Paul Newman:The One With The Most Chips Still Dies

Date: Sat, Sep 27, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned" Paul Newman

I learned a bit of poker etiquette from Henry Gondoff, aka, "Shaw", Newman's character in The Sting, that---Poker is anything you can get away with!

Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) gets put on TILT, and Newman owns him, making us realize, Poker is not a game of cards played with money—It is a game of money played with cards. This isn't really a poker movie but it does contain this one famous poker scene:

Dealer: Doyle, I KNOW I gave him four THREES. He had to make a SWITCH. We can't let him get away with that.

Doyle Lonnegan: What was I supposed to do - call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?


Our brain is the most powerful computer. When on tilt, our brain is the most powerful broken computer .

The power of mind over money is rooted in mental bias . It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently.

When Lonnegan's reality check bounces, he goes on major steam--- He change the map (and the deck) , but Harry goes over the top---putting the CON back in confidence, and the SIN in sincere, cheating the cheating crime boss at his own game.

"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." Paul Newman

He had vision, and the rest of the word was wearing glasses---You never saw the whole deck, there was always some card somewhere he may or may not have played, like being an Indy Racing Car Owner and a Gourmet Food King, whose salad dressing out-grossed his films, shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good

Maybe he didn't even have it, and bluffed, like when he did that movie Slap Shot, and didn't play a "big" bastard, just a simple one; and maybe he did have "it"--- like every thing he did after 1977 (Slap Shot).

Makes me think how unlike, but must be compared to, Brando he was; who, in the second half, pissed away his talent.

Newman instead, got old and grey, but better, like The Color Of Money lyrics, " It's in the way that you use it..It comes and it goes..."

The extraordinary role that luck plays in all our lives--

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Jamie Gold :Telling Lies And Getting Paid

Date: Sat, Aug 23, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

At The Bicycle Casino Tonight  With Jamie Gold, 2006 WSOP Champion. 

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Play The Hand That You're Dealt-The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Date: Mon, Aug 4, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you want!

Brick walls are there for a reason - they let us prove how badly we want things.

Play the Hand that you're dealt.

I wish I had said these things, but Randy Pausch, did; the Carnegie Mellon Prof who died two weeks ago at 47 to cancer. Here's his last lecture, made famous by You tube: (His last words are 76 minutes long! so even if you watch just a bit of it, you'll be inspired)




Here are the "Cliff Notes"

• Always have fun
• Dream big
• Ask for what you want
• Dare to take a risk
• Look for the best in everybody
• Make time for what matters
• Let kids be themselves

* "Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. How do I make a concrete example of that? See, yesterday was my wife's birthday. If there was ever a time I might be entitled to have the focus on me, it might be the last lecture. But no, I feel very badly that my wife didn't really get a proper birthday, and I thought it would be very nice if 500 people... [a birthday cake is wheeled on to the stage]."

* "Remember, brick walls let us show our dedication. They are there to separate us from the people who don't really want to achieve their dreams. Don't bail. The best of the gold's at the bottom of barrels of crap."

* "Show gratitude. When I got tenure I took all of my research team down to Disney World for a week. And one of the other professors said, 'How can you do that?' I said: 'These people just busted their ass and got me the best job in the world for life. How could I not do that?'"

* "Don't complain. Just work harder [shows slide of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league baseball player]. It was in his contract not to complain, even when fans spit on him."

* "Work hard. I got tenure a year early. Junior faculty members used to say to me, 'What's your secret?' I said, 'It's pretty simple: call me any Friday night in my office at ten o'clock and I'll tell you.'"

* "Find the best in everybody. You might have to wait a long time, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting, it will come out. And be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity."

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Night Vision-playing 'in the dark': betting that your opponents DON'T have the cards rather than that they do.

Date: Sun, Jul 20, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Bad Beats are overhead; Chips, the cost of doing business. and business is good.

There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. There's the expected result, based on analysis, and the actual result, based on events.

It's not winning that makes a winner, but losing. The excitement is not from the winning, it's avoiding the disaster, because you're flirting with it every day. When my "behavioral finance" stuff kicks in, and I only want to win, but can't take the sting of a lose, I am "risk averse" or more accurately "lose averse", after all, I am gambling in a casino!

