Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream — Malcolm Muggeridge.

Everybody loves a winner. Any time we see someone, or something, emerge victorious in a difficult situation, that always makes a big impression. The natural human desire to want to attach ourselves to known winners only increases whenever money is at stake. This is why so many investors in the stock market engage is what’s called momentum investing — purchasing only securities that are currently on the rise, while selling any securities that are in a downswing. The result is often the antithesis of the financial axiom to buy low and sell high, as investors pour their money into “hot” stocks that are nearing peak prices, and dump off “cold” stocks that are wandering around the low end of their price range.

Short-term perception is often at odds with long-term reality. It’s too easy to get caught up in the immediacy of the moment. Fearful of missing the bandwagon, investors latch onto upward-moving stocks regardless of whether or not the companies have sound financials or healthy P/E ratios. The perceived value triumphs over the actual value, at least for a time.

Poker players, too, can fall prey to this momentum-induced love haze, albeit in a different fashion. But it still comes down to the same fundamental mistake: focusing too much on recent results at the expense of the long-term view. Let’s call the poker version momentum playing.

Perhaps nothing typifies momentum playing more than the poker player who goes on a big rush. For the fortunate player at the center of the rush, virtually everything he touches turns to gold. Strong hands hold up, draws come in, second-best hands suck out. As long as the heater continues, this player is the human embodiment of momentum playing at its most seductive because the rush encourages him to keep tossing more of his chips into the middle, more often and more aggressively. Winning begets more winning, or so it seems.

And at least for a time, the rush-happy player has reason to believe he’ll get a better-than-average return on his bets and raises — not because he’s in the midst of a massive lucky streak, but because so many of his opponents will be convinced of his supernatural luck. Those opponents will be extra-intimidated by his wagers and as a consequence the rusher’s fold equity increases dramatically. But just like the overvalued stock with the stratospheric P/E ratio, the party can’t last forever. When the end comes, our formerly-fortunate player must be prepared tone down his loose-aggressive play pronto.

Or consider the poker player who has had great success with one particular type of play. He may be tempted to repeat that maneuver again and again, without fully taking into account how changing game conditions have affected the likely outcome. Bluffing is a prime example. If Butch the Bully bluffs Ned the Nit out of a large pot during a NL tournament, no doubt that would be an extremely gratifying experience for Butch. And since Ned is a nit, it’s perfectly understandable if Butch thinks he’ll be able to repeat the bluff with equal success later in the tournament.

But Butch needs to be careful. Whether in poker or investing, the momentum created by previous success gives a false sense of security, an excessive sense of empowerment. If Butch thinks that all he has to do is shove a big pile of chips in Ned’s direction any time he wants to pull off another bluff, he may be in for a very rude awakening. All it takes is one failed bluff attempt to evaporate a huge chunk of Butch’s stack and potentially deep-six his tournament — and any number of factors can change an impressive bluff into a snapped-off disaster. What were the conditions of the original bluff and are they in place now? Maybe this time around Ned has a smaller stack and has committed too many of his chips to let go of the hand. Maybe Butch’s next bluff is a clumsy wager that comes out of nowhere and doesn’t match up with his betting on earlier streets, allowing Ned to figure out what he’s doing (Ned may be a nit, but he’s not stupid). Perhaps the community board isn’t threatening enough to make Ned fear a big hand. Or maybe Butch is missing the signs that Ned has a real hand this time.

Whatever the reason, a play that was profitable one minute ago might be an expensive mistake now, because game conditions are constantly in flux. Momentum can coax us into forgetting that.

Why do we have favorite hands? Sure, sometimes it’s a sentimental thing, because the number of pips add up to an anniversary date, a birthday, or some other personal touchstone. But more often than not, we favor a hand because we remember winning big with it sometime in the past. Nobody would blame Doyle Brunson if he said his favorite hand was 10-2, but you still don’t see him actually playing the hand all that often. And if Doyle Brunson, as brilliant as he is, knows that he can’t win consistently by playing a weak hand like 10-2 — no matter how spectacularly successful the hand has been for him in the past — who are we to think we can play substandard, sentimental-favorite hands and expect to win?

But if momentum can encourage us to overplay hands just because we happened to win big with them before, it can also induce us to underplay hands that are known to be profitable, just because we haven’t been winning with them recently. The classic example (which almost all of us have been guilty of at one time or another) is not raising before the flop with premium cards such as Aces, Kings, or A-K when we haven’t been running well with them lately. Yeah, sure, there are some scenarios where it’s correct to slowplay premium hands before the flop, but those scenarios are few and far between. Like the momentum investor who can’t sell a stock fast enough because the price fell five points last week, we merely limp with aces because we remember vividly how our Aces got cracked last time. Or we limp with A-K when we know the pot should be raised, because the last several times we were dealt A-K it never connected with the board and we always had to fold.

The cards have no memory. It’s one of poker’s most famous axioms and it’s absolutely true. But we do. We remember previous hands — how these cards worked out for us and those cards didn’t, how this opponent got lucky against us and that opponent never has. Remembering and analyzing the action from previous hands is a critical part of being a skilled poker player. But our memories can also betray us. Whether it’s warm-and-fuzzy memories of victory or nauseating flashbacks of failure, if the past intrudes into the present and causes us to misjudge the value of a hand or the profitability of a play, that’s the moment we become victims of our own momentum.

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So you’re doing great. You’re at the $2/5 no limit table and you are ruling. You sat down with $300, doubled up in the first ten minutes when your AK improved to top two pair. You had someone call you down on your shove on the turn, and the river was a blank. Then just four hands later, when you were on the button, you got to be the fifth one in for a limp, with a suited ace. Two of your suit came up on the flop and you called for $75. On the turn it was checked to you. You semi-bluffed with a $200 bet with your four-flush, got a big stack caller, then hit your flush on the river. The card gave him trips and you nearly doubled up again as he called your over excited bluff-looking shove on the river. In fewer than 30 minutes you are sitting with over $1100, having started with $300. Not too shabby.

But novice and even intermediate poker players beware. Nice as it is to begin your poker session with a rush like this, there are risks involved. Inexperienced and moderately experienced players can be thrown by the early win in a way that threatens to steal back their gains and then reach into and dispose of the rest of their playing bankroll.

The risk is simple – though not necessarily easy to avoid. It is the risk that the newly enriched stack, large as it is, will affect your judgment by distorting your ability to see what is really important when making critical strategy decisions at the table. Let’s continue the story above and see it as a cautionary tale.

