. To begin learning the art of wine tasting you need to first check out the wine’s clarity and color. You should have a sparkling clean wine glass for this. Pour in the wine, and by tilting the glass in the direction away from you, check out the color of the wine. Hold up a white napkin in the background or stand next to a white wall when doing this.
When judging the color of your wine try to think further ahead from the usual blush, white, or red colors. If you are testing a variety of red wine then look deeper to analyze whether you see a ruby shade, brick – red shade, brownish shade, purplish shade, or perhaps a maroon shade. In case of white wine you must look for shades of pale yellow, amber, gold, straw – like, brown, or even light – green.
After checking out the color of the poker wine you have to see how the opacity of your wine is. Check how watery, opaque, transparent, cloudy, clear, dull, or brilliant the wine is. Tilt you wine glass a bit to judge its opacity. You can also swirl around your glass and see how the opacity is. Check for any sediments, floaters, or bits of cork in it. The trick of spotting a white wine that is older is that it will have a darker shade than the younger white wines. Same goes with red wine. The older it is the more orange tinges it will have and the younger it is the more reddish its color will be.
Now coming towards the smell of poker wines, you have to swirl your wine glass around for at least ten to twelve seconds to be able to get a correct aroma. By doing this you vaporize the wine’s alcohol and hence it gives way to some of its more natural aromas. Then by instantly taking a whiff you will immediately get an impression of how your wine is. Some people also like to put their nose a little into the rim of the glass and deeply inhale. Keep your senses open for aromas like flowers, berry, vanilla, oak, or citrus. Finally you have to take a taste to tell about the quality of wine. Take a small sip and keep it swirling around in your mouth for awhile. The initial phase will help give you an impression of the type of wine you are drinking.