Welcome to the first issue of the new BQ digest. As our mission statement says, we intend to entertain you in an informative way.

Our staff shares a vision for the digest. We see it being informative, funny, and also sometimes gritty and real. We have left room in our minds for the digest to evolve and exceed our vision.

All involved with the digest bring something to the effort. Mike, WDWF, PapaPyrite, OB and BB99 bring loads of talent and enthusiasm on board. The entire forum supplies the threads we have chosen and linked.

In December the editorial staff will begin to introduce themselves. Each month for six months, one of us will provide a peek at our individual backgrounds and poker history.

We recognize that BQ posters and readers are here for their own varied reasons and each are in their own place on the poker experience and learning curve. We expect you to help us shape the digest in ways that will improve its usefulness to you. Hold our feet to the fire. Our columnists welcome your feedback and your suggestions. Use this thread to let us know how you like the digest, ask questions about the articles, or suggest improvements. If you prefer you can PM any of the digest staff with your suggestions.

To encourage participation we are creating a "Friends of the Digest" designation to recognize readers or posters who make high value contributions to the quality of the digest. We will list those contributors at times in forthcoming digests. A contribution of art work that improves our column headers, a guest article that "soars", or a mind opening suggestion that is adopted are examples of the most useful participation.

Guest column: From time to time we will ask a poster to contribute a column to the digest. Some will volunteer without being asked. Those columns will be original work, not already appearing on the forum. These will be another good reason for you to read the digest.

STRAT threads: Our intent is to choose 10-20 threads that we think are worth another look. Strat threads are the heart of the digest and our first priority. These will be from the BQ forum when available, but we may also include some thinking from other forums. We will include trip reports, milestone posts, and other activities of wide interest.

"Mikes Corner": This monthly feature will appear in the strat section. We enjoy Mike's patient, easy going manner and have great respect for his play. We look forward to reading Mike's thoughts every month. We believe you will too.

"Auntie WDWF's Corner": Do wimmenz belong at the poker table? Auntie WDWF's answer and ours is a resounding yes!!! WDWF is consistently active in the LC/NC thread and also brings her wit and talent to strat threads, forum games and projects. Many of WDWF's contributions are humorous and/or risque. We think you like that and that you will appreciate her serious side as well.

Fool's Gold: PapaPyrite has a brand of style and humor that is uniquely his own. Look for a refreshing surprise each month and a twist in every paragraph. We expect that he will touch on a wide variety of topics relevant to the forum, and entertain us with his views and opinions.

Around the Forum Games with OB: Obviously.bogus will keep us up to date on the forum games that go on every week. SHANOOBIGANS and SHENANIGANS come to mind but throughout the year, other games are organized as well. None of these games are 2+2 sponsored or sanctioned. They are organized and presented by posters in this forum

Humor: A cartoon or two, a joke or two, or both, we will include something humorous about poker, life, or the interwebz.

Poster of the Month: Beginning December 1st we will recognize a BQ poster as poster of the month for months in which we agree we have a qualified candidate. In most cases we will provide some background of the poster and some reasons for our choice. If you have a suggestion/nomination, please PM your thoughts to Bona. High profile activity and/or clear thinking in strat threads is a prime consideration for this honor, as is a congenial and genuinely"noob" friendly posting style.



Some of our best posters got that way by reading the FAQ

Open raise small pocket pairs in 6-max?

Have you found yourself in a similar spot with AK? From Micros NL forum

Good thread on three betting from the General Poker Theory forum

Books we like

New poster trying to start out right for long term fun and profit

How many players at the table before posting behind is +EV?

What should we be working on, food for thought

QQ in a tough spot

Is your HUD optimal?

Bet sizing in an MTT

Developing hand reading skills

Trip reports, milestones, etc.(Please be posting your trip reports as new posts in the forum because I am too lazy to comb the LC/NC thread for them-TYVM)

Gothninja's 2k milestone post

A.SpaceBats TR from EPT weekend.

