Welcome to "The Digest" We are a year old now. We have enjoyed bringing you the digest on a regular basis.


Going into our second year we continue to see our mission as a simple one. To inform and entertain our readers. Hopefully we can continue to accomplish both.

Starting next month "The Digest" will introduce two new columnists. We look forward to their contributions. At some point in our second year we hope to have a new strat column dedicated to MTT and SnG play.






In October "The Digest" challenged Ice_W0lf to step away from his MTT comfort zone and play some cash limit hold'em. After tough negotiations between attorneys for both sides an agreement was reached and Mr W0lf set out to play 4000 hands of LHE at stakes of .25/.50 or higher. His challenge was to win at least 1BB over that 4k hands (no that is not 1BB/100 it is 1BB/4000) and to exceed the winnings (in BB) of "The Digest" designated super secret stalking horse who was following the same guidelines. High level prizes were at stake and the tension was thick.

Mr Ice did a great job of checking in frequently and keeping us posted on his progress. The staff had a lot of fun reading his ups and downs and LOL at his frustrations. Mr Ice started out on a heater and by the 1500 hand mark he appeared comfortably in control of the outcome. Mr Ice's well known luckboxery and river binking skills appeared to have overcome the LHE players pool to the point that he could almost fold to a win. From there we speculate that Ice did not attempt to nit-fold to the win, instead he may have chosen to rely on his historically successful game plan of aggressively building pots through the turn and binking the rivers. Alas, Lady Variance had other plans.



Somewhere after the 1500 hands mark, Mr W0lf began to falter and his graph began to resemble the arc of a bowling ball tossed from a bridge. Some graphs and stats of the protaganists below.
We have included some graphs and stats from the carnage. We thank IceW0lf for participating, we have expunged the 2-3 dozen most egregiously foul comments about the challenge from our records and have forgiven the 6 or 8 times he quit the challenge.

In summary, Mr W0lf did not beat the challenge by 1BB, he did not beat the stalking HORSE (popular LHE strat editor A_Schupick), and we do not believe LHE has an enthusiastic new convert.

Here are Ice's graph and stats



Here are A_Schupick's stats and graphs.







In October the digest reported a raucous meet up in London hosted by Poker Stars and attended by several BQ regulars. Here are links to the BQ thread and to Lee Jones column.

PokerStars meet up
Lee JOnes column about the PokerStars London bash in the PokerStars Blog


October saw continuance of a rich Micros tradition. The annual (sort of) "King of the Kiddie Pool" series. Digest LHE strat editor A_Schupick took the lead in organizing and publicizing this event. If you missed it, or even if you played in it; Here is the thread. Nice job Schu !!!!
2012 KOTKP, official thread
We do not have a dependable list of individual event winners.
The main event and undertitle "KOTKP 2013" was won by nyrugby. Congrats sir!!!!
Here is an order of finish list for the Ironman.
Final tallies:
Jaxit - 46
Bona - 46
Augwest - 46
Leroy - 45
Mike - 44
Doc - 40
A_Schupick - 39
Trex - 35
Antneye - 32
Jaxit won the playoff for an undertitle. The cash prize was a 3 way split.


Have you ever asked yourself if playing poker is a problem for you or your family? How about gambling overall? What about computer use? Most of us in these forums are heavy users of our computers, we play a lot of poker, and I assume some of us gamble in other forms.

This editorial will present some information on the subject of problem gambling, and offer links to resources with much more information.
"The Digest"'s mission is to inform or entertain our readers. I know that. The Digest does not have a mission to scold or judge our readers, I also know that. If you feel reflecting on your life in the bright light of truth and reality might not be a good thing, if you know you can't handle the truth, you should skip this article. On the other hand, some introspection may be good for all of us.

Many, perhaps most of us in the forums have separated poker from gambling in our own minds and will state that case unequivocably. I can make that case myself and feel good about it. After all don't we know that skill at poker will overcome the routine runs of good and bad "luck"? Of course we do, but are we each sure that our skills at poker will overcome our compulsive tendencies? I'm not sure all of us can honestly say that.

