Stick and Move

One way in which poker is a great game is that for every tactic your opponents employ, you can adjust and react.

I want to make my game more flexible and responsive to my opponents' tendencies. If I can play that way, I'll be hard to read and prepared for most potential actions.

I like making lists, so here's a list of a few player tendencies and their counters:

_ vs. a calling station: Bet for value more and bluff less.

_ vs. someone who calls most continuation bets: Don't c-bet with hands that have little value. Consider checking behind some flops with hands that have showdown value for pot control.

_ vs. a frequent 3-bettor: There are two ways to fight an aggressive preflop re-raiser. The first is to start 4-betting him, which works well as long as your opponent folds when you don't have it and calls or raises when you do. A problem with 4-betting a maniac is that sometimes he'll come over the top with an all-in, and by that point you're either close to pot committed or stuck with something like JTs.

The other response to a frequent 3-bettor is to start 3-betting him more often. I like this adjustment because it costs less than 4-betting and 3-bettors usually know enough to fold when their opponents steal the momentum.

_ vs. someone who often calls 3-bets: Don't re-raise as often, especially out of position.

_ vs. minraisers and limpers: reraise the crap out of them.

_ vs. players who continuation bet too much: start floating, raising and check-raising them with a wide variety of hands as bluffs.

_ vs. major multitablers: bluff much more often, fire two bullets, initiate check-raises, float in position and overbet for value.

Vegas: I'm in

I bought my ticket to go to Vegas for the winter blogger gathering!

I missed the summer event for the first time in a couple of years, but I'm excited to return for a weekend of check-raising cowboys, playing mixed games at Imperial Palace and lightening the pockets of fellow tourists.

I arrive Friday morning (Dec. 12) and leave Sunday morning (Dec. 14), which means I won't be able to play in Fuel's $500 single-table SNG unless he changes the time. But that's OK -- Lucko will probably win it anyway.

I'll be staying at the IP with Kuro and Sham. I hope there's a blogger tournament this time around after there wasn't one over the summer. The tournament isn't that big of a deal, but it's usually the only time that all the bloggers are in one place.

Hope to see y'all there!

CTS knows

A recent CardRunners video by CTS shows why poker training sites are so valuable. I sometimes learn more from a single training video than I would from reading an entire book.

CTS is one of the best because his thinking about the game is on a much higher level than most other pros, and he does a pretty good job of explaining his reasoning.

For example, he writes out this equation for calculating the expected value of a stone-cold bluff:


I hadn't ever seen that specific math anywhere else, and it's a practical way to analyze whether you made a profitable bluff. This reminds me of a similar example CTS gave in a previous video about calculating the EV of a semibluff, which I wrote about here.

Another strong point of this video is when CTS folds his big blind with 55 against Taylor Caby's button open raise.

He says that a call or a raise could be defensible against a weaker player, but against a strong player out of position, low pocket pairs won't flop a set often enough or get paid off often enough to turn a profit.

---

At the tables, I've been working hard on my heads-up game.

Heads-up hold'em is such a thrill because you play so many hands and have to work through so many difficult situations. I can see where I have an edge (or lack thereof) more clearly when playing a single opponent.

I find that there are so many situations where I need to do a better job of balancing my range:

_ I have a hard time playing paired flops with Ace-high or low pocket pair hands. I find myself often checking the flop and trying to keep the pot small with these kinds of hands that are either way ahead or way behind. But this strategy makes it more difficult to get value when I do hit these paired flops because it's harder to represent anything but a strong hand type.

_ When I fail to continuation bet, I need to mix in more check-raises for value and as bluffs in order to mask the weakness a failed c-bet usually reveals.

_ My donkbets represent a tremendously limited range because I often prefer to check-raise the flop. That tendancy fails miserably against opponents who check behind the flop and raise the turn, both with strong and weak holdings. I need to do a better job of recognizing what flop textures I need to bet out on both for value and as bluffs. I'm guessing that it's better to bet out on the most extreme flop types: either very dry or very coordinated.