Papapyrites 1k post, a trip down memory lane to his first tournament

Waffle goes to the World Series (Baseball, not that WSOP thingie)



In Beginner's Questions, I often see threads about proper play from the blinds. Usually these threads are about defending your blinds, and discuss the merits and disadvantages of defending by calling or 3betting, which hands one should defend, and how to exploit different types of players by playing well from the blinds. But I have not seen much discussion about another important topic: how to play your button when facing action before you.

The button is unquestionably the best seat at the table; everyone agrees with this. Often, we fold marginally playable hands OOP when there is a tough button or several tough players behind us. Almost everyone agrees that we are correct to do so, since playing a marginal hand OOP against a tough player is usually not a good idea. A good button will be able to make our life miserable preflop by a combination of cold-calling in position and 3betting. Postflop, they will be able to float, bluff-raise our cbet, and control the size of the pot when they choose to do so. All these things are reasons why our marginal hands lose a lot of value OOP and in many cases simply become unplayable and should be folded.

When we are on the button, then, we ought to be doing all these same things: cold-calling and 3betting preflop, along with floating, bluff-raising, and pot-controlling postflop. If we neglect to take full advantage of the opportunities afforded to us by being on the button, then we are essentially spotting our opponents an edge: we are making their standard ranges more profitable than they should be, and if they are aware of our weaknesses, they will start to widen their range and play even more hands profitably. Rest assured, our tougher and more competent opponents are not spotting us this same edge when THEY are on the button.

So, with what hands and against which opponents should we try all these fancy button plays? Well, it depends. Generally, there are several factors which will increase or decrease the range which you can profitably play. The wider an opponent's range, the more hands you can profitably play against him. This means that you will most likely play back a lot against an open-raise from the CO, while not really getting out of line too much against EP opens. Against poorly playing opponents, you can widen your range a lot, whereas you should not play quite so many hands against a more skilled opponent. The more information you have about how an opponent plays later in the hand, the more information you have about how to play your hands profitably, and therefore the more hands you can play. And you can widen your ranges a bit if there are already many players in the pot. You should narrow your ranges a bit if the players in the blinds are aggressive and will interfere with your plays.

I realize that the preceding paragraph is extremely vague; it almost has to be vague due to the large variety of situations and villains which you will encounter in your games. Therefore, I will give some examples of different villain tendencies and preflop situations, and what hands I think can be played in those spots. I should state now that all my examples are for full-ring NL and most of them feature 100bb stacks, because this is the game that I play the most, but the same thought processes should apply equally well to 6max games, except in some of the examples with extremely nitty villains who might be very rare at the 6max tables. Bear in mind that the stats which describe the various villains will be different in FR than in 6max, due to the extra 3 EP seats where everyone has to play nitty. A good FR LAG will be something around 18/15, a TAG 15/11, and a nit 11/6 or thereabouts.

Also, be aware that the ranges that I give are not set in stone by any means; the ranges which are +EV for you will be tighter or looser than mine depending on how well you can play them postflop.

Example 1:

EP opens for 4x. You have him as a 12/7 over 256 hands. His fold to 3b is 50% over only 2 samples, and his cbet% is 85. You have a note on him “opened JJ and stacked off on low flop”. You are OTB. What ranges do we CC or 3b?


Example 2:

CO opens for 3x. You have him as 18/14 over 543 hands. His steal% is 45. His fold to 3b is 73% in 11 samples. His cbet% is 75. His postflop aggression% is 40. You are OTB. What ranges do we CC or 3b?

Example 3:

UTG+1 has only an 80bb stack. He opens for 2x. Your stats on him are 65/15 over only 62 hands. His cbet% is 44%, and his fold to cbet is 30%. You have seen him min-raise open before. It seems like his standard open-raise size. You have seen him call down 3 streets with top pair and an 8-kicker. You also saw him call a big raise on the flop with a gutshot, which he hit on the turn. It folds around to you OTB. The blinds are a bit nitty. What are your ranges?