Having started with $300, due to a couple of quick and large wins, you’re now up $800, with $1100 in chips. You are the big stack at the table. You are giddy from your success. A tight player in early position with a couple of hundred dollars raises to $25. Everyone folds to you. You have Q 7. Though you would normally fold this trash, you figure you might as well call, with all of those chips in front of you. Who knows, you might catch Q7 on the flop and take this guy’s stack too.

Sure enough, the flop is helpful. Q J 3. You’ve flopped top pair. He checks, you slide out a couple of green chips for $50. He shoves in his stack for another $175 more. Even if you lose you realize that it won’t make a huge reduction in your wins. Before you have a chance to really think about things you hear yourself say “call”. He immediately flips over QJ. The turn and river don’t help you, and you’re stack is now down to $900. You say to yourself that you’re still up $600.

You tell yourself that you have to tighten up – not get too loose, so you’re assured of not depleting your big stack. So you tighten up some – folding a few hands in a row. But your big stack and your earlier rush is still getting to you. You’re impatient. You get J J, raise to $25 in early position and get re-popped from the cutoff to $75 by the big blind – a very tough player with a big stack. You call, not to be intimidated and hoping for trips. You figure you’ve still got over $500 to play with and still be even for the session. The flop is Q 6 2. You are afraid of the Queen but don’t want to show weakness or give a free card. You bet $75 and get raised to $200. You think that this guy is trying to run you off a hand. You will still be up $325 even if you lose. So you call. The turn is the 6. You figure you better check, in case he has a Queen. He bets $400. You figure you could still win with another spade or a Jack. You’d still be close to even if you lost. So you call again. You have him outstacked, you realize, with about $100 more than his stack – about $425 to his $325 or so. The river is the 3, making the board Q 6 2 6 3. You’ve hit your flush. You shove, and get called instantly. He flips over his two black Kings, showing his winning flush, and you’re left with $100.

You can’t believe you just went through not only your huge winnings but nearly your entire stack. You’re disgusted, grab your few chips, and rage off.

Of course the specifics may be different from your experience, but I’ve seen this very story unfold in front of my eyes on more than one occasion. Let’s look back and see what went wrong.

The primary error was that the actor in the story repeatedly made decisions based on his stack size – judging whether to call, fold or raise not on his thoughts about the hand itself or on his opponent’s motivation for betting, but rather, based on how much he thought he would be up or down for the session. At first he decided to call with a hand he should have folded – just because he had a lot of chips. Mistake. Then we saw him repeatedly think about his stack size and winnings when deciding whether the risk was worth the cost of a call or a raise. This too was a mistake.

While it’s important to consider relative stack size when figuring implied odds – or when pondering the psychological effect of a bet on an opponent – how much you may or may not be up for the session is practically irrelevant. Yet repeatedly, this guy was looking at proper strategy through the distorting prism of his newly increased stack size. This lens magnified the irrelevant, diminished the important, and distracted from the significant, causing him to reach the wrong conclusions.

The way to fight the potentially toxic affect of a large early win is simple – though it may not be easy for you. If you are not yet experienced, thick-skinned, or otherwise mentally tough enough to resist the distractions of a large early rush, I suggest that you leave the table for at least a short while – to consider what has happened and to dedicate yourself to playing solid poker. Leaving the table will give your emotions and good judgment the time necessary for them to reset back to their normally stable condition. So “normalized” you can come back and continue to take advantage of players who, under normal circumstances, are relatively easy pickings.

Related posts:

1. The Risks of Losing at Poker
2. Winning the Big One
3. Winning Poker Tournaments – Perspectives on Volume & Variance

Culling the Shots at the Poker Table

Picture a man, sitting on a hillside. He has a gun and he’s firing random shots at the side of a barn some yards away. Before long, the wall of the barn will be riddled with bullet holes. Despite the randomness of the shooter’s aim, the holes will be unevenly distributed. Inevitably, there will be gaps and clusters. If he wants, the shooter can walk up to the barn and paint a circle around the biggest cluster of bullet holes. To the casual observer, it will now appear that the man is a terrific sharpshooter. This is known as the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Now imagine you’re at the poker table, sitting in the cutoff seat. The action is folded to you as you look down at the AQ. You open with a standard raise and the button – an aggressive, trash-talking, chip-shoving blockhead re-raises. Folded back around to you and after a few raises back and forth, the two of you finally see a flop, which arrives Q84. Faster than you can say “pot-committed” all the chips are in the middle and the cards are on their backs. Your opponent shows a pair of red kings. He has you covered.

But you still have many outs and a good shot at taking down this huge pot. Your blockhead opponent knows this too and yet he cannot hide his disappointment when one of your outs, the A, spikes on the turn. You almost feel sorry for him; all the swaggering bluster has gone out of him now. He’s just a another poor player about to lose most of his stack, ironically on one of the few occasions he had a real hand that he played well. Of course, there is still one more card to come but now your opponent’s chances are reduced to just one solitary out – the king of clubs. Any other card on the river and victory will be yours. You make a nervous joke about dodging a one-outer as the dealer peels off the final card, and there it is. The king of clubs. The blockhead pumps his fist and erupts with more colorful trash talk as he rakes in the massive pot.

Many, if not most, poker players in this scenario would feel that something personal had been at work in this particular loss. There was only one out in the entire deck that could snatch away victory and give it to your enemy. One! A 44-to-1 shot! Maybe you jinxed it, tempted fate with that joking comment about dodging one-outers. Maybe, in a situation like that, it’s hard not to believe that the poker gods were exercising some sort of personal vendetta, determined to make you lose against an obnoxious, much-inferior opponent.

But if you allow yourself to think like this, you’re only looking at a small part of the picture. You’re painting a circle around one bullet hole on the side of a barn. Yes, that king of clubs was a 44-to-1 shot to spike on the river. But the same can be said for any other final card. If the river card had been the 2, that also would have been a 44-to-1 shot to get there. Each and every time the river is dealt – every out that rescues you, every card that crushes you, every meaningless brick – that card must overcome long odds to arrive when and where it does. They’re all bullet holes on the side of the barn. You draw a circle around the king of clubs because that’s the bullet that went to your heart. But it’s still just one random hole among a multitude. Nothing personal about it.