I always say-"Whether my decision is good or bad depends on how I make it, not on the outcome". LOOSE players are looking for reasons to CALL; TIGHT, to FOLD. Last night, I sat down with a bunch of loose players---and when the right people show up, the right game does too.

Focus on decisions not consequences

Here's the scenerio: Preflop decision with K10 off suit in a multiway pot- There's a six dollar straddle, I re-raise $15 last to act, trying to steal the straddle or at least go heads up. with the button! I get reraised to $100,(I am thinking small pair88 or JJ who wants to isolate) then something crazy hppened: call, call, call. Pocket 99 folds. That's 4 to 1 on my money---I know I am a dog. I defined my hand early, when it was cheap to do so, and have to put others on pocket pairs, but poker is situational, and these cats at the table are loosey goosey. SO:

Making the wrong mistake at the right time

I call with ATC's (Any two cards) right? Ok, I get lucky and flop a made Broadway straight, with no draws! and rake in a massive pot---going from Zero to Hero. I went against my mantra--"When you don't have good cards, somebody else probably does" but I got my FREAKonomoics on!

Sklansky’s old school ABC's: The Gap Concept, didn't apply this time---“you need a better hand to call a raise with than you would need to open the betting yourself”.

I felt I was getting the right odds to call. Sometimes poker is a feeling, sometimes a verb. (That's the huge buckets of luck that go with the territory).

I didn't really make a probability based decision--How many outs do I have? What are the immediate odds-pre flop, flop, turn and river? (In this case, the implied odds of all the money left on the table was too huge to fold preflop) What are the long shot odds for you and your opponent, once you put him on a range of hands? I made the wrong mistake at the right time.

For these loose players , the second hundred was not worth as much as the first.

The reason for I called the $100 was that my opponents Utility of (Chips) Money changed based on how many chips they already had. Most $700 behind. In ECON 101: Each level of worth or income has associated with it a certain level of utility. That utility is not necessarily going to increase uniformly. For This is called Diminishing Marginal Utility.

And according to my theory of poker; Too much repsect for money makes you a bad no limit player---These guys were "good" players because they had no respect for their money!

Doing the same thing over again is an obscenity.

Poker is too random to be left up to chance. It's situtational too. Big hands for big pots--not committing your big stack with weak small hands---I need a poker time out...because nothing fails like success. You can't lose what you don't put into the pot and if I keep on putting my money in bad like this I'll get broke.

Think about good decisions, not results. It's about the process not pots won---the chips will come. Do what you love and the money will follow--have a love affair with making sound decisions based on partial information. It is, after all, about excelling, not winning or losing a particular hand.

Make probability based decisions--How many outs do you have? What are the immediate odds-pre flop, flop, turn and river? What are the long shot odds for you and your opponent, once you put him on a range of hands? The universal tell in poker is called betting!

I once wrote:

It is better to be skillful than lucky but then again.... I wasn’t born with the math gene, in fact, I am a math atheist: but after "beasting out" both on The Theory Of Poker and The Mathematics of Poker, I realize that poker is less an exploitive strategy, and more an optimal one. Once having said that, we don't need to deify poker math and won't bring its math to the game ---we bring strategy to it, an optimal strategy, yet it still remains dependent on opponents actions and tells.

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Kung Fu Poker-Fear is The Only Darkness

Date: Fri, Jul 11, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

"Of all things, to live in darkness must be the worst." - say young Caine "Fear is the only darkness." -says that old blind guy Master Po who taught youngCaine in Kung Fu.

The Power of NEW-Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, verses The Power of NOW--Staying in the Moment is poker mastery.

There are four basic stages that a player must pass through to achieve poker mastery:

1. Beginner's Passion
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few." Shunryu Suzuki

2. The Student Emerges
"He is now forced to admit that he is at the mercy of everyone who is stronger, more nimble and more practiced than he." Eugen Herrigel

3. Expert Level is Achieved
"He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey" Japanese Proverb

4. Poker, One Hand at a Time
"If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art becomes an 'artless art' growing out of the Unconscious" Daisetz T. Suzuki

"When the teacher is ready the student appears...

