JCT: Canadian Poker Player (Canada's Poker Magazine) had
some great articles in Volume 4 Issue 4 including a first by
James McIlwrath <jmci1@...> who plays with me in the
Brantford Poker Room called "Taking a punch" detailing the
benefits of aggression and mixing it up: "I've gone from
being afraid of the bully to becoming that bully just by
learning not to be afraid to take a punch." Quite the
insight.

Keith Ritchie's great article on the threat of playing bots.
All they really need is to let a calculator do the playing
in limit.

There was U.of.Regina Math Prof. Brian Alspach's "Choose
your weapon" analysis of the best hand to take on two red
Aces without resorting to the Monte Carlo methods I resorted
to to pin down my numbers. He called it "the ugly approach,"
I'm sure the opinion of most mathematicians of us unruly
engineers, but letting a computer do 100,000 trials and
statistically deriving the results worked beautifully
without needing to do complicated math. But it's always
fascinating to be reminded of the elegant equations backing
up empirical observations. So far, one black Ten and one red
Ten fare better than two red Tens against two red Aces.
Makes sense. Next month, we'll probably go on to two black
Tens...

Devin Armstrong <www.myspace.com/downtowndevobrown> defends
well against the sneers of the No-Limit experts who decry
their inability to steal pots in Limit Poker by explaining
how to move people off the pot in Limit games! Har har har
har. My motto on the end: If I'm not check-raising but going
to call, I'm betting out to make them pay those times I'm
good. It's exactly the situation he used. The only times you
don't bet out is if opponent is a mouse who'll check at any
perceived board threat. "I didn't get the last bet but I did
get the pot" they smile sheepishly as they pull in their
pot. I never say: Sorry, the pot could only be won by your
cards and the last bet could only be won by you. But I do
hum to myself the famous theme from the Saturday Night Fever
Disco song: Macho macho mouse..."

D.L. Brook <dl_brook@...> goes into all legitimate
cut-throat tactics right out of Frank R. Wallace's "Advanced
Concepts of Poker."

Dean Stone <dean@...> blows it all in his
article "Suited Cards." He derides "flush fish" who "can't
help but chase that draw even though they're a 3:1 dog every
time."

JCT: A 3:1 dog every time? Let's see. From Turmel's Poker
Power Tool #1:

Step 1) Count pot bets for outs needed to chase:
Odds: 45 22 14 10 8 7 6 5 4 3+ 3+ 3 2+ 2+ 2 offered by pot
Outs: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 needed to call

A pot of 3:1 bets needs 12 outs to chase.

But from Turmel's Poker Power Tool #2:

Step 2) Count outs to "Call Overlays, Fold Underlays."
Draw: 4FL 4S2 4S1 TRS PRK PR2 OC1 PRP 3FL 3ST
Turn: 9 8 4 10 5 4 3 2 0 0 outs on Turn
Flop: 9 8 4 8 5 4 3 2 2-0 1 outs on Flop

We see that a pot of 4:1 bets needs the flush 9 outs. Off by
25%! But was it a typo? Last paragrash:

"Suited cards can make a session profitable and they can
make a session disastrous. If you play suited cards that
have value outside the fact they are suited, you will have
more success. Remember that you're a 3:1 underdog on the
flush draw and you should be getting the pot odds if you're
going to chase."

JCT: Gee, he's taking 3:1 on flush draws!!! Come on over and
I'll give you 3.5:1 (7:2) all night. With true odds actually
being 37:9, 4.25:1, he's giving me a 1.25/4.25=29% overlay.
Only the carnies can beat someone faster than 29%!

Sad no one caught an error from Poker's most basic Outs-Odds
Tool, so basic I called it Poker Power Tool #1.


--
Abolitionist Debt Slave Leader John C."The Banking Systems Engineer"
Turmel for UNILETS interest-free time-based currency in U.N. resolution
C6 to Governments in the http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration.htm
http://www.cyberclass.net/turmel USENET blog: alt.fan.john-turmel