It may be safe to assume we can all benefit from introspection and self honesty in possibly vulnerable areas of our lives, that is, those common daily activities and habits that have the potential to affect our lives in negative ways. This is as true of poker and gambling as it is of drinking, drug use, overeating, smoking, and other potentially addictive activities.
Experts estimate that 2%-5% of the general population are "problem" or addicted gamblers (see the link below). Since these forums and therefore our readers are effectively all poker players, it may be safe to assume that a much higher percentage of the people reading this article have a gambling problem than the general population does. I have no way to estimate the percentage of us who have a problem but I have learned how anyone can self diagnose if they are honest with themselves.

On that subject, problem gamblers notoriously lie to themselves. Lying to yourself and others is considered a nearly universal symptom of most addictions.

Here is a link to an overview and definition of problem gambling. http://www.medicinenet.com/gambling_...ge6.htm#glance
Here is a link to a more comprehensive overview of the subject. http://www.medicinenet.com/gambling_...on/article.htm

Since many of you are students, here is a link specific to a New York Times article on student gambling.
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/gamble/

I am willing to guess that far fewer than half of us in this forum are actually problem gamblers. Maybe fewer than 20% have a problem, I don't know. I do see a lot of posts in this forum that raise red flags. I believe that just as if you want to find an alcoholic and believe a bar might be a good place to start looking;casinos and poker sites may be the places you will find a concentration of problem gamblers and poker addicts.

I am not a psychological professional or a doctor. I do know something about gambling addiction however and I personally play poker. A close family member was a full blown, professionally diagnosed, and active gambling addict for at least the last 12 years of her life. While she did seek help 2-3 times, she never got that monkey completely off her back. I am sure it made her as miserable as it made her family and others around her.

Over those years, I studied everything I could find to learn about gambling addiction, how to diagnose it, and how to cure it. My take away was, and still is, that no one can cure a person's gambling addiction except the person who has it. I am further convinced that all problem gamblers lie about their problem. Yes they often lie to others, but more importantly, they almost always lie to themselves postponing and avoiding the truths that could set them free.

I mentioned having read some posts that raise a mental flag with regard to addiction. To be fair, I also see posts that suggest to me that most poker players are not addicts. While I read posts that make me question the moral mindset of some players, morality is not the thrust of this article.

What are some of the "problems" created by "problem" gamblers? Obviously financial distress is one, and usually financial distress not only for themselves but for others who care about them. Most problem gamblers are veteran liars and many become thieves to support their habit. Many of those feed on the patience of family and friends who overlook the lies and pilferage unless and until it becomes a bigger problem. Some commit crimes and some of those who do commit crimes get caught thereby creating even bigger problems for themselves and their families.

This devolution almost never starts with a crash and burn. The crash comes at the end of a long and typically hard to recognise spiral. Sadly, professionals will often say that most problem gamblers, like those addicted to other processes or substances, have to "hit bottom" before they seek help. In other words, the pain of the consequences of their behavior has to eclipse the pain of not feeding the monkey on their back before they seek a cure.

Now to the point of this article (I know! Finally!).
* First of all being a losing player does not make you an addict or a degenerate.
* Being a winning player does not disqualify you from being an addict either. In fact, being a winning player may only be postponing the consequences of addiction.

So what then are the hallmarks of addiction? There are some simple and direct questions you can ask yourself to assess your risk of addiction. Perhaps a common sense rule of thumb when initially questioning any activity is "Does __________ affect my life negatively in any area?"
I challenge you to take this test (linked below), privately, honestly, and introspectively. Honestly approached, it will provide you a picture of where you are on the spectrum of gamblers/poker players. DO NOT report back here with the results. For starters, your results are only as accurate as your answers are truthful and in the final analysis the results are only useful to you.

If, after you take this you become concerned, don't know where to turn, and would like more information; you are welcome to PM me. I can't personally help you but I may be able to direct you to resources who can.
Below is a link that might help you decide whether you have a problem.

Answer these questions honestly and get an experienced opinion

Here is a link to information from the National Health Institute. The article also has links to further information from health and mental health professionals.