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I have seen the future and it works

Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

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In ABC by the book holdem--A is for Aces----

In the long term, I look at the profitability of my pocket aces rather than the number of times they win or lose. To maximize profit with them, I make a conscious effort to minimize my losses when I am clearly going to lose a showdown. Going all-in preflop is a good strategy. It takes the guess work out of post flop play---but it doesn't minimize losses.

At the end of the day, it's all about how many chips are coming back to your stack. The more you put in pre-flop, the more you should get out of the pot when it's all said and done. Sometimes, I like my opponent(s) to see a flop, to "catch" up, hoping they'll hit their card on the flop and bet out. I fgure this out by:

Basically, DEFINING -MY/THEIR- HAND EARLY - WHEN IT'S CHEAP TO DO SO. Firsts money in raises, and you re-raise, let's him know where you are at. If he goes over the top, it's probably Kings. If he smooth calls, you are probably against a small pocket pair or AK,AQ,AJQQ,JJ---put him on a range of hands.

DON'T BET DANGEROUS FLOPS IN MULTIWAY POTS. My AA demands isolation, But let's say I am under the gun with them, and find myself in a 4 handed pot and the flop is J-10-9. I am stuck without betting---It is better to check this flop with AA, even if was in a late position and it has been checked around to me . It is difficult to expect anyone to fold any sort of draw (even a gutshot) on this particular flop. Further, when I bet, they are correct in calling me.

GREAT players experience more bad beats than GOOD players. Great players get their money into the pot with the best hand and the suckers are forced to draw out. As a corollary, great players rarely deliver a bad beat: they almost never get their money into the pot drawing slim.

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Small Ball Poker

Date: Tue, Jun 24, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Smash Mouth all-in-preflop poker is somewhat of a river game. Small Ball Holdem, on the other hand, is somewhat of a flop game, so if you can see three cards cheaply, it is a good thing.

Smashmouth poker is about first in money- ----You can't immediately win by calling; you can by betting, or raising! Betting or raising allows the possibility of winning the pot immediately by forcing decisions on the other opponents, who may very well fold, with slim holdings.



Small Ball Poker is about calling one or two small bets, but more than that it is about Never getting all your money in pre-flop. The best way to win in small ball is to fold more!(after you see the flop). Smash Mouth players are looking for reasons to bet, Small Ball, reasons to fold. Therefore, folding, is the "invisable" way to win. Try telling that to a Friday night action player: "Let's go to the casino and fold 60% of our hands!"

Most of the bad beat smashmouth pedal-to-the metal stories you hear start out like this, "Well, I got my money in good... only to get sucked out on the river." On the one hand, smash mouth poker is about agression, and poker rewards agression (selective aggression). On the other hand, Infinite patience in poker is also rewarded immediately. (You can't lose money you don't put into a pot).

As Mickey Mantle said in his 1985 autobiography"When you keep aiming for the fences, you're bound to strike out a lot ." Small ball poker avoids the MIS (move in specialists) and let them have their hands.

With Small Ball poker, AFTER the flop, you can evaluate the texture and the number of players in, and attack. If the pot starts to get big, then you must be ahead to continue to play. If you can keep the pot small, you can read you opponent(s) and decide what is in your best interest.

You have to be a good post flop player to play small ball. You have to be willing to see a flop with TT, knowing full well that it might mean mucking the hand if the texture of the flop doesn’t match up with your cards (No Set, No Bet).

You need to make high value river bets when the board shows broken draws. You can also bluff someone who is chasing you down with AX when the flush card comes on the river. Ax players know the flush draw very well as its their favorite hand. They WILL notice and often muck TP (top pair) to a big river bet that makes a 3 flush.
Ed Reif Daniel Negreanu Small Ball Poker No Limit Holdem Poker Strategy

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Poker's patterns are not our own

Date: Sun, Jun 22, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Motion Creates Emotion

Every hand of poker is a series of risk/reward decisions. Players cannot always figure out what is in their best interest. Money and risk are abstract, complex things. We act less rationally, less logically, and more emotionally when playing cards. When your left brain gets good at telling your right brain what to do, you even the score, and gain a competitive advatage.