Poker Morality

While talking to my sister during my vacation over the last couple of weeks, she suggested that poker is immoral. She said it's wrong for a skilled player to take advantage of an opponent who has a gambling problem.

It's a strong point that I had a hard time arguing with.

I said that my rights shouldn't be curtailed because a percentage of my opponents may have a gambling problem. My sister said she wasn't arguing for restricting individual freedoms; she was talking about an individual decision to profit from someone else's sickness.

I said that everyone playing poker knows what they're getting into. She claimed that some of my opponents don't have the ability to think rationally about their gambling decisions, and I facilitate their gambling addiction.

I said that most poker players don't have a gambling problem, and I won't let the weakness of the few ruin the game for the rest of us. She said it doesn't matter exactly how many people have a gambling problem because I'm still harming those who do.

When I brought up her arguments to another friend of mine, he made the point that my sister was essentially comparing me to a drug dealer, profiting from addicts who don't know better or can't control themselves.

How should we as poker players resolve this dilemma? Do we try to remain blissfully ignorant of our contributions to perpetuating gambling addiction? Should we rationalize the negative consequences of our actions as an inevitable outcome of the game? Can we claim that if we weren't taking our opponents' money, someone else would? Should we give a portion of our winnings to charity in an effort to offset the harm we may be doing? Can I argue that I have as much of a gambling problem as anyone, and therefore everyone is on an even playing field?

Or perhaps there's only one way to stay morally pure: quit playing.

Blogger Cash: Most win, I lose

I got crushed in the $1/2 deep-stacked NL blogger cash game, but most of the players who filled two tables on Full Tilt won some money.

I was playing from a booth at a loud bar, Moe's & Joe's, in Atlanta. I think it would be fair to say that the beer helped loosen me up.

Kuro, who was sitting across from me at the bar, recounted our big confrontations. I got it in really good once (dominating top pair) and really bad once (under two pair vs. trips). We know each other's styles pretty well, which means we'll get into a few confrontations.

I donked it up and lost. So it goes. Thanks for everyone who turned out to play, and I hope everyone had fun.

What's important to me now is that I get back on my game. I've been farting around at the tables throughout my vacation, and it's starting to hurt a bit. Vacation is great, and I feel pretty relaxed despite my recent questionable play. But now I'm going to bear down and focus rather than play the loosey-goosey style that leads to me spewing too many chips.

One problem I've found in my game is that I've been trying to play with standard betting patterns depending on flop textures. Instead, I should be tailoring my plays more based on my reads in specific situations.

Back to work!

Blogger Cash Game is so on

Let's play a 1/2 no-limit hold'em deep-stacked blogger cash game on Wednesday during the Mook!


We have a great lineup of solid cash and tourney players who have already shown interest: Subzero, Mike Maloney, cmitch, RecessRampage, Kuro, Bone Daddy, twoblackaces and the spritpot crew.

Either contact me around 10 p.m. EDT on Yahoo IM (smizmiatch) as we decide what table to play on, or search for my screen name on Full Tilt (also smizmiatch).

Everyone is welcome to play. Good luck!

Balancing Your Range

The key element of hand reading is putting your opponent on a range of hands and determining the best line against that range as a whole. Once you can read ranges, programs like PokerStove can help determine how your hand performs against your opponents' likely holdings.

As difficult as hand reading is, it isn't enough. You also need to think about your opponents' perception of your hand range. An article in this month's Two Plus Two Magazine put it well: "Too many people think of playing their hand against their opponent’s range, as opposed to playing their range against their opponents range."

Therefore, the challenge is to "balance your range" to create a strategy that's difficult to exploit. By playing your strong, medium and weak hands on certain flop textures in a similar manner, you attempt to disguise your actual holding while extracting the most value overall from each hand type.

For example, if you only limp-raise with AA under the gun and no other hands, your hand range is "polarized" or "unbalanced" because you can only have one hand type in this situation. That's never a good thing because it enables your opponents to play perfectly against you.