Example 4:

MP2 opens for 3x. He is a 15/12 with a fold to 3bet of 75% and a cbet% of 65 over a large sample. CO calls. He is a 44/8 over 227 hands with a fold to 3bet of 0% over 5 samples. His fold to cbet is 44% and his postflop aggression frequency is 22%. You are on the BTN. What are your ranges?

Example 5:

The Hijack opens for 3x. He is a 16/12 reg against whom you play a lot. His steal% is 42, his cbet% is 67, and his fold to 3bet is 60%. The CO 3bets to 10x. He is a 12/7 over 635 hands with a 1.5% 3bet and a steal% of 15. You are OTB. What are your ranges?

Example 6:

The CO opens for 2.5x. He is a 16/14 with whom you have played a lot. His 3bet% is 7.5, his fold to resteal% is 45, and his steal% from the CO is 26%. His cbet% is 85. You have notes that he double and triple barrels a lot, both for value and as a bluff. You have seen him 4bet preflop and fold to a shove several times. You are OTB. Unfortunately, you haven't been paying attention to his postflop tendencies in 3bet pots. What are your ranges?


Example 7:

A 50/7 over 97 hands with 75% fold to cbet over 8 samples open-limps in MP. The blinds are competent, but not very aggressive. It is folded to you, on the button. What are your ranges?

As you can see from these examples, there are any number of ways in which you can adjust your button ranges. Depending on your opponents' preflop and postflop leaks, you can tailor specific 3betting, cold-calling, and isolating ranges which exploit their tendencies. Since you have position, they will have a difficult time fighting back against you. In order to make maximum use of your advantage, you will need to observe their tendencies and interpret their stats correctly. But if you can do it well, you will find a lot of extra value which you might otherwise miss.

If you are a student of poker, wherever you are on the learning curve, responding to hand posts and posting hands where you have a question about the best play are among the best ways you can work on your game. Commonly called strat posts, these posts cause us to think and ultimately to learn. Some forums on 2+2 contain a high ratio of strat posts to other posts of lesser information value. This is sometimes referred to as having a high signal to noise ratio. While the LC/NC thread is the most popular in BQ forum, if you are here to work on your game, opening and participating in strat posts is the nuts. Which brings me to the point of this article.

To achieve maximum value for all concerned, a good strat post includes as much of your thought process as possible and is posted using a converter that makes it easy to follow. Here is a link to a well posted hand.
LHE hand posted in Micros forum
Note the quality of the hand post has induced equally high quality responses. I am not saying I agree or disagree with the play or the analysis or that you should, just that the effort you put into your hand posts will yield quality response.

Elements of a good hand post include:

1) Use an accurate hand converter or take the time to type your hand in a similar, converter style.

2) Stop the action where you have a question, and pose the question. Do not post the entire hand and definitely
do not post results. Responders are always influenced by results. Change the color of the type to black at the
point where you stop so no clue is given to your action.

3) Include all reads, stats, and notes on players who are active in the hand.

4) Describe your thinking on previous streets. What were you thinking, what was your plan.

5) One post, one hand. More than one hand in a post will reduce the responses and the quality of responses.

6) Respond to at least 3-5 hands for every one you post. Make your responses polite and clear. There is no need
for sarcasm in a strat post. If a poster can expect to retain his dignity even though mistakes were made, he will
keep posting and our forum will benefit.

Link to a recent BQ (well posted) strat question that illicited well considered responses

Thats my take on hand posting. Nothing new but it all bears repeating if we want to cultivate a good signal to noise ratio in our forum.

I’m not really your average twenty-something female. I own a total of four pairs of shoes, including running kicks, all of which this forum will tell you are hideous. I spend more on videogames than I do on makeup, and then I play those videogames, from Link to the invading Zerg swarm, as if it were my job. I’m also active on a dinky little poker forum on a site called 2+2.

Every little bit of the game of poker intrigues me; intellectual warfare is sexy. But the problem, comes when the person across the table notices the big ‘ol bumps on my chest and decides to lower the bar on the mental playing field, be it to show off for me or just to put me down. This male posturing can mostly be ignored, but sometimes it can go too far.