Paper or Plastic? Live Cash game chips are not tournament chips! There is a difference between gambling and betting. Live "brick/click and mortar"poker is a game of money played with cards.

Yet, we tend to throw good money after bad---the sunk-cost fallacy is a common mental mistake. Just because we’ve spent money to see a flop doesn’t mean we should continue to spend money on it. It doesn’t even mean we should continue to play the hand . What matters is the hands ’s future value(flop-turn-river) to us, not how much we’ve “spent” on it.

The ability to take a small loss to avoid a big one is the hallmark of smart poker player. It's also the sign of a great investor. Great poker players lay down great hands. You have to reframe the situation and retrain your mind. In other words, you have to learn to love to take losses to be a long-term winner. Just like no one hand is going to make or break you, it is about exceling, about process, not results.

As in real estate, location counts-In Holdem it is position, position, position. The forced blind small bet is where most people call, even a riase, because they have money already in the pot. When you're in position, however, you have the luxury of getting the last action, when you're not you don't. It is that simple-yet common sense is not so common,e specially in the small blind.

Most people know hand values and preflop strategy, but post flop is where a bit of behavioral financing comes in: or The Power of Mind over Money. It is rooted in mental bias. It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently

I, for one, am guilty of the House Money Effect, with chip overload of playing loose with their money--actually it is ALL my money once won!

Poker is not a form of gambling---but gambling is a form of poker

Most wall street theories and models assume “investors” are rational decision makers who act in their own best interests. But, in reality, our investment brain often drives us to do things that are quite illogical, but make perfect emotional sense.

Poker's outward simplicity-The ability to affect the outcome is present, unlike roulette. If no one sees any cards, the cards did not play a role in the outcome. Thus, the outcome was determined by the betting of the players, clearly a process of skill or strategy.

Ipod Shuffle Mode-Delusions of Reference

Poker's patterns are not our own. Poker is more reflective of real-life "wild" randomness because that game has major strategic and tactical components to it that is mashed up with the quasi-dealer element of a shuffled deck. Makes me think of the ipod shuffle mode----the shuffle mode has an algorithm that randomizes the selection of songs that your IPod can select. Any 'pattern' you discern from what songs your IPod selects is illusory. Just because you lost five times in a row, doesn’t mean you are “due” to win one.

Any strongly held belief that random events, objects, behaviors of others, etc., have a particular and unusual significance to oneself or ones play or game is purely incidental. The Rabbit's foot-good luck? Not for the rabbit. More than that, the in to your sane, "ruunning bad" or "running good", that it reflect your situation or , in fact, communicates about you or your "predicaments" is usually accidental in nature- so reading too much into it is counter productive. Usually if things are really bad, there are probably leaks in your game-and the quest for "good luck" is usually in these questions:

1.) How much of your bad run is your fault? Anyalsis may be paralysis but the meaning of a poker life--is get one! and the unexamined poker life is not worth living! Assign blame-- Do you find yourself saying "should" I shouda raised, I shoulda folded that. Be honest

2.) Do you need to step down in limits? Money can't buy happiness but it can buy chips, which is kinda the same thing, and you can't play poker without money! It's better to step down voluntarily to a game you can crush than to be forced to because you lost all your bankroll playing above your head on a bad run

3.) Are you playing the right game? Without the right game, the right people don't show up. Game selection-(e.g. limit, no-limit sit-and-go tourneys, etc.) and also to choosing the right tables. The urge to "get back" when losing repeatedly can cloud your vision, leaving you stuck at an unprofitable table when there are plenty of loose, crushable games to choose from. Change Tables!

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Being Fooled By Randomness

Date: Sat, Jun 21, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Live At The BIKE ---Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles Last Night

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Feel athletic, go to a sports bar; feel lucky, a casino

Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Poker Pros Chris Farrell and Ed Reif

Moneymaker Effect? What effect did it have on you?

The real deal is that gambling is an addiction, and the Addictionary- is spelt with the letters WSOP, WPT, GSN and ESPN. The mess is the message---winjuries--- a cool revenue stream for the networks and promoters, OME, out of money experiences for everyone else connected to the "sport". Why? because NLH, no limit holdem is 100% skill and 100% luck, and luck lends but never gives.