Here's the technical definition of balancing your range: to merge your range so that you're not exploitable pursuing a certain line.

Balancing your range is a fascinating and practical topic that can be applied to any hand in any situation. Because I only have a passing familiarity with its specifics, I'll leave this post with a few thought-provoking links:

Shania, balancing, and what you really need to know: In this 2+2 thread, BobboFitos argues that it is unnecessary to balance your range against people who won't adjust to your standard betting lines.

This post resounded with me because I find myself playing to my opponent's perceived individual weaknesses, even though if he knew what I was doing he could play back at me. For example, I'll always fire a continuation bet against a player who will usually fold to a continuation bet because it doesn't matter what my range is if he'll fold to my bluff at a high frequency.

As one poster put it, "You should strive infinitely to balance your game, but heavily skew your play to each specific opponent."

I also agree with the sentiment that range balancing becomes far more important against observant opponents.

I found the 2+2 link from the Poker Log blog, which outlines some examples, such as raising junk hands preflop as semibluffs, continuation betting with air and double-barrelling scare cards. The author writes, "Your range is highly polarized when you perform action X when you only have Y. This makes your game highly exploitable and probably less profitable."

Foucalt presents a couple of other examples in this post with hands like TT and AK.

I have a lot of questions that I'll be thinking about in the coming days about how to apply range balancing:

How much of my 3-betting range should be made up of non-premium hands in order to disguise my premium hands? At what point does 3-betting non-premium hands become more expensive than it's worth?

Should I play KK on Axy flops in the same manner that I would play weak Aces on the same flop?

How should my check-raising distribution look between between monsters, pairs, draws and bluffs?

How often should I fire a second or third bullet? How strong of a "real" hand do I need to fire a second or third bullet? With what hand and flop types should I check the turn and extract value on the river?

Because my perceived hand range is based on my preflop betting actions and the flop texture, how relevant is my actual hand, knowing that I'll only reach showdown a small amount of the time?

Adaptation

The games are getting tougher to beat.

Winning players constantly get stronger, refining their skills and playing in the most profitable games they can find. Losing players stagnate and fail to progress.

Poker is a dynamic game with ever-changing trends, new theories and neverending lessons to learn. If you don't practice, study and evolve with the game, you'll fall behind.

That's just the way it is. Either whine nostalgic about the juicy old days, or work to survive and thrive.

Button reraising...or not

I keep thinking about two seemingly competing strategies, both of which are preached by solid pros. One strategy would have you cold call in position with many playable hands, and the other advocates frequent 3-betting.

I remember Samoleus arguing for making more calls in position with hands that have implied odds. He differed with some CardRunners pros who reraise many playable hand types in position.

Dan Harrington writes in his cash game books about calling with a wide range of hands for cheap in position. The deeper-stacked you are, the more hands you want to play from the button, he says.

Finally, I stumbled upon a column by BalugaWhale that lays out a reasonable compromise: 3-bet with strong and weak hands, while call with high implied odds hands. This line of thought makes sense. If you're going to call preflop with low pocket pairs in position, why not do the same with JTs? Sure, you can 3-bet these hands when the circumstances call for it, like when you're up against a player who folds to raises too much or never 4-bets. But seeing flops with drawing hands while not spending too much money seems reasonable.

One big problem with this style comes when you're up against frequent squeezers from the blinds. To balance your range against these types of players, you need to occasionally cold call with premium hands from late position in hopes of 4-betting a squeezer all-in.

Harrington on Cash Games: How to Win at No-Limit Hold 'em Money Games: Vol I

I think I know what Harrington is trying to do in a large part of his first cash game book: He's demonstrating a strategy that attempts to avoid exploitation by mixing up his play.

The fundamental problem with this approach is that it's almost always better to make the highest percentage play rather than sacrifice value in a misguided effort to obfuscate your hand for potential future profits. Harrington attempts to mix up his play based on the second-hand of his watch instead of balancing his play based on the game situation.