Poker players are forever drawing a circle around some random cluster and then declaring it a bullseye. Every time we complain, “I never win coinflips” or “I can never win with this dealer” or “Idiot opponents always suck out on me” – we are just as guilty as the would-be sharpshooter of trying to make a meaningful pattern out of randomness. Objectively, rationally, most of us know these things aren’t true. We don’t always lose coinflips and the morons don’t always suck out. It just feels that way sometimes. But no matter how many coinflips you’ve lost recently, or how important they were, it’s still just a nasty little cluster of arbitrary holes.

Fixate on that narrow bit of data, stand too close to the barn, and you only get a partial, myopic view of what’s really going on. But if you step away, view the building from a distance, the cluster loses its significance. Loses its power to make you feel as though fate has singled you out to be a victim.

The real danger happens when we allow these I’m-so-unlucky beliefs to influence our play. If a poker player is convinced he can never (or almost never) win a race – and then is faced with a borderline decision to shove his chips on a likely coinflip, can he make the correct choice without the wussifying influence of fear? Can the poker player who feels that it’s his special curse to get unlucky against morons continue to play his best game when he finds himself in a hand against one of those overly-fortunate idiots? When the answer is no, losing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Weak-tightness creeps in, as we don’t get enough value out of our winners, fold hands that would have been winners, and perhaps worst of all, fail to protect hands that should have been winners. What poker player hasn’t ever been guilty of failing to bet or raise enough with a made hand because we were half-convinced the idiot opponent was going to suck out anyway? Fearing a loss, we end up guaranteeing it.

But the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy isn’t just about the way we view bad luck. We’re often just as guilty of painting a circle around a few chosen bullet holes when the cards are falling in our favor. Belief in good luck is dangerous too. “I always win coinflips” is every bit as fallacious as “I never win coinflips” and just as expensive, if not more so, if even once that belief coaxes you to put your money in bad. Yes, it’s good to have confidence as long as that confidence is rooted in genuine skill. But the poker player who comes to the battle believing he is going to prevail because “I always win with <insert favorite junk hand here>” is asking for trouble.

It’s a matter of perspective. By drawing a virtual circle around a few chosen bits of information – a handful of bad beats here, a lucky break there – we can convince ourselves of almost anything. And like the ersatz sharpshooter, it’s all about making ourselves look better than we really are. Looking back on a tough losing streak, we paint a circle around the bad luck and disregard the bad plays. Or after a big winning session, we paint a circle around the great plays and ignore the hands where we got lucky. It’s soothing , it’s reassuring, and it’s a trap. Every time we do this, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

Related posts:

1. The Front-Loaded Nature of Texas Hold’em

While everyone has their own favorite online poker sites, most players can agree on which TV shows offer the best presentation of and insight into the game. I listed my top 5 favorites in my previous article ‘The Best Poker TV Shows Ever Made‘.

Of course, for every classic TV show, there are a dozen failures. Poker shows are no exception, especially ones that try to go “behind the scenes” or tell the “real story”.

Here are some of the worst poker TV shows ever made:

#5: PokerStars.Net Million Dollar Challenge (Fox)

Fox typically airs their hybrid poker tournament/slick game show on the Sundays that they don’t carry a late-afternoon NFL game. The overeager host, the overcaffeinated Daniel Negreanu, and the generally poor play of both the contestants and the celebrity opponents can make this show a trial to watch.

The contestants all come with backstories straight out of Central Casting:

• A priest trying to raise money for his church.
• A New York cop who survived the fall of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11
• A college student/single mom playing for her young son.

While the human-interest stories are a nice change of pace from the grizzled rounders and online hotshots, the treacly treatments given to the contestants are often overbearing.

#4 ClubWPT.com (Fox Sports Net)

This failed experiment from the WPT producers has to feature some of the worst poker action in recorded history. The amateur players apparently luckboxed their way from a free online tournament onto a national TV show. The players in this show make Paris Hilton look like Doyle Brunson. The worst part is that the show functions less as a poker tournament and more of an infomercial for the website.

#3: Face the Ace (NBC)

Another example of how networks force the game show format onto a poker show. Much like ClubWPT.com and the Million Dollar Challenge, the players won their way onto the show through online freerolls – always the hallmark of poker talent – and chose one of four Full Tilt Poker pros that they could face in heads-up matches.

The show actually saw its ratings fall during the first episode. Some of the blame for the show’s failure after seven episodes can be attributed to host Steve Schirippa laying on his “Sopranos” act thicker than a concrete overcoat.

#2: 2 Months 2 Million (G4TV)

Have you ever wondered how the cast of “Revenge of the Nerds” would have turned out if they were young internet poker players? Wonder no more! This abysmal “reality” show depicts four young online poker geeks sharing a house in Las Vegas in preparation for the WSOP.

The young players attempt to earn $2 million in two months playing nosebleed-stakes online cash games. They also try to be the “cool kids” that they never were in high school. Check out the clip above to see how these guys interact with real live Playboy Playmates!

#1: Tilt (ESPN)

You would think that the network that produces the WSOP, along with the writers of the seminal poker movie “Rounders”, would know how to put together a fictional poker TV show. Wrong! This inchoate mess mixed in a crooked casino boss with a young player struggling with his “daddy issues”. The poker action was minimal at best and had almost no impact on the overall story. Mercifully, it “folded” after nine episodes.

Which poker TV shows are on your DVD shopping list? Feel free to post your take on the best and worst poker TV shows.

Related posts:

1. The Best Poker TV Shows Ever Made
2. The Worst Poker Movies Ever Made

I go to Las Vegas every year to participate in the World Series of Poker. I find even the thin possibility of winning a World Series of Poker bracelet to be a sufficient lure to justify the relatively large upfront expense and the relatively small chance of success. It also gives me an opportunity to reunite with my many friends and associates in the poker world. The World Series is kind of like a convention for poker players. I haven’t missed one for over ten years.

I typically aim for the $1,500 to $2,500 stud and H.O.R.S.E. events rather than the Main Event. They suit my pocketbook, my skill set, and my schedule. I tell myself that if I win one, I’ll use the winnings to buy myself into the main event. That’s the only way I can really justify taking the time off work, flying my wife out to Las Vegas, and spending the $11,000 or so for the entrance fee and the expenses connected to staying in Las Vegas for a week or two beyond my expected departure. This longshot parlay possibility keeps alive the dream of ultimate poker glory.

Not so this year. This year I decided to alter my plans. I aimed higher.

The prize I sought this year was nothing less than leaving a good impression on my younger daughter Hannah. She was a university student in Philadelphia who had recently turned 21. I decided that I would do my best to impress her with a trip to Las Vegas during the poker-rich time of the World Series of Poker.

