P. Bibby

I don't know if anyone has done this: THE COUNT from Sesame Street as BARRY GREENSTEIN. Great thread, guys.

Any thoughts about the Oaks??

Hi there.. I'm going to be staying in downtown San Fran. What's the best room around there? Do I have to make the trek to San Jose? Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Hey Detroit, I probably have less experience than a lot of people here, but I found the chapter on Protecting Your Hand the most eye-opening. The hidden outs stuff was good, as was the advice about playing middle pairs. But the biggest single message I took came from the introduction: If everyone folded, you wouldn't make a profit.

Thanks for the feedback Jayson. I'll pass along your comments (most of the casinos where I play do have automatic shufflers -- the room where I play most doesn't. Maybe I'm the idiot)

No, they shuffle manually.

Hi all.. I was figuring out my BB/100, and realized there's an important number I don't have a handle on. On average, how many hands are played per hour in a 10-handed B & M game? (low limit, lots of callers preflop) thanks all.. I've been counting 30 and finally realized it's probably too high.

thanks for the feedback so far, most of you seem to support what I've been thinking. Does anyone buy the argument about pricing in poor draws? Say the button calls one bet with 6-7. I raise AK from BB, they call the bet. Six players in. Flop is A-9-10. Have I just made it a correct play for them to call a gutshot straight draw?

Hi all... I turn to you for experience/expertise. I play low-limit live games, and I've been running into player after player who won't raise AK or AQ from the big blind in limit -- they argue they're disguising the hand and getting more weak aces or kings to call if they hit. I know Barry Tannenbaum recently wrote in Card Player that it's a mistake to raise it -- all the callers will just call two bets and you're pricing in a bunch of weak draws. Any thoughts? I'd be especially interested in arguments against a raise in that situation.

Gary Carson has a good name for this: Fancy Play Syndrome. he thinks, for example, that people check too often hoping for the check-raise and end up losing money.

Here are my impressions for what they're worth: Sklansky and the boys take a much more aggressive approach to protecting your hand, raising to buy outs and improve your winning chances, and putting value on backdoor draws. They're MUCH more expansive on post-flop strategies than Jones. They also put much greater stress on avoiding big unsuited one-gaps and hands like that. Those are the most obvious things for me.

Penn Gilette said something that's both funny and very true: Luck is probability taken personally.

I think it's because on the WPT Hollywood home game Affleck was making fun of the way vince loves to yell "Big Slick! He's got Big Slick!". Proud to know way too much about poker on tv.

Hey there.. sorry to hear about the crappy run-down. I find that in those situations, it helps to tell myself, "he's TRYING to give me his money. He's TRYING to give me his money". It's only the cards screwed up his plan to pay you off. I also remind myself that if I could see his cards, I would beg him to make that call and I'd take my chances. Hang in there.

I see a lot of this in live play.. including a perfect example today. I was waiting to get into a game and watching the players. One player had only enough for one big bet. Somebody raises preflop and he can only call with his kings. The flop comes K-9-2 rainbow, and players start betting and raising. (I think one had queens and one had AK) They build a huge pot, and our guy wins only a small fraction of it. My belief is that you should reload even if you don't plan to put that money in play, just in case. I like the idea of the twenties under the chips.