For example: If you hold Ks Kc on a Ac Ts 4s flop, Harrington recommends checking 80 percent of the time rather than making a continuation bet.

I argue for betting the vast majority of the time. In addition, I definitely wouldn't decide whether to check because the second-hand of my watch as Harrington would. He'd have you take the 80 percent action if the second-hand is in the first 48 seconds and check if it's in the last 12 seconds. Does anyone do this in real life cash games?

I would bet because I know my opponent probably didn't cold call with an Ace preflop, I can bluff him off the hand if I think he did cold call with a weak Ace, and I'm just as happy to take down the pot right now. Those are all legitimate, practical reasons for betting completely dependent on what I believe to be the strongest play, and there's no reason to ever do anything different from what I think is right.

A whole chunk of the book is dedicated to these deception plays at the expense of analysis of gametime decisions. It's better to consider whether my opponent is a calling station, bluffer, check-raiser, maniac, regular, weekend warrior, squeeze player, blind stealer or blind folder than it is to try to make ambiguous fancy plays.

At least one hand example in the book illustrates an approach I'm more comfortable with. With ATo from the cutoff, Harrington supports raising a limper to 5X and then continuation betting nearly every time on a Kc Qc 4h flop.

"Given that Player D is a loose, weak player and he checked, this flop probably missed him, and in addition should look pretty scary with the king and queen out there. Make a continuation bet almost 100 percent of the time. Unless Player D caught a piece of the flop, he'll go away."

See? That wasn't so hard. Continuation bet based on the flop texture, your position, your read on your opponent and the previous action. There's no reason to do anything differently for deception or meaningless variation.

I don't think I'm overstating this point. In other hand examples, Harrington goes for variation plays preflop, with random limps as well. That's not going to work in most of today's games, both online and live.

On top of that, the ATo hand is used to make an argument for a terrible "general rule":

"The more outs you have to a big (or winning) hand, the less you want to make a continuation bet."

That rule is not true. When you have more outs, you want to bet because it gives you more ways to win. You'll either take down the pot with a continuation bet, or you build the pot while controlling the action, retaining fold equity and potentially hitting the well-disguised nuts.

I want to say something positive, so I'll say this: I enjoy learning about new styles so that I can better understand what my opponents may be thinking.

But there aren't many new tactics from this book that I'll be incorporating into my game.

Self Improvement

I had a pretty awful run at the tables last weekend, and it's taken me a few days to figure out how I could do better next time.

Sure, there were a few coolers and bad beats. But I should to take responsibility for my wins and losses, and I want to learn from my mistakes. By writing them down, I hope to avoid making the same errors in the future.

_ I realized I was giving off some pretty obvious timing tells by betting too quickly. Observant players will be able to read my too-fast bets and abuse me when I'm running on autopilot. Some of these timing tells were created by a reliance on Full Tilt Shortcuts, which is a cool problem but one which I haven't learned to use properly. For now, I've turned FTS off.

_ I got a little bit lax on table selection. I still looked for good tables, but I found myself settling for tables with a bunch of average-type players. I'd rather be at a table with one fish and a bunch of solid players than a table with no fish and a few guys playing their hands for value.

_ I targeted halfstackers and shortstackers too much. I hate these players because they prevent me from playing the type of poker I want to play. When you're forced to decide your hand preflop or on the flop, you're going to end up taking a few too many coinflips. The best defense against shorties is to refuse to sit with them.

_ I stubbornly kept trying to play despite my losses because I believed I was still playing my best. I should have realized that sometimes, it's just not my day. And how can I really be playing my best when I'm yelling "Goddammit!" after every beat?

I'm back on my A game now, and quickly on my way to recovering the weekend's mistakes.

Kinds of bets

I can think of seven types of bets.

Most bets fall under the broad category of value bets or bluffs. In general, you want to either be betting because you have the best hand and you think a worse hand will call, or you think a bet might get a better hand to fold. Some players believe every bet they make should either be for value or a bluff.

