♠️ Just when you think you know what "folding" means...
Let's face it, most French people like rules, but in Hold'em, rules are more like suggestions. I remember last summer, without work, without much hope, staring at the screen at 2 in the morning. I confused "fold" with "call" because, in my head, "fold" meant "hey, I'm folding this round, but I'll stay and watch the rest, eh".
(No... not good. Not at all).
So I watched the last few euros run out of my bonus, not even realizing that I was out of the game before the end.
That night, I kept clicking call even though my hand was a complete disaster. I had 5 clubs and 9 diamonds, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something magical was happening.
Of course, nothing happened, except that my equilibrium quietly vanished. The lesson: go to bed with pride.
Most of the hands we receive suck, like the dry cookies in old French hotels.
And for the love of cheese, read the tiny, pixel-sized English text on each button. I took a screenshot and stuck it on the wall, right above my flashing red router (which, for the record, never had a chance. Not once).
🤑 Forgetting the existence of the bonus (or misunderstanding it)
If you start playing online in France, all the sites throw "WELCOME BONUSES" at you like confetti on Bastille Day. The first time I saw them, I thought "eh, it must be a scam, like those British emails about distant inheritances". But these bonuses are real (well, for the most part - some are more "blah" than "wow", so read the fine print and maybe don't trust the ones with more asterisks than asterisks on the Eiffel Tower after dark).
If you start playing online in France, all the sites throw "WELCOME BONUSES" at you like confetti on Bastille Day. The first time I saw them, I thought "eh, it must be a scam, like those British emails about distant inheritances". But these bonuses are real (well, for the most part - some are more "blah" than "wow", so read the fine print and maybe don't trust the ones with more asterisks than asterisks on the Eiffel Tower after dark).
A little tip: keep a notebook or write on the back of pizza boxes how the bonus system works. It's easier than trying to decipher it at 2:30 in the morning, believe me. I once missed out on half my bonus because I thought the expiry time was for a different section - I was very French.
👉 Holding on when you need to let go (and vice versa)
There's nothing more French than refusing to give up a fight, but poker isn't war, it's more like Zen gardening with angry squirrels. You have to let most hands go, but beginners - myself included, the first few dozen times - hang on like the time someone tried to take the last pain au chocolat. You think, "That's my hand, you can't have it".
I used to follow all the bets.
Honestly, it was less "strategy" than "fear of missing out" - I thought the river might bring me a miraculous 10 de coeur. But that never happened.
To win at poker, you need to know how to pick your spots, choose when to fold and sometimes not play at all. Try sitting on your hands (literally: one evening, I did it by accident, fell out of my chair and the cat looked at me as if I'd lost the ball).
The biggest trap: seeing aces or kings and thinking, "That's it! I'm a genius!" Sometimes you'll win, but often someone with two sneaky spades and luck straight from the gods will turn you inside out. Poker in France punishes the arrogant, believe me.
A trick that sometimes works: when you receive two useless cards (2 diamonds and 7 spades), get up, go into the kitchen and make some coffee. You'll save money and maybe discover a leak in your ceiling.
♦️ The mystery of poker symbols and chips
Some symbols won't make sense the first few times.
For example, why do combinations look like that Hearts are easy, all right.
Diamonds, of course, are sparkling, we understand. But clovers?
They look like a deformed shamrock. As for the spades, they just look medieval to me, like the old greeting cards you'd find in your grandmother's attic.
The first time I played live poker, I kept mixing clubs and spades and made a whole group of people in the Part-Dieu gaming room think I was joking. Worse still, online you can see black and red chips and assume that black is more valuable (it's not - it depends on the site, sometimes it's green, or blue, or the site just hates logic).
A word of advice: on French sites, be sure to check the color and value of the chips. Don't end up betting EUR 50 when you wanted EUR 2. That's what I did, by the way.
I didn't win either.
Additional note: I once thought that "the button" literally meant a button on my laptop. In fact, it's a marker indicating who acts last in the round. The current button was mailed to me by a poker site - I still use it as a coaster.
💰 Bonus Mini-List: French poker expressions you need to know
Here's a quick reminder of the symbols, rules and quirks of playing poker in France (or being French and playing poker at the same time):
- The "welcome bonus" is never as simple as it seems, read on.
- "All-in" doesn't mean "Hey, let's see the next card for free!". It means you bet it all. Sometimes that's a good thing, but it's often expensive.
- Fold when you're feeling nervous and unlucky. That's your inner voice telling you it's time to be cautious, not bold.
- In French online tournaments, the word "rebuy" is often hidden in a dark corner of the screen. If you lose, don't panic, just look for the word "racheter" or "reprendre".
- Never trust Wi-Fi. Keep your password in a safe place, in case your cat presses "reset" at 3am.
Don't be put off by a blurry webcam or a slow site. I once used my Eiffel Tower key ring (actually a bottle opener) for good luck: I won three hands in a row, then spilled coffee in my lap.
🤩 Trusting luck rather than strategy, and the art of bluffing
Everyone wants to be the mysterious poker master who bluffs his way to millions. It seems so easy on TV. I attribute half my illusions to Canal+'s late-night poker reruns.
Bluffing is more of an art than a science, and when you're just starting out, it's like painting with sausages.
The first time I tried a bluff, I bet big with practically nothing, just because it felt right. The river came and my opponent (who could probably spot bluffs a mile away) followed me with a royal flush. Aie.
The first time I tried a bluff, I bet big with practically nothing, just because it felt right. The river came and my opponent (who could probably spot bluffs a mile away) followed me with a royal flush. Aie.
Here's a random tip: keep a pair of cheap sunglasses handy. They're not useful online, but if you wear them and look serious, your houseplants might take you more seriously.
🔥 Bonus: Play-by-play of my first "big" win
It was a Friday evening, I was starving, the bread was already hard as stone in the kitchen. I logged on with exactly 23.50 euros in my account from a mediocre bonus at PMU Poker. My Wi-Fi, red as a traffic light, winked at me.
The first hands are a mess.
Then: 8 in the pocket. Good enough for me.
I threw it back hard, sweating, hands shaking to the point of spilling my mint syrup. The other guy followed with ace-ten.
Flop: nothing for me. Rook: nothing.
The river 8 of clubs.
I hit my first set. Not much, but I felt like I'd won the Tour de France.
Right after the next hand, Lyon's church bells went off, and I was so freaked out I almost logged off by acident.
👑 French Poker Grind
Night after night, it's the same mess: chipped mugs, my parka draped over the chair, flashing warnings on the router, the cat ogling the mouse. Poker is not neat.
Sometimes it's not even fun. You chase hands you shouldn't, you click wrong, you read wrong, you discard bonuses and curse the sound of a new failed connection.
Maybe you'll even invent mistakes I haven't even dreamed of yet - please, I need new stories. Remember: play tight, go to bed early, read bonus conditions and don't confuse a club with a spade, unless you want to be laughed at out loud (which, of course, happens all the time online).
I've got nothing more to say, my coffee's cold and the cat's fiddling with the screen again, so it's probably time to call it a day... Maybe we'll see each other at the tables if the Wi-Fi holds out.