Problem Gambling article from the US National Institute of Health

There is an anonymous twelve step program for gambling addiction that is patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous. I am not saying 12 step programs are the only way to go, just pointing out the availablity.

Link to Gamblers Anonymous website

Here is a link to learning more about addiction tp on-line poker specifically.
Online Poker addiction

Here is a link to a thread discussing poker addiction specifically. You might find something useful in it.
Poker addiction thread from cards chat

Concluding, I have no idea if many, or even any, members of the forums are addicted to gambling, to poker or to the internet. Those are all possibilities and it should be mentioned that many who suffer from one addiction are double, triple, or quadruple "winners" (suffering more than one addiction.) Have you ever known anyone who seemed hell bent to ruin his own life with alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc? If so you may have seen an addict.

I think with so many people in one place focused on poker, there may be some who can benefit from taking a look at themselves. Read the links, Google search for more information, take the self exam, then draw your own conclusions.




This month, I wanted to keep it simple and take a look at some hands that are fairly basic, but might provide something for you guys to think about. I will probably be doing this next month as well, so if you want to send in some hands for me to look at, feel free. This month I will focus more on common spots that might seem simple to players who have played a lot, but they are still very important as reminders, and for new players they can get you going in the correct direction.

So let’s get started!

This hand is exceptionally standard, but there are a few things at play here. First, CO limps which might make you want to limp behind, or change your range for raising, but especially with no reads and a limp from CO we are not going to want to do either one of those things. We want to raise are normal range here, which clearly Q8s is well within range. Then the rest of the hand plays out as it should. It’s not even close that we raise river.

It might be tempting to not go all the way on the river, here, but really, we pretty much beat everything and at these stakes we really shouldn’t be worried here and we will get people to freak out with enough bad hands that this is by far the best thing to do. So really standard, but more of a word of warning to new players, and older ones who always think they have to have it. Don’t get scared at low stakes by very unlikely hands.

This one is really interesting. I can tell you that standard is not check/call here. Either you should bet/fold or check/fold and it really depends a lot on your reads here. If you think that the villain can have a lot of pocket pairs, and then by all means, bet/fold here, but if you think he is very capable of calling down with AQ/AT, then c/f is best here. Reads are everything in this type of situation, but as a rule, I would actually b/f because I don’t think a lot of players will call down AQ/AT on this board.

While these two hands look really similar, they are actually kind of different, because of the composition of the boards. On hand one, I think c/c on the river is fine, and even c/f isn’t terrible. However, on hand 2, I think it was played correctly. With only 1 over card and not raising when the As hit I feel good about where we are. Just bet and get value. Hand 1 we c/c or c/f depending on stats of the villain, because we don’t get value from near as large of a range.


What hero wants to do here is bad. The reason is, there is a lot of things that hit the range of villains + tons of draws + its 3-ways. All of those make this hand how it actually is played perfect, and doing anything else would be a bad idea.



This is another case that you might be getting scared by river, but calling 3! On the river is the least you should do and capping is super good. You really are never going to be in that much trouble. Don’t be scared of randoms. An easy thing to do is count the boats you beat, and the ones you lose to, so pretty much just look at things like that in a very simple way, nothing too fancy.


I hope that this gives everyone something to think about. Even though it’s a little shorter than normal, I think that it gives you a lot more to think about in some ways than anything else I have written thus far.





“OK, UTG 3bets and everyone else folds. I have 99 in the BB. Should I go all in, or should I fold.”