Semibluffs fall somewhere between the two. Semibluffing hands have some equity, but they may not be the best hand at the time.

Blocking bets fall under the category of value bets. Players make blocking bets when they want to see a showdown for cheap. They're appropriate especially when you think you have enough equity in the pot to get to showdown, but you don't want to pay off an opponent's expected larger river bet, and you think your opponent won't raise, and you have the discipline to fold on the end when you think you're beat.

Suckbets are blocking bets' evil twin. They're smallish bets on the river meant to look like blocking or weak value bets. A suckbet wants its opponent to raise so then you can call in a larger pot or come over the top.

With information/probe bets, we're starting to get into murky waters. Information bets aren't necessarily value bets or bluffs, and they often return incorrect information. I'm not even certain bets for information have a place in a a solid player's arsenal.

Finally, there are bets to protect your hand. I don't know what to make of these kinds of bets, but I use them all the time.

I usually use them when I'm out of position with a hand like middle pair or a weak top pair. If I were playing my hand purely for value, shouldn't I cold call because my one pair figures to be best against a standard button's steal range, and a raise would only get him to fold worse hands? Or should I donkbet or check-raise the flop, hoping that my opponent will fold or call with a worse hand? If I'm hoping my opponent will fold, then I've essentially turned my hand into a bluff because it no longer has much showdown value in what's getting to be a mid- to large-sized pot. If I'm hoping my opponent calls, I'll probably find myself in a tough situation when my opponent bets, raises or calls on the turn or river. If my opponent calls my flop check-raise and I have a weak pair, usually the best outcome is that my opponent will check it down, but that's fairly unlikely to happen.

It seems like most times when I check-call the flop out of position, I either win a small pot or lose a medium-sized one. I lean more toward betting out or check-raising with these kinds of hands, although I'm not sure how right that is.

Shorthanded game selection

Learning to play shorthanded is a necessary skill to become a well-rounded player. The ability to play shorthanded gives you more games to choose from, and these games allow you to play more hands more aggressively. I know this.

Then why do I find myself playing more full ring tables recently?

The explanation is simple: a lot of the people playing shorthanded games have an idea of what they're doing. Many of the true fish who don't even understand the basics of the game test the waters at full ring tables. You won't find a guppy wandering into the shorthanded tables as often as you will find him floundering anonymously with eight or nine other players.

Between full ring and shorthanded games, I prefer shorthanded. But more importantly, I want to play in whichever game gives me the best opportunity to make money.

It's essential to keep your options open so that you can select the most profitable games. Sometimes the best games are shorthanded. But just because the shorthanded games are looser on average doesn't mean they always have the easiest targets.

What's that new poker game all the kids are playing?

I never knew that Texas hold'em was originally called "Hold Me, Darlin'."

Its origin seems to be a bit hazy, but somehow this new poker variant eventually got twisted around to become hold'em, according to a recent CardPlayer article my Jim McManus.

Hold'em wasn't played until early in the 20th (century) and didn't overtake draw and seven-stud as the most popular game until about 1990. By then, its original name, Hold Me Darling, had long since been abbreviated to Hold Me, and then, via the twanging vicissitudes of cowboy enunciation, to hold'em.

No one knows for sure where and when the first hand of hold'em was dealt. One plausible guess is that a dozen or so Texas ranch hands wanted to play a little stud, but found they had only one deck. The most creative cowboy must've got to thinking: If five cards were shared by all players, as many as 23 of them could be dealt two-card hands. Though every poker variant has roots in the French game of poque, he probably did not drawl, "Voila!"

I also found it fascinating that the powers that be have decided the name of the game is "no-limit hold'em" -- that's with a hyphen and without a space before the apostrophe, according to Short-Stacked Shamus at Hard-Boiled Poker.

The meeting concluded with a “style guide” discussion led by Haley. Some people find such discussions of usage and mechanics at best boring and at worst useless. Not this crowd. These are writers, people who care about words and how they are employed. Have to admit I had a little “I’m-in-the-right-place” moment there as we debated whether hyphens have a place in words like “preflop” (no) or “no-limit” (yes). Haley convinced me, actually, that “hold’em” is in fact a contraction (I have always typed it as two separate words).