The same can be said of 2+2 as well. If a poster is female, that becomes her sole feature. If she isn’t being asked for pictures, she’s being told to get the eff out. Not every girl will take this treatment the same way. Some will get offended and leave the entire community. Some will get offended and comment on the offence, only to further get torn to shreds. Others will avoid entire parts of the forum that they might otherwise enjoy because of the way either they were treated or the way they saw other women treated, be it posters or content. And others still will have the thick skin needed to suck it up and take it (and that –is- what she said), evident in the numerous, strong, prominent female posters that do exist, even in some of the more sexist areas of the forum.

Obviously, some forums are worse than others. Here in the beginners section, our arms are fairly open and welcoming, looking to hug and hold and politely grope while helping new players, whereas a fragile, delicate flower should probably just learn to avoid places like NVG or BBV4L; the atmosphere of a room can make or break a conversation.

I am not saying that we’re some sort of foreign being or alien. We don’t need special treatment. And I’m not asking that you stop posting threadsavers. What I am asking is that you give us the same sort of posting respect that you would give your bros. Just because a screen name happens to be ‘pokergirl8876’, you don’t have to ask her for a) terts or b) sammiches,( though tert sammiches might be acceptable, your mileage may vary). Try to give off that personable attitude you’ve attempted to cultivate in real life, regardless of who is on the other end of the computer screen.


On a final note, none of the above applies to me. Feel free to rag on me all you want, as far as I’m concerned, and make sure you ask for lots and lots of tits. I have a wonderfully rhino-like hide, but on the other hand, you are glue; you mess with me in a way that crosses the line and I will end you.

This has been a public service announcement about the fact that women have feelings, scary as that concept might be. And on that note, I'll be right back. I'm beating the Water Temple.


In this month's column, I would like to kick around something that should be of vital importance to the poker community. No, not that picture of Hellmuth riding a giant hot dog, nor the fascinating speculation on how Lederer will fare doing time. Something much more important. I want to be free to play poker in my boxers while listening to Slacker radio on my headphones!

Now, I'm going to assume that if you're reading this, then you are interested in poker and have access to the Internet. It's a reach I know - but you are the people I want to talk with, and I would like to ask you a few questions. Don't worry, they're easy questions for anyone not living under a rock. And then I'm going to urge you to get involved.

Did you know that the online poker world has been turned on its head by several catastrophic events over the last six months? I know, easy one, but most of you also know the problems surely began long before Black Friday. And the solutions are far from simple or easy. So I have a few more questions for you.

What has been the impact of this upheaval on your life? And I'm asking about more than just the access to poker games online, has it impacted you financially or possibly even forced you to move to another country? Have you been impacted by the loss of your favorite hobby, or a recreational outlet that improved your quality of life? I want you to take a moment and consider what has changed for you in the last half year. Not just Americans, but all of us who are interested in poker or whose livelihood depends on poker, have probably felt some of the effects.

Which brings me to the last question, and it's a bit tougher - What are you doing to improve the online poker situation that we face today?

I am going to urge you to do more, to make an effort at changing the current situation. Yes, everyone reading this, in every country, can do something to help. I know that this may sound terribly cliche, but we can change the World!

Let me explain how I realized we are not doing enough. To my surprise, and admittedly, some amusement, a pro-poker petition to the President of the US garnered a mere 8,616 signatures as I am writing this today. Coincidentally, another petition to ask the President to formally recognize the presence of Aliens on Earth received nearly 50% more signatures in the same 30-day window. Obviously, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, and fascinated with all things relating to aliens, but I was completely shocked and unaware that there are more politically savvy UFO fanatics than poker players!