Accordingly, I decided to go first class – well, at least in a slightly more elevated style than my typical low rent way of going to Las Vegas. Instead of looking for the cheapest room, I booked one right at the Rio – ground zero for the WSOP. I wanted us to be where the action was so I could conveniently show her around, introduce her to my many friends in the poker industry, and have her fully appreciate the thrill of world class poker.

Instead of booking a super-cheap sub-compact car I splurged for the next size up. Though I typically do not distract myself with any of Las Vegas’ many forms of entertainment, this time I indulged myself by buying seats for both the spectacular aquatic Cirque de Soleil show at the Bellagio and Penn & Teller at the Rio.

Similarly, when it came to food I avoided my typical poor man’s rations of Roberto’s tacos and Vietnamese noodle soup. My daughter and I dined instead at the lovely Bellagio Café, at a fine Indian Restaurant at the Rio, at a great all-you-can-eat Sushi restaurant in Las Vegas’ wonderful Chinatown, and at a fine Ethiopian Restaurant. I wanted my daughter to have, literally, an excellent taste of what Las Vegas had to offer.

When it came to poker, I decided that the typical $1,500 stud event in the World Series of Poker would not do for this trip. I wanted something better, richer, and more meaningful for us to experience. I wanted an event that we could both enjoy and that I actually had a fair chance of at least cashing in. Better to enter a small tournament, with relatively weak opposition, in an environment where my relatively inexperienced daughter would not be overwhelmed or intimidated.

And so, I entered us into the smallest poker tournament I could find – the 6:00 PM no limit hold’em event at Poker Palace. Never heard of the place? No matter. That’s what I was looking for – a place that few if any experienced tournament players would come to. I wanted a place frequented by beatable locals who play to have fun, get free drinks, and get out of the house.

Such a place is Poker Palace. It is in North Las Vegas in a largely Mexican community that appears forgotten by those focused on the glitzy strip or even the somewhat rehabilitated Downtown. The casinos on this side of the city are largely unheard of by the tourists or even regulars who are seen at the more popular poker rooms like the Bellagio, Caesar’s, the Venetian, or Binions. These places have names that are, at best, only vaguely familiar: The Opera House, the Silver Nugget, Jerry’s Nugget and of course Poker Palace.

We arrived early, signed up, got our seats, and found ourselves among 40 contestants. I spoke briefly with the floorman right before the event began. Sure enough, every single player but my daughter and I were regulars. They were friendly, drinking, happy gamblers out to have a good time. They were just the type of opponents I wanted for my daughter’s first poker tournament. They might also be the type of opponents who would give me a legitimate chance to do well and impress Hannah.

The first pleasant surprise was that with four tables nestled closely together, I got to watch my daughter play! She was seated facing me, just one table over. She looked intimidating, sitting erect in her chair, her serious expression remaining immobile on her face as she played. She seemed to do great, folding weak hands and betting purposefully when she entered a pot – usually for a raise. She lasted through the first break, her stack at slightly higher than par. I did okay myself, with about the same stack size as she.

Though we were told that the event usually lasted just two hours or so, they didn’t consolidate down to three tables until just about 150 minutes into the event. Hannah remained an active and moderately successful player throughout. Thirty minutes later when we were reduced to two tables, she was moved to my table, four seats to my left.

My stack continued to grow, as I knocked out a couple of the old timers. My daughter departed in 17th place – beating the five other women who entered the tournament and 18 men besides. She took her place on the rail where she conversed with a couple of the guys who had been knocked out but who were remaining to watch their friends.

At four hours we were reduced to a final table. I had a median stack and proposed a chop – eager to end the game so I could spend time with my daughter. All but the two large stacks were willing. So we played on. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes I knocked out two players, re-proposing a chop each time. At least one player objected so we continued to play on.

Finally, at four hours and twenty minutes, when it got down to just three of us, and our stacks were relatively even (I had slightly fewer chips than either of them), I proposed a chop again. One of my opponents, a sulking local chap, declined. On the very next hand, with two deuces, I shoved in my entire stack. Each opponent called. The first revealed AJ, the second KQ. The flop, turn and river didn’t help them. I tripled up and left my two opponents with barely enough chips for the next round of antes and blinds. Though I was almost surely going to win the $350 first place prize, to show that I was still eager to end matters quickly, I once again offered to chop – $250 for me and $200 for each of them. They both accepted.

Just as I was starting to second guess myself for not playing it out and taking the entire first place prize, my daughter congratulated me. She had been paying attention. She was pleased that I had won. But what really seemed to impress her was my willingness to consistently make the offer to end the tournament rather than change my tune when I had the large chip advantage. She told me that she really enjoyed the fact that I was seemingly more interested in being consistent and offering a chop to my opponents than in extracting the maximum amount of money by insisting on playing it out – once I had the large chip lead. She saw that as taking a principled position – one that she told me she respected.

It’s true that this was the smallest tournament in Las Vegas and a distant cry from winning a WSOP bracelet and all of its attendant glory. But in winning this tiny $20 tournament at Poker Palace I won the biggest prize imaginable, my daughter’s admiration and respect.

Related posts:

1. The Risks of Winning at Poker
2. Winning Poker Tournaments – Perspectives on Volume & Variance

As poker players we should all be familiar with probability. After all it is the underpinning of the game and permits us to know what is a good bet. The most often used reason for utilizing probability in poker is to answer the question… do the pot odds being offered warrant pursuing our draw? Many poker players are math fanatics while others have a general feel for the game and know approximately what their correct drawing odds should total.

While probability may well be the underpinning of successful poker, do you use or think of probability in every day life? Probability is more than knowing what the odds are to make your flush. Probability is the numerical assessment of the likelihood of an event occurring. If you absolutely know an event will not occur, it has a zero probability of happening. Conversely, if you absolutely know that an event will occur, it has a probability of one hundred percent. Everything else is somewhere between those two parameters but can be quantified numerically. This assessment is our way to attempt to define the indefinable.

Many times people are in awe of unusual coincidences but aren’t they mathematically measurable? Yes they are and in this article we’ll examine a few coincidences and put them into probability perspective. One fairly well known coincidence revolves around people in a group having a common birthday. If you get a group of twenty three people together more than half the time you will find two people with the same exact birthday. Does this surprise you? Many people find this astounding because they reason that there are 365 days in a year and once you know the first person’s birthday, then the second person still has 364 days that won’t match and the third person has 363 non matching days. So how can this proposition occur more than fifty percent of the time with a group of twenty three or more participants?