Who knew?

Just Giving it Away

It's pretty rare that you find a true gambler at the online tables: someone who is more than happy to get all his money in with the worst of it in hopes of getting lucky. I'll take that action.

This opponent was crazy with stats around 65/45. I knew he would never limp a strong hand from the small blind, so I pushed on the off chance that he would call. Amazingly, he did.

Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter


SB: $685.05

Hero (BB): $1,222.75

BTN: $898

Pre-Flop: A 3 dealt to Hero (BB)

BTN folds, SB calls $5, Hero raises to $1,222.75 and is All-In, SB calls $675.05 and is All-In

Flop: ($1,370.10) 4 2 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


Turn: ($1,370.10) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


River: ($1,370.10) 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


Results: $1,370.10 Pot ($1 Rake)
SB showed 5 9 (a pair of Twos) and LOST (-$685.05 NET)
Hero showed A 3 (two pair, Threes and Twos) and WON $1,369.10 (+$684.05 NET)


Then he types in chat something like, "I liked that. Let's do it again."

"OK," I replied.

A few hands later, we were able to get it all in again preflop:

Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter


BB: $770

Hero (UTG): $1,901.80

BTN: $873

SB: $308

Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $30, BTN calls $30, SB folds, BB raises to $770 and is All-In, Hero raises to $1,901.80 and is All-In, BTN folds

Flop: ($1,575) 4 A 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


Turn: ($1,575) J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


River: ($1,575) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)


Results: $1,575 Pot ($2 Rake)
BB showed Q 2 (a flush, Ace high) and LOST (-$770 NET)
Hero showed Q Q (a flush, Ace high) and WON $1,573 (+$803 NET)

Thanks for the gifts, fishy.

When are you pot committed to calling a preflop all-in with AK?

UPDATE: I'm pretty sure my original calculations were wrong, so I've revised this post throughout to reflect those changes. Thanks to Greylocks for his help, and I apologize for the mistake.

Calling all-in with AK with 100BB effective stack sizes is not a leak in cash games against an opponent who will push with QQ or better and you've already invested only 21BB.

That's my conclusion after running some numbers based on a recent hand in which I had 4-bet raised to $400 preflop (40BB) with AK and then got pushed on in a 5/10 game. I had to call $600 to win $1,400 in the pot. I was up against KK, failed to spike an Ace and lost a buy-in.

The hand got me wondering whether my call was correct against a villain's hand range of AA, KK, AK and QQ.

When am I committed to calling all-in?

AK is about a 60-40 dog against a range of AA, KK, AK and QQ, according to PokerStove:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 39.594% 19.26% 20.33% 110831016 116968584.00 { AKs, AKo }
Hand 1: 60.406% 40.08% 20.33% 230565960 116968584.00 { QQ+, AKs, AKo }

The break-even point for calling comes when your opponent shoves for 121BB, and you have to call 79BB more:

0.395(121) - .605(79) = 0

100-79=21

Therefore, against this range, I have to call after only putting in 1/5 of my stack (21 BB) with AK.

What if my opponent's range is AA, KK or AK?

Then my equity drops to 38-62, and I become committed after investing 24BB.

What if my opponent's range is only AA and KK?

Then my equity drops to 20-80, and I'm not committed unless I've already invested 60BB.

Calling an all-in with AK is far easier against someone with a wider preflop pushing range. That changes the odds substantially.

These numbers show me how hard it is to get away from AK preflop against anything but tight players. Against a wider range, I lose the option of folding unless I have a strong read or I'm deeper-stacked.

Holdem Manager

I like the new PokerTracker, but it has a long way to go before it's completely debugged and has all the features I'd like to see. The bugs haven't caused me significant problems, but I know they've been more severe for many players.