Please don't make the mistake of thinking this is an issue only affecting US players, consider some numbers that should interest all players. Before Black Friday, there were between 8-10 million US residents online playing real money poker games. This is a huge market for the online poker industry, and a market that can make multiple large-scale poker rooms feasible and profitable, which benefits the entire poker community. The big poker sites often sponsor and support large field tournaments both online and live. Players from the US were also very good for the quality of the games online before Black Friday. According to PTR data, US players as a group ranked dead last on their all time winning list. Losing at a rate of $8/100 hands when the PTR data is averaged for the nearly 1 million US players in their report. If you play poker outside the US on a site that doesn't allow US players, then you are missing some big fish.

The US is a relatively wealthy country, with an enormous recreational poker population, that has been largely denied the ability to play poker online for the last six months. Sure, most of us on this forum know there are several US facing poker rooms, but the average US player has apparently been unwilling to play in the current online climate. This affects everyone who plays online poker in some way.

Here are some ideas for members of this forum to get involved and to do something - if you have just a few minutes each evening while taking a break from your grind, or while on your coffee break at work. The effort required is minimal, and I know firsthand that it makes a huge difference!

First, join me in becoming a member of the PPA; it is open to all players worldwide for a small donation of $15. Get involved with this community and support their efforts worldwide. The Fight for Poker Rights forum is dedicated to their activities. Browse these threads, and participate in any of the activities that interest you.

Click on links:

Join the Poker Players Alliance
ppa-member-updates
Daily action plan thread by TheEngineer
Free coaching-training for getting involved...TruFloridaGator
Litigation proposal by Lawdude
PPA statement on FTP civil suit
News article consolidation thread by kikadell
UK gambling laws to change by Craggoo

Just recently in the US, we had a Presidential candidate debate which was broadcast live from Las Vegas on CNN. Questions were being solicited via Twitter, Facebook and the CNN website. The efforts of the members on the 2p2 forums made an impact on the candidates, as they had staffers tracking the questions being submitted. Sajeffe, a regular in the action threads, was instrumental in posting and tweeting questions for the candidates and generally supporting our efforts. Professionalpoker was working the broadcast from Las Vegas and took a photo showing the rehearsal before the live debate. He posted in one of the action threads, and it showed a question being rehearsed that my buddy sajeffe had sent in via Twitter! It was, in a sense, validation of our efforts; even though it wasn't ultimately used in the live debate. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to see her question posted during rehearsal on the biggest stage in American politics.


*Editors note: Late inThis is "CardPlayer" magazine's (website) take on the state of poker legislation in the US



It’s been pretty quiet in the hive over the summer months thanks to Richard Branson and his team of internet non-service providers. I could barely troll our moderators without getting disconnected, nevermind playing a hand of on-line poker.

Thankfully, the ginger-bearded-one managed to fix the web after his Island ‘accidentally’ blew up, and the fibre optic cables have been reconnected back in to the hive.

Now that I could play poker again, first on the list was to re-start the destruction of our strategy expert, mikes007, in a best of 7 Heads UP SNG challenge on RPM. Coming back from 3-0 down (before the internet outage) was going to prove tricky, particularly, as I’m pretty sure Mike is just another RPMSeth gimmick so has access to the RNG.

Needless to say “Mike” took the first game back to take an unassailable 4-0 lead, however, the bee effortlessly took the NL round, (if you’ve paid for coaching off Mike I would ask for your money back) for pride, and taught him how to Dugi to finish 5-2 down overall.

After that debacle was out of the way, the bee needed to get back in to playing some poker, and after somebody’s flippant remark of playing 1,000 Bumblebees (11 cent super turbo SNG’s at RPM), thought that would be fun. I would get a bonus and and an accolade if I could do it in a month and set off down that route.

I would have quit after 7 if Bona and AlienSpaceBat hadn’t bet on how much I would win/lose over the 1,000, despite my pleading to be let off the challenge and paying them $100 each. At the time of writing I have played ~600 and am a few bucks down. I am NEVER playing one of these again once I’m finished, and will be writing to Mr Obama to have their name changed to Cockroaches.

Thankfully, the grind was broken up one night by Mrs Leroy_Jenkins45 finding a poorly kitten on their driveway. Leroy, being a gun toting redneck, decided he would rather shoot it than try and nurse it back to health. Fortunately, AlienSpaceBat and I decided to gamble on it’s chances of survival which forced Leroy to lay down his arms.