Calling poker a sport is like calling bald a hair color. Yet this male pattern madness--- an 800 lb gorilla known as Texas No Limit Hold em (a.k.a. NLH)--- has replaced baseball not only as the national pastime, but also America’s bellybutton.ESPN’s WSOP (World Series of Poker) High Stakes Poker on GSN and the Travel Channel’s WPT (World Poker Tour) have done for poker what Jamba smoothies did for high fiber diets---it reinvented the often indigestible into an energizing and delicious (peak) experience that can no longer be ignored. This game has juice!

There's one guy to thank-Chris Moneymaker, and one event, the hockey strike!

The Hockey Strike was a negative sum event- NEGATIVE-SUM GAMES are games in which both sides lose. This represents the height of irrationality to positive-sum players, but it proves a surprisingly durable choice of game-players. Pull the grenade and blow us both up.

Smashmouth Poker is a less deadly version of combat, and therefore a good way to practice for it if you are out to have a good time and fully expect to lose all your money that you brought to the table that night.

While the Zambonis' sat idle, the strike created new programming slots for ESPN's niche "sports" like Poker-and fueled the Moneymaker Effect: and you know how that affected all our games---more AQ verses small pockets(races), more bad beats and suckouts by DONKS winning, not by what they knew, but what was absent from their game---like fear, experience and regret.Broke Back Poker-A Guaranteed income for life.Without the right game, however, the right people don't show up.

Raising with good hands, pairs. Calling with draws and throwing away junk. Yea, I wanna play with these guys because Karaoke Poker can solve any problem for which a solution is known to exist . Many still sing the patience, tight-is-right ABC by the book style of play--that's an even money scenerio-- You don’t play to break even, you play to break backs.

When weak players stay in the game, they use luck and because of the nature of NLH, can win buckets of money in the short run. Just remember they are only borrowing the chips from you.Feeling lucky and going into a casino is like feeling athletic and going to a sports bar---You can depend on the rabbit's foot for luck, but it didn't help the rabbit.

Whne playing people who feel lucky---Assume the worst, believe no one, and make your move when you are certain you have the stone cold nuts or at least, great odds. If you get drawn out on the river by this kind of player, be assured he will go broke chasing to the river the next few hands he plays. All players are equally good, it's their play that is bad: A little past playing good is playing badly. You beat bad players and bluff good ones. Bads call too often and rarely fold. The longer you have been playing, the "smarter" you get. Experience rich and technique poor players-smart players---are easier to bluff, because of this fact. They are usually paying attention to the action.

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POKER GENIUS-Relax And Lower Your Standards

Date: Wed, Jun 11, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Poker is anything you can get away with!

The power of mind over money is rooted in mental bias . It is our own idiosyncratic way to distort our map of reality. Just as the menu is not the meal, this map is not the territory--because everyone experiences gambling differently. When your reality check bounces---change your map.FLOUNDERS verses ROUNDERS -The difference in playing with the belief and intention of winning against just being social.

For the poker Balla, nothing is better than when that average Joe Player sits down at a poker table. Why? Because he just sat down with money he INTENDS to lose! There is no more +EV situation, and most tables in a live poker room are filled with players exactly like that. When you treat No Limit Hold em as only a game of chance instead of skill, it is not a law of probability, it's a fact for games with negative expectations: Risk of ruin is 100%.

A Joe plays when he "feels" like it, a Pro, all the time! Call them perpetual shortcuts JOES make when losing poker ASAP; and as any of the PROS will tell you, they don't need cards to win--that's for amateurs. Pro Players specialize in other people's biases! especially that malignant optimistic one that beats its chest and says, "I'm the best player at the table".

Poker is a game of partial information, and when you have a competitive advantage you have to take into account this and, more important, behavioral factors. There is wise.... and there is otherwise:

Behavior Has ConsequencesIrrational default modes of playing tend to show up in our game both when we win---the House Money Effect chip overload of playing loose with their money, and when we are getting on tilt with bad beats: That's when emotion and even confidence cloud our judgment and misguide our actions. The Volatility and Variance of NLH rewards patience, a clear mind, and, selective aggression.