So I finally gave in and bought Holdem Manager after hearing so many good things about it. It isn't quite as slick as PT should/will be, but it has lots of features that are just fantastic.

_ You can double click on a player's name in the HUD to flip between their total stats and their current-session stats.

_ You can take notes on players in HM rather than in the poker client.

_ Stats are displayed in a tighter box that takes up less screen space.

_ There are countless popup stats at your fingertips -- far more than PT's default.

_ Easy-to-read hand histories are viewable in a popout window, and they can be exported in several formats (including 2+2 and text).

The heads-up display has always been the most important part of poker database software. Holdem Manager has a clear HUD advantage.

PokerTracker looks like it will be better for away-from-the-table analysis, but it'll take a while for it to catch up with in-game features.

In defense of Full Tilt

With so many poker players dogging on Full Tilt, you'd think it was a bad site to play on. That's not true.

1) Full Tilt has the best software on the Internet, and it isn't close. PokerStars is OK, but Bodog is awful. Every other site runs from unplayable to mediocre.

2) I've had fantastic response times on cashouts, although I understand some people haven't been so lucky with e-transfers. I've cashed out by check five times this year, and I've never had to wait more than a week for my check to travel across the ocean to my mailbox here in Hawaii. My most recent cashout was Wednesday, and the check arrived Friday. That's a fantastic response time.

3) There are many cash games to choose from at the limits I currently play (from 2/4 heads-up to 5/10). I'm able to find fishy games almost every time I log in these days.

4) Full Tilt recently offered rakeback to many players who have been begging for it for years.

That said, Full Tilt has a significant and glaring weakness in customer support.

The site insists on doing business exclusively by e-mail, and they won't permit their customers to ever call them by phone. I've never had a problem with their e-mail support, although I've heard horror stories about their support personnel being unresponsive. Regular poker players pay large sums of rake, and they deserve to be able to talk to a real person when their money is on the line.

---

Ultimate Bet released inadequate conclusions of its investigation into cheating on the site at high limits. The public still doesn't know the name or position of the perpetrator, how this kind of obvious cheating could be allowed to happen for so long or whether there will be any sanctions from the site's regulatory body, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

You're a fool if you ever play on UB or Absolute Poker again.

Pineapple Maze King

I shattered the previous pineapple maze record today, finishing it in a mere five minutes and regaining my place at the top of the leaderboard.

My run sliced the previous high-mark of 10 minutes in half, and it should last for quite some time. I had slipped to second place after my previous record of 12 minutes set a month ago failed to hold up for long.

It surprised me how easy it was to regain my place as the champion. I'm not a fast runner, but I was able to put down a strong time because I knew the maze so well now that I've been through it six times.

Beating the pineapple maze is a somewhat trivial accomplishment, but it's not much different from winning a poker tournament, race or video game. It's pretty rare to be the best at anything.

After the flop

Postflop play is where a lot of the money is made in poker. Not coincidentally, it isn't easy to learn.

This isn't a post where I'm going to try to write out my thoughts on how to play postflop, because I don't really know how to play postflop. All I do is try to reason through every previous action of my opponents, set a loose hand range and try to make the most of my equity. If I have an edge or pot odds, I'll bet and raise. If not, I'll fold or evaluate my implied odds.

I wish there were a good book on postflop play for no limit hold 'em. But I wonder if there are too many variables to really develop a framework. So much of postflop play seems to occur on a hand-by-hand basis.

Here's what I know:

_ The key to postflop play is establishing accurate hand ranges.

_ Hand reading online is a an important and acquired skill.

_ Playing out of position postflop is extremely difficult for me.

_ If you don't know where you stand, folding isn't a bad option.

_ Preflop betting patterns go a long way toward narrowing opponents' hand ranges.

_ Solid, straightforward poker wins money.

I'd really like to hear comments from anyone who knows a way to improve hand reading skills beyond experience and deductive reason. Any help is appreciated.

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I will attempt to reclaim my rightful place as Pineapple Maze champion today. Wish me luck.