Sadly, I was $5 worse off within the hour as the kitten died, although Bat sent all his winnings to some scary old cat lady charity for safe-keeping.



The 1st Annual Skype-Kitty Memorial HUHU Badugi SNG was duly played out between the Bee and the Bat, but to be honest I was too cut-up to recall the winner. It was probably me though, even if the Bat says otherwise.

Speaking of the pointy-eared one, I did manage to meet up with him IRL in London, along with Mr & Mrs Obviously.Bogus. Although having one of them throw a pint of lager at me has kind of put me off meeting any 2+2ers again.

October ended with being banned by mod Lego (who?). Adding to the bans from OziBattler (because he had too many shandies) and Ice_W0lf (for alleging he spends everyone’s tournament stakes in Subway), this completed the Triple Crown BQ banning, although I would like to make it clear I have no intention of being perma-banned by our overlord, CMAR, despite our Green mods efforts to the contrary by editing all my posts.

Until next time.
*Editors note: Most who were following the Mike vs Bee debacle were amused by the whole "omgomg I haz no internetz" construct. It was clear to all the bee was attempting to avoid an unavoidable crushing.

This section of the digest is for announcing and promoting the various Forum Games which happen both regularly and occasionally in Beginners Questions. I will recap some of the history of these games to show how much fun they can be, covering the results of games in the last month, and making announcements of upcoming games that I hope you will all consider joining.

First, for those that don't know me, I'm the de facto scorekeeper for many of these games. I'm not a good poker player and I only play at the very lowest nano-stakes (and often play chips too), yet many of the regulars at these games play much higher stakes, so all are welcome, beginners and non-beginners alike.

For this edition of the digest, I'm going to give a brief history of the weekly game SHANOOBIGANS and how it came to be.


Going back to almost the dawn of the commercial internet, poker players have congregated to play poker. Probably the earliest and most well known example of this is BARGE which was an annual meeting of the rec.gambling (later rec.gambling.poker) USENET newsgroup. Later when 2+2 became the top poker forum, online games were played between forum members. One long running example was the "Trout Games" (search 2+2)


Separately from the Trout Games, starting in early 2008, Beginners Questions forum started organizing their own games. There were cash games and scheduled tournaments that morphed over time, depending on who was organizing and who was around. The threads "Weekly Forum games!" and "Weekly Forum games!" were where it all went down and show the fossilized history. The name that was settled on for these games was SHENANIGANS, and they continue to this day.


The buy-in for SHENANIGANS was $5.50, mainly because that was the lowest offered by PokerStars for a private tournament, but in August 2009, this was lowered to $1.10, which prompted the thread "Noob's tourney anyone?", marking the birth of SHANOOBIGANS. There was an almost immediate revolt by non-US players that the start time was too late, so another tourney with a Euro friendly start time was quickly created.


The following week started what has been a tradition at SHANOOBIGANS - staking "busto noobs" - "I will stake ten BUSTO Noobs in Shanoobigans Tourney Saturday." This was acutually, for the first and last time a "Matrix" competition with 4 simultaneous tournaments. Somehow, despite being the noobiest noob and virtually busto, I somehow missed the above, but I fortunately I did see this thread started by bumblebee99 "Shanoobigans Euro Tourney: I'm Staking Noobs ITT for Todays Game!!!!" I think I had $1.60 in my account at the time, so the staking was most welcome, and with numerous bounties and revenge-bounties flying around it was a lot of fun. I managed to finish ITM and more than double my BR and I've been able to play just about every SHANOOBIGANS since then without being staked - except for the 6c bb99 gave me when I was down to $1.04 in my account. (BRM ftw!)