The mathematics involve aggregation which, in the case of the birthday problem, becomes aggregated coincidence. I will not spend three paragraphs walking you through the math which has been recorded many times (if you’re interested in the math then read Wolfram Mathworld) but I will let you in on the secret of why this problem is not nearly as astonishing as it first may seem. Aggregation can take place in many ways. In the birthday riddle, the question is not … will someone else within the group of twenty three people match your birthday but rather will any two people within the group have matching birthdays? This distinction makes a huge difference.

Similar to the way the birthday problem is viewed is how some poker players view drawing to an inside straight in hold’em. While it is true that once you flop an inside straight the odds against making it are about 5-to-1. However, those are the odds if you see (and pay) for both the turn card and the river card. Some players use the 5-to-1 odds to convince themselves to call the turn and when they don’t hit, and the odds for making the straight with only one card to come jumps to 11-to-1, they fold. Just as matching a specific birthday versus having any two match… our poker hero should be using the one card to go odds instead of an aggregation which only fools him into believing his bet on the turn was a good one.

Another interesting element of probability theory revolves around what is called the Inspection Paradox. Let’s imagine that you live in New York City near a subway station that you use to commute to work each day. The Transit Authority states that a train stops at your station every fifteen minutes. You make the assumption that you arrive, on average, in the middle of the interval between trains, so that although you will have to wait shorter or longer, over the long haul you should only, on average, have to wait seven and a half minutes.

While your assumption seems logical, in reality you almost always wait longer. How can that be if the average is seven and a half minutes? Let’s inspect the paradox to understand it. The reality of the train schedule is that sometimes a train may arrive in only five minutes and in other situations it may take twenty minutes or more. The paradox is that the probability of you arriving in the middle of a long interval is greater than you arriving in the middle of a short interval. This means that when you leave your house the average time you will have to wait is seven and a half minutes but the reality, once you get there, is your wait will be longer. This may be similar to knowing that a wired pair will flop a set nearly twelve percent of the time… unless you are the one holding the pair. At least it seems that way!

There are another group of coincidences that occur and prompt the saying of “Wow, it’s a small world.” Have you ever been to a business conference, traveling on a plane or even sitting at a poker table full of strangers? I know that reading this article on Pokerology.com that the last part of the question would elicit a positive response. While participating in one of these endeavors, you begin to chat with a total stranger and learn that his father went to school with your father or his sister knows your cousin or some other link to the two of you which you find to be amazing.

Actually, it turns out that these type of coincidences are similar to the birthday problem. The difference is there is only one person instead of a group of twenty three to which the coincidence needs to occur. So now we have one person but the elements of coincidence are almost infinite. The element that helps promote these coincidences and make them less spectacular than they first appear is that you are interacting with a stranger with built in connections. If you’re at a business conference you share some similarities in background just as you would as a plane traveler or a poker player. Of course, the more gregarious you are the higher the percentage becomes that you will discover a coincidence. If you are shy and reserved and tend not to interact with strangers, then it becomes more difficult to be amazed by how small a world it really is.

Man has always been fascinated by probability and chance. Events that appear to be paradoxes are sometimes amazing, always entertaining and make great fodder for the raconteur. Who doesn’t enjoy a tale of a coincidence that makes you shake your head in awe? However, once you put probability theory to work and analyze these coincidences, they begin to lose their awe inspiring essence.

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I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes – Carl Sandburg

Humans behave irrationally when making economic decisions. This notion is central to the study of behavioral finance. And nowhere is that irrationality more evident than when it comes to the sunk cost effect. This effect describes the human tendency to continue with an endeavor once we’ve invested money, time, or effort into it. We do this regardless of whether or not the endeavor is currently to our benefit. Because we don’t want that money, time, and effort we’ve put in to go to waste, the sunk cost effect compels us to stubbornly follow through on things that are not only no longer helping us, but have actually begun to hurt us.

Let’s start with a simple non-poker example. You walk into an ice-cream parlor to get an elaborate (and expensive) hot fudge sundae that you’ve been craving ever since you saw it in a TV commercial. Halfway through eating the sundae, you start to feel sick. Do you stop eating and throw the rest away? It’s too late to get your money back and you can’t exactly take it home in a doggie bag. Or do you keep eating, feeling obligated to finish the massive sundae because you don’t want the money you spent to go to waste? Wolfing down the rest of the sundae won’t bring back one penny of your money, and indeed may end up costing you more in the form of lost time, lost pleasure, and antacids.

Or say you buy stock in Acme Answering Machines and for the first year or two the value of the company shoots up as people all over the world are buying Acme’s awesome answering machines. Then just as quickly, the company’s stock plummets as answering machines lose massive chunks of market share to voice mail and call-forwarding. Do you sell your stock at a loss, accepting the harsh reality that this company is no longer a good investment? Or do you stubbornly hang on, determined not to sell any shares until you can sell at a profit, or at least what you originally paid, somehow convincing yourself that answering machines are on the brink of a major comeback.

Of course these are both hypotheitcals, but in situations like this every day, all over the world, it’s amazing how many people will go for Option B, tenaciously sticking with something long after it’s clearly not working out for them. The sunk cost effect is to blame. So great is our aversion to losing money that we’ll do almost anything – eat food that makes us sick, hang onto an investment that’s an obvious dud, keep pouring more cash into a project that should be abandoned – rather than admit the money we spent was wasted.

But no matter what decision you make at this point, the money you spent before is gone. It’s sunk. Nothing you can do now will ever bring that money back, so the only decision that makes sense is one that’s based on what is best for you right now and for your future.

There are many ways the sunk cost effect can influence us at the poker table, but the first and most obvious has to do with the money we put into the pot. On any given betting round, you should always consider the size of the pot. And you should consider what it will cost you to stay in the hand on this and future betting rounds. What you shouldn’t consider is how much of the current pot came out of your stack. Whatever money you put into the pot during previous rounds is a sunk cost.

For example, you’re playing $10/$20 limit hold’em and you raise from UTG with pocket jacks. Your only caller is a loose-passive player in the big blind. You put him on a big ace. The flop falls 2-5-8 rainbow and he check-calls your bet. The turn brings an ace and your opponent bets out. In deciding what to do, you need to think about the $85 currently in the pot and the $20 it’s going to cost you to call. You need to think about the likelihood of another bet from your opponent on the river, how confident you are in your read that he has an ace, and of course you need to think about your outs – both of them. But the one factor you shouldn’t consider in this scenario is how you put $40 into that $85 pot. As soon as those chips hit the middle of the table, they ceased to be yours. You might be able to win that money, but you cannot lose it.