American Airlines AA and the Concorde Effect—A True Story at the $100 Buy-In Bicycle Casino- Eating Dessert First.I’m UTG, deep stacked with four limpers. I raise and get called by all four. I should muck right there but I don't. I’ve got pocket aces. The flop is low ball 3 4 7 rainbow. I bet big-a Dan Harrington "information" bet to see where I am at... and lose three players. The turn is a 5, a possible straight. I bet big again and get re-raised all in. I insta-call. The river is a blank. I flip over AA and Lift Ticket has Pocket 66. for the nuts.

The very next hand I get pocket kings--it was Dijon Vu, the same old mustard--My emotional return on investment however, my EROI, was saying "SEAT OPEN!" and the table could smell it and I got everyone calling, a family pot. I actually wanted to go home broke..and even though I tripped up, I lost to runner, runner, heart flush. I did. That's right,wanting to lose money. And that emotional return was more of a payoff than the financial one--when my black Kings got cracked by suited connectors (hearts, a baby flush!).

Granted, too much respect for money makes you a bad NLH player but I walked away from that session with knowledge: First, that my brain is the "most powerful computer." Second, when on tilt, my brain is the most powerful "broken computer ."Tilt makes us sub-optimal for evaluating rewards, sizing up risks and calculating probabilities. It's like selling the car for gas money.I walked away with a less broken computer, less sabotaging behavior, and more insight into the fact that self-delusion is more than possible in poker - it's highly likely!Behavioral Finance ---

The Black Box Flight Recorder has a name for my crash landing -- The Sunk Cost Fallacy --the refusal to get out of a losing position, because you've already written the money off -- resulting in losing even more money. The British and French governments continued to fund the Concorde project long after it was determined that it was a loser---merely to justify past investment in it, rather than assessing the current rationality of investing.

You have an over pair on the flop and bet big. You get called. On the turn the texture of the board is dangerous. You bet out in the dark---suddenly you are stuck as your opponent straightens out.We are in fact more sensitive to decreases in our chip count than we are to increases in them.

Doyle Brunson, a member of the MENSA Poker Club says: Great players lay down great hands. In fact, the ability to accept a loss and get away from a great hand is probably the most important (and difficult) skill to learn in poker. It's the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.The ability to take a small loss to avoid a big one is the hallmark of this poker genius.We all start out as geniuses, and then allow our emotions to de-genius us. If you put good players into bad situations they usually turn bad.

Poker is not a form of gambling---but gambling is a form of ---loose-aggressive--- poker.All gambling involves betting, but not all bets are gambling. It depends on how much control you have over the outcome and how much luck you think you have at the moment.

Betting on positive expectations and predictable outcomes.—either you hold unbeatable cards or make other players belive you do, that’s a skill set that pays out 10x over time. A bet is a declaration that says I have a better hand than you---Find out if it the truth or a lie, act accordingly to disappoint your opponent. Unless you have the stone cold nuts, when you bet you want opponents to think you do, and fold.

Either raise or fold, but rarely call.Always aspire to be a nobody in poker. A nobody bets only when the odds are favorable. Gamblers are somebody--They splash the pot, make loose calls , bluff off their stack and bet money at unfavorable odds and eventually lose it all. A nobody cannot lose; he eventually wins all the money that "somebody" players risk. Most Somebodies idea of a good lay down is to flat call. Bluff raising for him is out of the question.

NLH is a safety net for somebody gamblers. Not knowing what he is doing because he doesn’t know what he is doing—shields him from his own efforts to lose! These kind of players back into a lot of hands and split pots., and generaly confuse nobody players.

Zero Sum and Then SomeSerious poker is a POSITIVE -SUM GAME. Everybody gets what they want or need. The game itself helps the pie expand. And in (game) theory everybody simultaneously wins in a positve sum game. Yet if Poker is all about reading game theory books and learning ABC theroies and systems, then the games are really like used bookstores---dead information. The game sure doesn't look like a used bookstore, thanks to dealing with everywhere--- ubiquitious internet poker. Nobody players routinely make more cash than people who work in used bookstores!

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Process For Difficult Decisions

Date: Tue, Jun 10, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Holdem is too random to be left up to chance.