Wait what? How can UTG 3bet? Was there action that you didn't tell us about? Did UTG limp-reraise? What's going on here? Usually, later on in the thread, the poster clarifies “Oh, UTG was first to act and he raised to 3bbs. That's what I mean by 3bet.” When I read something like this, there aren't enough facepalms in the world to express my annoyance. IF UTG RAISES TO 3BB, THEN HE RAISES TO 3BB. IT'S NOT A 3BET BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION!!!! If he instead raised to 4bb, then he raised to 4bb. He didn't 4bet. The first time chips are put into the pot during a round of betting, that action is called a “bet”. When someone raises that bet, it is called a “raise”. If there has already been a raise, and someone raises that raise, it is called a “reraise” or a “3bet”. Preflop, since the blinds are live bets, the action facing every player is a bet the size of the big blind. If the big blind is 1, and someone bets 3, then they are making a raise to 3. If someone else makes it 9, then they are making a reraise or a 3bet to 9. Suppose someone does make that 3bet to 9, and someone else calls. Now on the flop, someone decides that they will place 10 chips in the pot. That is a “bet”, because it is the first action on that betting round which puts chips into the pot. It is not a raise. If the other player decides to make it 30, that is a “raise”, not a “reraise” or a “3bet”. I realize that these errors are not likely to be made by anyone except a total amateur. And that such an amateur is very likely not among the readership of this column. Nevertheless, these types of errors are soooooo annoying that I consider writing about this terminological inexactitude to be worthwhile if I prevent even 2 people from committing a similar offense. I realize that this pet peeve of mine only applies to games with blinds, and that players of the stud games will have other problems, such as people referring to the bring-in as the blind, or not knowing what “complete” means. But I think that this problem manifests itself to a much greater extent in NL Holdem than it does in other games.
Now consider the following types of argument which we see all the time in BQ:

“Lol, how can you play limit holdem, get with the program, everyone who isn't super-old plays NL”

“Omg, you play FR NL, why u no play 6max, you are a big nit or something?”

“What? Why are you playing on a site that I don't play at? Certainly I have chosen the best site of all time to play at, so you are wrong if you play on another site.”

These types of pronouncements usually indicate that the poster has an inability to consider that everybody in the world isn't the same as he is. While there are some valid arguments to make regarding NL vs LHE, FR vs 6max, and the various advantages and drawbacks of the different poker sites, this type of know-it-all, condescending attitude has no place on the forums, in my opinion. And it is certainly not true that only old people play LHE. Just look at Bona, er wait, I mean Doc...no um...nevermind.

An argument which seems to pop up from time to time is the contention that when playing 6max, you should be defending your blinds more often than in FR, as the blinds come around more often in 6max, and therefore you will pay too much in blinds if you fold them too often. This argument has no merit whatsoever. You may very well want to defend a lot of blinds in 6max, but the decision to do so revolves around your ability to play well postflop, as well as the tendencies of your opponents, and not upon the fact that there are fewer seats in 6max than in FR. It is true that the blinds will come around more often in 6max than in FR, but so what? The button will also come around more frequently. And all the other seats (which should be profitable for you) will come around more frequently as well. You're not just seeing the blinds more often in 6max, you're seeing every other seat just as much more often in 6max than in FR.

An error in thinking which comes up a lot in NL holdem is the idea that you should always bet or raise if you think you are ahead, and that if you wind up losing a big pot, there is nothing you could have done differently. You certainly don't ever want to give a free card. This kind of thinking is more appropriate to a limit game than to a big bet game. In a limit game, the odds you are giving your opponent are such that he will very often call with worse hands, and in fact he cannot correctly fold very much of his range on any street, otherwise he will be horribly exploited by bluffs. Furthermore, in a limit game, it is more difficult for an opponent to bluff-raise you off the best hand. While I am no expert in LHE, I think it is fair to say that you can bet, raise, and call down your marginal value hands a lot lighter than you can in NL. Since you will have more difficulty getting paid off with your marginal hands in NL and also run a big risk of getting bluffed off the best hand, it is often advisable in NL when you have a marginal holding to delete a street of betting by checking back when in position, or check-calling on the end and turning your hand into a bluff-catcher. A hand like top pair, 3rd kicker can often be very dangerous and must be played cautiously a lot of the time. LHE guys: Whenever you happen to be playing NL and find yourself holding top pair with a bad kicker and there are significant stacks behind, be aware that this hand is not an automatic monster with which you can raise the flop and then call down big bets on the turn and river. Your NL flop raise narrows villain's range A TON. When he calls your flop raise, he's usually not continuing with 2nd pair or gutshot + overs here, like he might in LHE. You will lose at showdown the vast majority of the time against non-maniacal opponents. There are exceptions, of course, which are villain dependent, and in fact in some situations especially blind vs. blind, top pair IS in fact a monster in NL. But in other spots, against tight opponents or when positions dictate that people will be playing tighter ranges, you will want to be extremely cautious and try to get to showdown cheaply when holding top pair, bad kicker. You almost certainly will win more by skipping a street of betting, or just calling on the end and catching your opponent's bluffs than by trying to get paid off on three streets by second pair or a worse top pair. Also, LHE guys please don't get on my case because I've implied that “you can't induce action by checking in LHE” or “just valuebet in LHE, nobody ever folds” I know full well that you can find spots for inducing or bluffing in LHE, just that these spots are more situational and rare in LHE than in no limit holdem.