The harmful ramifications of sunk cost effect go beyond the simple economics of the pot. Money isn’t the only thing we invest in poker. We also invest a lot of time and effort, and naturally we’d like to see some kind of a positive return on these investments. The time and work you put into a poker session is a prime example. While you’re sitting at the table, you’re busting your tuchus trying to read opponents, interpret betting patterns, calculate odds, figure outs, and evaluate all the many other variables going on around you – all in a noble effort to make the correct decision when it’s your turn to act.

But as we all know from bitter experience, sometimes you can play your heart out, make all the right decisions, and still lose. And all the blood, sweat, and tears – not to mention lost money – that has gone into the poker session is a cluster of sunk cost. The only real return you might have gained comes from whatever you’ve learned during the session. If you’ve acquired any new insight about the game or about an opponent, that’s your compensation. But don’t expect more. If you stay and keep playing when you would otherwise quit – because you’re tired, tilting, or game conditions have deteriorated – purely because you expect to get something positive in return for everything you’ve poured into this particular session, then you’ve fallen victim to the sunk cost effect.

The decision to leave the game or keep playing should be based solely on what’s in your best interest right now. Are you still playing well? Are the game conditions still favorable? If the honest answer to both those questions is yes, keep playing. If the answer to either question is no, you should quit. This is simple and self-evident, and yet even the most intelligent poker player can get lost in the sunk cost effect. It’s a potent effect because we have such a powerful emotional attachment to believing that our money, time, and effort have been well-spent.

Particularly in the case of money, whatever we paid becomes a threshold – the price of a stock, the amount of a buy-in. We don’t want to move on until we’ve crossed over the threshold, but if you’re not careful the sunk cost effect can turn that threshold into a barrier, holding you back.

Related posts:

1. Women in Poker: A “Honey-Maker” Effect?
2. Opportunity Costs at the Poker Table

Most poker fans will agree on the two major factors that contributed to the poker boom of recent years: online poker and TV poker shows. Not only has the customer base for online poker exploded in the last eight years, the sheer amount of TV poker content has also expanded. In a five-hundred-channel universe that must fill its voracious twenty-four hour programming schedule, poker shows have become nearly as omnipresent as late-night infomercials.

Here are some of the best US-based poker TV shows:

#5: Doubles Poker Championships (Game Show Network)

GSN’s “Doubles Poker Championship” is probably the most unique poker show on TV. Instead of playing against each other, players must cooperate as duos win a four-team single-table tournament. The format presents challenges for the player beyond reading a single opponent: each player must also understand his partner’s moves, as well as both members of the opposing teams.

The fun for the viewers often comes less from the stellar poker play the pros exhibit, but the clash in personalities among these strong characters. If Phil Hellmuth is a sore loser when he only has to depend on his own ability, imagine the meltdowns he has when a teammate lets him down.

#4: Poker After Dark (NBC)

The presentation style of “Poker After Dark” comes across much more as a high-stakes home game rather than a high-pressure winner-take-all tournament. Players are often looser and more given to table talk… at least according to Phil Hellmuth. Speaking of Hellmuth blowups, the clip above shows how the “Poker Brat” starts comparing the show to the “World Wide Wrestling Federation”.

The players take the game seriously (sometimes too much) and the commentary is insightful and educational. “PAD” is without question the best poker show on any of the major broadcast networks.

#3: World Poker Tour (Fox Sports Net)

Over the last eight years, the World Poker Tour has been one of the pillars of TV poker programming. With a new tournament nearly every week, the WPT has produced more poker content than any other regular poker show. The graphics and presentation in each broadcast give the tournaments a dramatic feel, in spite of some of the corniest commentary seen this side of Norman Chad.

For the last few years, the show has been hopping networks. Starting at the Travel Channel in 2003, then moving to Game Show Network in 2007, and later to Fox Sports Net. The FSN format split each two-hour show into two one-hour episodes, making it harder to follow the action

#2: World Series of Poker (ESPN)

The familiar guitar twang of the intro has carried the “Grandaddy of them All” from the run-down rooms of Binion’s on Fremont Street all the way to the spacious Amazon Room at the Rio. ESPN’s coverage of each year’s WSOP is still the measuring stick for every other TV poker show.

Despite the ratings decline in recent years and criticisms over the commentary (“I believe they are the ‘Ramblin’ Wreck’!”), the WSOP will remain the most popular TV poker show for the foreseeable future.

#1: High Stakes Poker (Game Show Network)

Although the WSOP has the glamour and prestige, GSN’s “High Stakes Poker” has the best in-game action of any poker TV show. The main difference between “High Stakes” and the other poker shows is that it shows real cash-game action, rather than a tournament. Players will often throw bundles of hundred-dollar bills in a pot along with their chips. The visual impact of seeing a player toss in enough cash to equal six months’ salary cannot be underestimated.

Of course, for every classic TV show, there are a dozen failures. Poker shows are no exception, especially ones that try to go “behind the scenes” or tell the “real story”. I’ll cover those in the follow-up to this article.

Related posts:

1. The Worst Poker TV Shows Ever Made

We all know the obvious risk of losing at poker. The risk is you lose your money and go broke. Big revelation. Some insightful poker theorist I am. But there’s more – much more to consider when it comes to the risks of losing.

Aside from the most obvious, I have identified three distinct risks from losing that may affect your poker game – and then their antidote. Let’s take them all in turn.

#1. Loss of self control (steaming):

Self control is one of the twin towers of winning play (the other being correct poker strategy). Knowing the correct move for the situation is absolutely irrelevant if you don’t have the self control to execute it. If, for example, you have a well defined and winning list of starting hands to suit your situation but you are too impatient to fold the hands that aren’t on your list, then it hardly matters if you have a list of correct starting hands in the first place.

Losing puts that self control at risk. In its most apparent manifestation a player loses a lot and then goes on tilt – unable to keep his inner demons from corrupting his optimal game. The deeper he sinks into the red, the less self control he has. He enters what I call a “death spiral” of bad decisions, more losses, and decreasing control – ending only when he has run through his entire bankroll or leaves the room.