bb99 takes over and scoreboard started

At the start of 2010, bumblebee99 took over the reins as the organizer/promoter of SHANOOBIGANS. Since SHENANIGANS had already started a scoreboard with the winners being invited to a year end tourney to crown a winner, I thought SHANOOBIGANS should have one too, so after some discussions I elected myself as scorekeeper and since then the monthly winners are invited to the year-end championship where courtesy of our wonderful mods, a color title and custom undertitle are up for grabs. The rules for the scoreboard are here, and the current actual scoreboard is here


In April and May of 2010 we had an invasion of SHANOOBIGANS by members of a French poker forum. The first week it happened, they practically over-ran us and had most of the seats at the final table, but in later weeks the 2+2ers rallied and we held our own. They swelled the numbers to the largest ever turn-out of 42 players, but the fun ended, for them, a few weeks later when legislation restricted French players to France only sites.


For nearly a year, SHANOOBIGANS had been NL for the "Euro" game and Mixed Hold'Em for the "late" game. SHENANIGANS had a different "Mixed" game each Friday night, but since this is too late for many Euro's and "Extra" game was organized for Sundays at a Euro friendly time. This game choice was decided by the winner of the previous week, which worked great until winners from the micro Limit forum chose LHE one too many times. These games were a lot of fun and a huge edge could usually be gained by actually reading the rules before the start of the tourney.


At the end of 2010, there were 16 qualifiers to the "SHANOOBIGANS & SHANOOBIGANS 2010 FINAL" I actually managed to finish ITM, but didn't claim the crown :frown: Sheekst38 was the winner of the custom under-title and the color title to be held for a year.


Early in 2011 PokerStars introduced their "Home Games" which gave us a good place to donk around at cash tables before during and after SHANOOBIGANS without random other players joining. I created a "Home Game" for this purpose and announced it here --> "SHANOOBIGANS "Home Game"" Of course since US players can't now play real money, there hasn't been so much action there, but anyone who has participated in BQ, even just a few posts, is welcome to join, in case any action does occur.


Naturally BF had a huge impact on SHANOOBIGANS. For the week after BF there was an attempt to carry on with play chips "SHANOOBIGANS + PLAY MONEY EDITION" but no-one's heart was really in it and it quickly given up.


Starting in May SHANOOBIGANS was moved to RPM. "SHANOOBIGANS - FUDOJ EDITION " The choice of RPM was made easy by their willingness to accommodate our private tourneys plus generous overlays added by RPM from time to time. Once we were settled in and a decent number of regulars had made accounts at RPM the scoreboard was restated in June

And that brings us up to date. SHANOOBIGANS is currently every Saturday at 3PM ET, 8PM UK time, and we have a nice group of regulars and semi-regulars, usually with about a dozen or more players. We always love to see new players, and stakes and bounties for noobs are almost always available if you ask nicely

October SHANOOBIGANS results ...

Despite a below average finish on the last week of the month, Mike held on to win his 5th ticket. With only two months left, a few regulars still don't have tickets, so the competition should be instense for the last spots.

SHENANIGANS also run a scoreboard. Theirs is for the full year rather than monthly, and Mike has the lead in that too.

Link to SHENANIGANS results and standings

SHENANIGANS is currently played on RPM with a HORSE game on Sunday nights 21:15 EST, and the winner the choice of the game played on Thursday night 21:15 EST.

Watch out for the SHANOOBIGANS and SHENANIGANS threads in BQ and come play with us !!

It may or may not have been Auntie WDWF who confided to me that women can best manage their relationships
with men as they would a badugi hand:
a to love them
a to marry them
a to beat their ******* brains out and
a to bury them"


Two bored casino dealers are waiting at a craps table. A very attractive lady comes in and wants to bet twenty- thousand dollars on a single roll of the dice. She says, "I hope you don't mind, but I feel much luckier when I'm bottomless."

With that she strips naked from the waist down, and rolls the dice while yelling, "Momma needs a new pair of pants!"

She then begins jumping up and down and hugging each of the dealers. "YES! I WIN! I WIN!"

With that she picks up her money and clothes and quickly leaves. The dealers just stare at each other dumbfounded. Finally one of them asks, "What did she roll anyway?"