There's a lot of confusion about what a “thin value bet” is in big-bet games. It is a value bet made when you think that your hand is just barely ahead of villain's calling range. For some reason, and I don't know why this is, I have seen quite a few people refer to any bet which is very small in relation to the size of the pot as a “thin value bet”. While it is true that villain may look you up a bit lighter if you make a tiny bet, this fact in and of itself does not make your value bet thin. What makes your valuebet thin is the likelihood that your opponent's range for calling it is just barely behind your own hand. There can be thin 3/4-pot valuebets or even thin overbet jams. It's all to do with ranges, and not really dependent on the size of your bet, except insofar as your betsizing will contort your opponent's calling range. A bet which is small in relation to the size of the pot is more properly referred to as a “blocking bet”.

Finally, here are some topics which are repeated ad infinitum for which the answer is 95% clear even without reading the rest of the OP:

“Should I go pro?”
If you have to ask, the answer is almost always “no”.

“I have $x to play poker with, what game should I play?”

It depends, but most likely a smaller game than you had in mind.

“What games are the easiest games where I can make a lot of money quickly and easily?”

It depends, but most likely there are no games which fit your idea of making money quickly and easily.

“Help! I won $100 at nl25, but then I lost $50 in one day! What am I doing wrong?”

You are failing to understand variance. Losing 2 buyins in a day, or indeed within one session is completely standard.

“OMG lulz online poker is riggt. U guize are cheeting or being cheeted”

Your post will shortly attract the eager attention of the moderators, who will move it to a thread dedicated to the evaluation of such ideas, wherein you may further develop your theories in the presence of other like-minded individuals.

Remember, especially newer posters, to read the FAQs in your forum of choice. Doing so will allow you to get an idea of the types of posts which are frowned upon and the types of posts which are encouraged. You will also find answers to some common questions.
Here is a link to the BQ FAQ[/URL]:
And the micro-LHE FAQ[/URL]:


Strat threads:

Showdown hands vs bluffing hands
How to play the hand, multiple hands
Sit mining
Advice on thought process
Value bet or check through?

LHE:
Drawing hand price too high? Or play?
OP questions all streetsbut is it really a flop question?
What do you think about when you are considering your opponents range?
Playing Ax, LHE 6 max
King of the Kiddie Pool



OLD GOLD:

The Library-awesome repository of poker lore from the Micros
Micros Forum Guidelines
BQ FAQ
Guide to PokerStove Lanyi Milestone post

TRIP REPORTS, WELLS, FUN STUFF:

Play along with TT
return of the 100/100/100 challenge in the micros

Links to previous digests:

"The Digest" October, 2012
BQ Digest September 2012
BQ Digest August 2012
BQ Digest July, 2012
BQ Digest May and June 2012

Humor:



We don't call it "Big Slick" any more. AK has been changed to Anna Kournikova, looks great-never wins.



There are two rules for success in poker:
1) Never tell everything you know.



Top Five Reasons…you are delusional about poker:
1) You think you’re ready for the WSOP because you money in $5 SnGs all the time, dude!
2) You own a killer pair of sunglasses that would make Fossilman jealous.
3) You quote from Rounders whenever you can, especially if someone asks what your cards were. You always answer, “I’m sorry, John. I don’t remember.”
4) You own a minimum of twelve poker books. You’ve read at least two of them.
5) You wear your Party Poker hat and sunglasses to live $1/2 games.

First !

Mike!!

Who you calling old??

Oh, and mister editor, Bona, sir, the version of the Digest in the Microlimit Forum could use some hand histories in Schu's column.