Antidote: Loss Limit

A loss limit is the setting of a predetermined amount of money that, once lost, is a trigger for you to leave the game, no matter how good or bad you believe the game to be. So, for example, if you are a $2/5 no limit player, you might set your loss limit as two complete buy-ins of $500. If you lose $1,000 you leave – no matter what.

Admittedly, this goes against the strategy that has you continue to play poker as long as you gauge the game to be good. But it acknowledges that when you have lost this amount of money you may not be good enough to beat the game.

Not everyone falls victim to a loss of self control when they have lost a considerable sum of money. A small percentage of us are experienced, even tempered, or skillful enough to be able to maintain our best game even when we are losing. For these players this antidote doesn’t make sense. Stay as long as the game is good, play your optimal game, and all will be well. Still, for the rest of you, setting a loss limit makes sense – to stem the losses before a lack of self control has you losing everything you have..

#2. Futility

This is a variation of steaming, but it has a unique flavor. Losing sometimes triggers a sense of futility. Once you lose a lot of money, you become more willing to shove in your remaining money even if you know it’s not likely to be profitable for you to do so. Here’s a real world example of what might happen.

You bring $1,000 to a $2/5 no limit game at your friendly neighborhood poker room. You optimistically buy in for the maximum of $500. You’re tight at first, and hit a long string of hands that you deem unplayable. Your stack sinks to $450 or so in the first 15 minutes as you literally fold everything that isn’t a blind. But you’re no rookie – so you’re not worried.

You finally get a playable hand – two black Queens in early position. You raise to $25 – perhaps a little too exuberantly because of your early drought. You get a caller on the button – and the big blind calls too. The flop is A J 3. The small blind checks. You hesitate a bit as you wonder if either of your opponents has an Ace, and then you bet $75. Both opponents surprise you by calling. The turn is 9. The board is now A J 3 9. The big blind bets $100. You wonder why he makes such a small bet. The growing pot, now about $400, tempts you. You think about whether he might be pushing a flush draw; you think it’s more likely he had a weak Ace and just made two pair. Or maybe he started with J9? You’re not sure. But for $100 you’ve got to see the bet. So you call as does the third player. The Q hits on the river, making the board A J 3 9 Q. The big blind checks. You have just hit trip Queens, but you’re worried about a flush or even a straight so you check. The third player bets $300. The big blind pauses a long time and then calls. You think you’re probably beaten – in fact maybe third best. Still, you look at your trip Queens and think about all the hands that they could beat. You realize that the third player may have just been betting his position, figuring to steal the pot with trash. The big blind may be calling with a hand as weak as two pair just to stop the steal. And you have two pair beaten. You’re have to kill yourself if you folded a winner when getting 4:1 pot odds on your call. So you call. You lose to a flush and Jacks up.

You don’t throw your cards or have a tantrum, but you’re very upset. You are pissed that you started out ahead but failed to win the pot on the river when you hit trips. You see the poor play of your opponents and are convinced you’re the best player at the table. Armed with this thought you buy in again for $500 – determined to make back what you’ve lost and then push on to at least doubling your bankroll for the day.

You win a few small pots with large raises that force everyone else out. And then you lose a couple of hands much like the first one – starting out ahead, playing correctly, correctly putting your opponents on hands, and then getting outdrawn on the river. Despite your skillful play your stack goes down to $200.

It’s now seven hours into the session. You’re tired, and angry, and at the same time a bit numb from being down. You realize that with only $200, it’s highly unlikely that you will finish the session even – and a near impossibility that you’ll end up reaching your initial goal of winning $1,000. You didn’t bring any more money – and you are very wary of borrowing money or using the high-vig credit card machines. You stick around because you figure there’s still a chance you can turn things around – convinced as you are that you’re at a great table. You’re not on tilt.

You’re dealt five or six unplayable hands and then get A9 in the cutoff seat. There’s a raise in early position to $25 from a loose and wild player – and then another loose player, with a huge stack, pushes in $75. You figure that you’re just about ready to go home anyway – and you only have $200 – so you might as well get as much bang for the hand as possible – so you shove for the entire $200. Everyone folds but the three-better who calls you and then flips over his black Queens. You don’t improve, you lose the hand, your stack, and your bankroll for the day. You’re done. You leave, walk up to a credit card machine that charges 7% juice plus a $10 fee. You have the sense to shake your head and leave, disgusted with yourself and with poker.

Had you won early on you might have been fine. You would have continued to use your skills and may well have finished up $1,000 against what were probably players inferior to you. But when you got down to your final $200 you essentially gave up – flinging it in carelessly (had you used your good poker skills you would have realized that you were either a small underdog if the re-raiser was raising with a medium or small pair, a huge underdog if the re-raiser had a bigger Ace, or a medium underdog if the raiser had a big pair.)

Your sense of futility at being down to your last $200 prompted you to lose it thoughtlessly.

Antidote: Leave with a short stack

If your stack is short, and you’re either unable or disinclined to buy back in for a full stack, leave.

#3. Desperation

For some players, losing money triggers an uncontrollable desire to get back to even for that session. There may be real world reasons for this. They may not be able to afford to lose money, or they may owe money they must repay. For whatever reason, when they are down a certain amount, their desire to play is controlled by their desperate need to win back what they’ve lost.

Typically, to do this they become more aggressive – taking more chances than they would be taking if they were playing their optimal game. In their desperate hunt for a stack restoring large pot, they’ll throw in their chips without the proper pot or implied odds.

At their worst, they’ll move up to a higher stakes game, figuring that it’s the only way they can make back quickly what they lost elsewhere. The results are sometimes positive. Sometimes, a $2/5 no limit player, down $1,500 for the session, can move up to $5/10 or $10/25 no limit game, play wildly, get lucky, and win back his losses. It does happen. More often than not, however, it is a sure route to the poor house – as skillful poker players eat his sad lunch.

Antidote: Leave and consider giving up gambling

Of all the risks to losing, this one should concern you the most, as it’s a sign of compulsive gambling. The initial antidote is much like those in the earlier two examples. If you are feeling, desperately, that you can’t lose, that you must at all costs win back what you’ve lost, then your best course of action is to leave the game – since you’re no longer playing thoughtfully. Similarly, if you find that you cannot control the urge to play poker, even when you know that losing more money will hurt you, then you might want to give up the game entirely and stay away from all forms of gambling.