The other answers,


We hope you have enjoyed this digest and will continue to refer to it throughout the month. We expect readers will be anxious to contribute their own own thoughts and special talents to helping us improve the digest. You can post your comments in this thread or PM them directly to one of our editors.

Play in SHANOOBIGANS and SHENANIGANS, it is fun and will help you improve your game. If you are a first time player and you knock a digest editor out of a SHENANIGANS or SHANOOBIGANS game in the month of November, post it in this thread or the event thread and claim the "Digest Bounty". You will be shipped a bounty for the amount of your entry fee.

First.

Nice work guys & girl !

Very nice read. I think I will be joining you all for the next event, if you don't mind.

Absolutely! Please join in, have fun. It's a soft game full of fish so just take their chips IMO

I might put a bounty on you, just to make it interesting

PS - go join the PPA and play forum games in your boxers! It makes it more fun IMO

Well done dudes and dudette!

Great work everyone. I'm pushed for time right now, so can't read it all, but this looks like a great post.

I failed to correctly translate all the links in OB's post so one of us will post the links in this thread. Soon maybe, or not soon idk.

wpwp everyone involved, was a good read

whoop miss the Micro one good work

what a great idea. looking forward to this very muchly.

First !

Wp guys , this is a solid deal you have here . Thanks for taking the time to put it together .

(clap) Maybe my 3k poast will make it in here

I am sure Bona will link to that waffle! Problem is, you have to actually get to 3k poasts - and then you have to actually write an epic milestone! EZ game?

(I notice post count is 2999, so I can say anything I want, even make fun of his luckbox Cardinals, and he can't reply since he would just be spewing his 3k )

But I do look forward to seeing a link next month to your highly anticipated milestone post, and maybe in the future a guest article on some variant of poker that you are especially adept at playing. So, um, which one is that?

I prefer pancakes of course.

Nice work!!! Obv a lot of work. Thanks, guys & girl!

Very nice

Hard to believe there are no questions about Mike's strat article. Other than the author ofc, I have not seen any evidence that any members here fully grasp the concepts explained

I'm still trying to understand and assimilate all the great info he shared, and hoping to learn from his examples. Not that I completely agree with some of the suggested ranges, but since I find myself in this particular spot I am sure studying example 5!

I would sure like to hear what other members think of Mike's ideas and tactics, I can testify that he knows what he is talking about, and can effectively counter my particular playing style! Or he is just a giant luckbox

I know that the key to improving is to keep learning, and I am studying the strat links along with Mike's column this month, so I can get better and redeem myself the next time I get the chance to battle "The Machine"

In case you want to argue with Mike, harass bee, or question something in the digest, here is thread in which you can do that

Link to "Letters to BQ Digest" thread

I just want to say that I think Pyrite is fos . That is all

In my role as an editor of the digest I have to support our writers and respectfully disagree with you sir.

And to add to the discussion regaurding disagreeing with Mike , I , like most in this forum imo are learning the game . It is kinda hard to disagree with someone you know is rock solid with their strat . So Mike must be careful with what he says because noobs like me rely on him being correct .

The only way to disprove what he says is to get the experience to know why he is or is not correct . So we have to take what he says and apply it for now until we can prove or disprove him . Imo

Yes, Mike may well be pulling our chains. Possibly he is just a luck box with a talent for obfuscating language.

otoh- some well crafted questions about his strategy suggestions might either expose that or lead to more people learning more about strategy.

Finally a concise forum to help me out!!

Welcome to the forum!

Take a look around, there is a lot of good information to be found here. Read the stickies up top in the forum list, and especially the Beginners Forum FAQ.

We also have another thread that is related to this Digest, called Letters to the Digest Editors

Best of luck!

Wow. I was already behind in reading the 2p2 Magazine (I was lucky enough to notice the first issue). And I was behind in reading the Concept of the Week in the Micro Stakes Full Ring Forum. And I was behind in reading Stud threads. Now I'm already behind in reading the BQ Digest (again lucky enough to notice the first issue).

Nice hand.