You would rather be skillful than lucky anyway--Sure anyone any ONE TIME gets lucky 100% of the time. The law of large numbers says that you will win the lottery. Ask yourself this question before sitting down to play poker: Lucky or skillfull?

"Whether my decision is good or bad depends on how I make it, not on the outcome."

The Secret is about the law of attraction and results—the secret of poker is the complete opposite! And opposites attract!
The way to get better is to think about process not results—focus on better decision making and ignoring short term results.

Analysis Is Paralysis

Poker Bloggers are the sharpshooters that come down from the hill after the battle to shoot the wounded, in this case, the dead. I'll give it my best shot.

There is never a certain prescribed way to play a hand, just a way to think about them. There's the expected result, based on analysis, and the actual result, based on events. For Instance:

David Sklansky's Fundamental Theory of Poker is a theory which is not about poker. Instead it is a theory about the results of poker. In other words, you cannot use the Fundamental Theorem of Poker to solve any actual poker problems. It’s good for finding out whether I was lucky enough or not to be holding any two cards against an opponent. That theory is outlined early in his book:

"Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose." [17-18]

POKER: It is not about winning or losing, rather excelling: Because of the huge amount of luck associated with NLH, We often face uncertainty in making decisions, we can, therefore, make a good decision and get a bad outcome. (Bad beats are had more often by GOOD players than bad. Afterall, you are "getting your money in good"...only to get that suckout miracle card ruin your nut flush to a staight flush etc.) Good decisions in poker, therefore, will not guarantee good outcomes, but on average, consistently better decisions lead to consistently better outcomes.

"Good decisions are made one step at a time." Preflop, flop, turn, river.

Rock.Paper.Scissors. It's not just for kids anymore. Part coin flip, part drawing straws, RPS is not just some novelty way to gamble but a poker strategy to bet:

ROCK=CHIPS. PAPER=Cards. SCISSORS=POSITION.

Rock: wins against scissors, loses to paper and stalemates against itself.
Paper wins against Rock, loses to scissors and stalemates against itself.
Scissors wins against paper, loses to rock and stalemates against itself.

BET, RAISE, or FOLD-

You can't immediately win by calling; you can by betting, or raising! Furthermore, you need a stronger hand to call than to bet or raise. betting or raising allows the possibility of winning the pot immediately by forcing decisions on the other opponents, who may very well fold, with slim holdings....and never cold call a preflop raise with easily dominated off suit hands.

The Equity of Folding in a Tournament-Folding is the invisable way to winThe best way to win more is to fold more! Hand selection is really something to consider; so is position. Playing too many starting hands is the How Not to Do It way..When it is raised in front of you-Your mantra should be "I'm looking for a way to fold this AJ offsuit.

Knowledge isn't power---applied knowledge is. Luck isn't power either, but applied luck is the most powerful element in NLH: here's what I mean; Focus on decisions not consequences. Luck has consequences. Focus on decisions, not luck. What you think of me is none of my business, and what luck thinks of me at any particular time, is none of my business. Luck Positive (Winning) and Luck Negative (gad beats) are OVERHEAD; Chips, the cost of doing business!

Think about good decisions, not results. It's about the process not pots won---the chips will come. Do what you love and the money will follow--have a love affair with making sound decisions based on partial information. It is, after all, about excelling, not winning or losing a particular hand.

Make probability based decisions--How many outs do you have? What are the immediate odds-pre flop, flop, turn and river? What are the long shot odds for you and your opponent, once you put him on a range of hands? The universal tell in poker is called betting!

Poker without cards---bluffing. It simply has to be part of your game--- this Misleading Vividness. But remember: BIG POTS for BIG CARDS: The really powerful starting hands---High card value, suitedness and connectedness---have multiple ways to win.

"Cards are there for bad players" is not always the case. Neither is:" NLH is about playing the person more than the cards"

IN NLH there are 4 opportunities to bluff, 1 pre and 3 post flop.

LOOSE players are looking for reasons to CALL; TIGHT, to FOLD.

The more your bluffs matters, the harder they are to pull off because they are, after all, bluffs. It is, however, impossible to defend against a solid bluffing strategy. Reality is perception, and appearance reality. When you don' have good cards, however, somebody else probably does.