In sum, losing at poker presents risks that linger beyond the initial hit to your bankroll. In general, if being down causes you to deviate from your best game, then you should leave the game before a small or mid-sized loss turns into a catastrophic one.

Related posts:

1. Losing at Poker
2. The Risks of Winning at Poker

April 15th 2011, which has become known as ‘Black Friday’ to the United States poker playing community, changed the poker landscape for the foreseeable future. The Department of Justice’s crackdown on the top online poker sites and the subsequent barring of American play caused more than a ripple through the legions of United States poker players. Well, there is always live play for Americans and the positives and negatives of each format will be the focus of this article. Players who are new to live public cardrooms will need to make adjustments.

I realize that many poker players regularly played both internet and live poker but there is an enormous contingent of online poker players who have rarely or never played in live public games for a variety of reasons. These reasons would include being underage, not having a live venue in their geographic area, feeling uncomfortable playing live poker and a host of other reasons. Let’s take a look at the myriad of differences which will face online poker players who must now begin playing live poker or focus their energies and bankrolls elsewhere. Some of these differences will be perceived as negatives while some, I believe, are positive.

Stakes

Online poker players who reveled in the ability to play micro stakes will not have a similar option in cardrooms across America. They will have to step up to the “Big Leagues” now which start with dollars not cents. Many will never make that step and just seek out like minded friends and set up home games for their poker outlet. Although I was referring to cash games, this same limitation applies to small stake tournaments which was a major draw for the online poker sites.

Multi-Tabling:

One game at a time in casinos and cardrooms… sorry! Many online poker players would play several tables at the same time. They learned that you could increase your profit by playing tighter/more optimally and winning more through volume while lowering risk. Some of these action junkies will absolutely hate being permitted to play just one game at a time. They will have to get used to it but there are also several positives such as studying your opponents when not involved in a hand.

Speed

Speed goes hand in hand with multi-tabling. There is no question that online poker is a lot faster in terms of hands per hour. This element has both its upsides and downsides but for players who have only played online poker, the live version will seem to move with the speed of a glacier. You will need to adapt to the slower pace and not become bored and begin to lower your starting hand values or your crossover to live play will become a costly one.

Length of sessions

One beauty of online poker is the ability to sit down and play for fifteen minutes in the comfort of your own home. While you may still play a fifteen minute session in a live venue, you need to make a conscious effort to go to the cardroom, possibly need to wait for an open seat, buy your chips and settle into your seat. Of course the flip side of this equation is that you won’t be able to find a $1.00 entry fee tournament with 10,000 players which could take a full day or longer to finish.

The anonymity factor

Everyone has heard of using a “poker face” and the value it can bring to many endeavors outside of poker such as during negotiations. Well, you don’t need to control your body language when playing on the internet… nobody can see you! You don’t even need to get dressed… you’re just an anonymous player sitting at a virtual table. Poker tells will become a whole new subject for newcomers to live play. Not only looking for them but making sure you’re not telegraphing your own intentions to your opponents.

Some, less emotionally stable, online poker players also seemed to enjoy unleashing epithet laced rants in the chat box. They will need to learn some proper decorum or they could incur mounting dental expenses. When you are actually sitting at a table with real people, some degree of interpersonal skills will be required. So leave the pajamas at home and be prepared to at least be civil.

Keeping track of the pot

The wonders of technology… the online poker player merely needed to look at his screen to see the total of the pot to determine the pot odds for the current bet. Those players will need to learn the art of keeping track of the pot. It is really not that difficult but it does take some discipline and paying attention.

Expenses

I mentioned that the micro stake players would not have the same spread of games to choose from and need to significantly move up. There are other major impacts relative to expenses moving to live play. You will need to travel to the game which will require gas money, bus fare or even just wearing out foot wear more rapidly. Onliners don’t toke the dealers which is expected in live play. While tossing the dealer a buck as you rake in a nice pot doesn’t seem like too much… do the math at the end of the year and you’ll realize your largess adds up quickly.

String raises

If you’ve never played live public poker you may not be familiar with the term string raise. A string raise occurs when your raise is not done in one complete fluid motion. As an example, you put enough chips toward the pot to call the bet and then go back to your stack and take additional chips to raise. The reason this is considered to be illegal is the fact that in the moment between appearing to be calling the bet and now raising, you may glean information from your opponents’ reactions – another nuance of live poker that just doesn’t come up in online play. The best way to avoid this faux pas is to announce your actions verbally. If your intent is to raise the bet simply state, “I raise”.

Handling your cards and chips

Moving to a live play venue will require you to handle and be responsible for your cards and your chips. They will no longer be virtual requiring you to just hit buttons. There are some casinos which have introduced monitors around the playing table and have in effect created live play with virtual dealers, cards and chips. Those outlets are very much in the minority and in my opinion should stay that way. I enjoy handling my cards and riffling my chips, thank you very much! On that note, your opponents will pick up on your ability or lack thereof relative to how you handle your cards and chips. That is not to say you need to be able to expertly riffle (interweaving two stacks of five or ten chips making them into one stack of ten or twenty chips) your chips not to appear to be a rookie… but it doesn’t hurt either.

Conclusion

Personally I’ve always enjoyed live play more than internet but I’m one of those who was playing poker long before the internet even came along much less when online poker made its introduction. If this change forces some to actually venture into a cardroom and begin playing live, I think they’ll come to realize how much they were missing. I believe the group of online poker players who will be effected most drastically will be those that do not live within close range to live public games. To those players who have not been a part of a private home game, I suggest you reach out to friends and coworkers and think about starting one.

The next most affected group will be the micro stake players. There just won’t be anything close to what they have become comfortable with regarding stakes. That being said allow me to offer an encouraging word. If you worked hard to become a winning micro stakes player, you may well find a target rich environment in the lower stake live games. Invest a $100 and find out! The worst that can happen is you get spanked and decide to go back to your favorite online poker site which just banned you from playing for real money and play for “play money” which is pretty close to micro stakes anyway!

Black Friday certainly hurt US poker and we haven’t seen all of the unintended consequences as yet. As an example, one has to wonder how large the opening field at the World Series of Poker will be since the largest contributor of players were satellite winners from the biggest online poker sites. While this focus by the US Department of Justice has disrupted the poker community, the game will go on. I encourage the millions of United States online players to step out and begin playing in the cardrooms of America. Shuffle up and deal… for real!

Related posts:

1. Beginners Guide to Playing Live Poker
2. Micro-Limit Online Poker – Part I
3. Micro-Limit Online Poker – Part II