You aren't a bad poker player if you get caught bluffing sometimes or most of the time. You only have to win a fraction of the time to net a profit. Sklansky's (game)Theory of poker points out that you cannot play optimally unless you include bluffing into your game.
Every bet or raise can be a bluff, and you can beat a bluff with a mediocre hand. The only way to compensate for the bluffs of your opponents is to bluff them back!

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Ace King- Anna Kournikova looks good/never wins

Date: Mon, Jun 2, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Get rid of all the players with low pairs, big draws and junk because:

The thing is - when you haven't seen any cards what have you got really ? An Ace high ... with a King kicker, just about any starting hand could beat it. Doyle says he likes AK because it is so easy to throw away.


Top players know AK is a great drawing hand but they also know its can be a killer if it just doesn't work out.

Now here is the next problem with playing AK - OK it's a drawing hand so your thinking - don't play it too hard until you see the flop and then you can work out how your doing . Wrong. Limping in with Big Slick is going to make you a big underdog – You probably could have gotten the small pockets- 5’s ,-2's out with a bigger raise.

IF you hit either an Ace or a King on the flop then you've got yourself top pair with the best kicker. You might get lucky as is connected to get the nuts straight, if its suited you have got the table crippled if you draw that flush.

It's worth noting A-K suited is 5th best starting hand but A-K off is 9th best. I got felted against a pocket pair that connected on the flop of A-5-Rag.


It is an easily beaten hand if you let lots of players see the flop, that ragged looking board could have given any of them trips, two pair, straights - allsorts.

However AK doesnt fair so badly against a couple of player with other high cards. You have to play big slick hard before the flop if your playing it. I didn’t and payed out big time.

Get rid of all the players with low pairs, big draws and junk - With a big prefop raise you can be fairly sure the one (ideally) or two players left only have something high or decent pairs. Then you have the added advantage - you made the raise and you took control ... again.

Dont make the mistake of trying to keep more people in to make a bigger pot for your "great hands" - thats how to make your own bad beats. With most of the players in to see the flop your as good as giving your chips away - Play it aggressively, raise pre-flop and then hold yourself back when you see the flop.

But DO NOT go all-in before the flop - remember you've got an Ace high nothing more. In this situation the only hands that are really going to cause you concern are AA and KK - but if someone had that they'd have come right back at your big raise with an all-in before the flop.

Chances are unless they hit trips with there good pair (see what they do) you can fire at them once you pair either the King or the Ace in fact you should fire out a good size bet even if you dont –
remember you've already as good as shouted at them "my hands is a winner". Then see what they do - if they come back at you know they've got something, probably trips - then you need to slow down accept your beat and try to see the rest of the cards cheap. The chances are they will lay down just about most things that dont hit.

Now this all works well if you were easily able to take control of the table ie. you had good position to get a big raise in after you had seen what everyone else did but remember preflop this is - on the button and the two blinds. The worst postion to be trying to play AK from and indeed any other big hands like AA KK QQ is when your under the gun - this is the first seat after the blinds. Why ? well your first to act before the flop and first to act after the flop. This seat is tricky especially if you dont hit an Ace or a King on the flop.

Again the temptation is to flat call and see what happens ideally hoping someone else cuts the field down for you - thats risky - dont do it. Not only are you risking players limp in, your letting other players get control.

They will sense weakness and have position over you so you could very easily end up facing an all-in decision after re-raising a bet and someone coming back at you over the top all-in with a half decent pair. Then its become a tough decision with that Ace high of yours (lay it down). No by raising even in early position you will take control and narrow the field and against one, maybe two players you have a good chance to avoid AK becoming
The Anna--looks good never wins.

Got Tilt?

Tilt is a HUGE factor in poker, in most cases it is the difference between a winning and breakeven/losing player. So it is therefore essential that you can recognize tilt and know how to control it.

Remember, you don't HAVE to play poker, it is there for you any time you want to play. You're not obliged to do it.

Take a break until you can bring your A game to the table.

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Poker with out Cards—Bluff Outs

Date: Wed, May 28, 2008 Professional Live Tournament

Comment | Copy This

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