Doc

Would you damn kids quit fighting please, I need a nap. Oh and Doc micros version is fixed courtesy of DougL. Thanks for the heads up.

Oh the irony

I was ready to staunchly defend my use of the singular, masculine pronoun in the absence of unambiguously non-plural, gender-neutral, third-person pronouns. However I was then informed by Mr. Ice and Mrs. Ice that:

you can not gender the pronoun if the gender of the antecedent is unknown. you need to make it either 'anybody who likes to eat hamburgers should watch his or her cholesterol.' or, and this is the better choice, you pluralize the antecedent which makes the pronoun plural 'People who like to eat hamburgers should watch their cholesterol'.

So I will concede that my phrasing here:

was very poor indeed, and I should have either used "his or her", otherwise I should have pluralized the antecedent.

I have once again damaged some links in transistion. Mikes column offers links to the BQ FAQ and th Micros FAQ. The links below will work.

If a mod reading this is willing, we would appreciate if you replaced the ones in Mikes article with these. tyvm

Link to BQ FAQ

Link to LHE Micros FAQ

Wow.

Although I am, and try to be, a contributor to the Digest every month I don't always read my fellow columnists articles. Sorry Mike, but some times your stuff is way over my skill level

I have read Bona's article in full this month, and, is enjoyed the word?, enjoyed it. I'm not a problem gambler, but I am a gambler. And I'm sure as most gamblers do, prefer punting on larger sums of money. But then I also like playing a $2 tourney sometimes as much as a $100 tourney.

Meh, I'm not sure what I'm waffling about. I just liked the read.

Jokes were the best part this month

Yeah lhe was aids I'll have a short write up about it soon.

Too many big words itt for a redneck imo . Awesome rant Mike nh sir .

looool those 2 LHE graphs are practically inverses of each other.

Admittedly, I hardly know anything about that game. For the 11 hours I've spent playing $2/$4 I'm stuck 12BB's lol (felt like trying it out for lulz). Man that game was stressful. I wanna get better at it but it's certainly near the bottom of my list for games I wanna learn. (No offense Bona)

Yikes 2/4 is a tough level. If your 11 hours is about a thousand hands at 6 max, your results aren't terrible. Here is a link to some graphs from people who play mostly limit hold-em.
Micros LHE October graphs thread

This is my October LHE graph:


None of the graphs in that thread, or yours or mine are enough hands to mean anything. Lady Variance rules of course.

Very awesome Bona.

lol I guess I should've (but didn't want to) mentioned the fact that I played it at a casino, and $2/$4 is the lowest stake there. Yeah yeah, walk of shame. I was doing stuff like raising AJs and 99 UTG and that's probably a leak, but I knew I was getting called by so much worse at the tables that it felt like the right play. Still does tbh lol. Felt like I was playing tight just to see J3o call and hit a 4-flush otr. Stuff like that made the game stressful, but again, idk much about the game and I was just experimenting with it lol.

Thanks for trying to raise my self esteem on the matter though lol. Of course, sick graph is sick. I'll try to match yours one day...much easier said than done I know lol. Trust me I know...* shudder*

99 and Ajs from UTG are fine in live $2/$4 LHE. You're playing more to hit a monster than to hit top pair, nevertheless if your opponents are CC things like A7 and J9 then you may well hit top pair and get paid off by worse hands. Remember that in these huge pots, if you flop something like a gutter + overcards, you are almost certainly going to get odds to draw at it, at least on the flop. In fact, depending on how many players come along and the flop action, you may get odds to peel the flop with just an overcard and a BDFD. So this is a difference between the NL games which you are used to and live, loose $2/$4 LHE games: You will frequently be getting odds to draw postflop and also a lot of people will come along with worse draws, so your high suited cards are often playable in spots where they wouldn't be if it was NL.

Depending how passive and loose the table is, you might even want to have an open-limping range from EP consisting of small pairs and Axs. But the table has to be right for it, otherwise it's a leak.

+1


Doc

omg free coaching from Mike, EAT IT BQ!!

Haha thanks man. So a lot of the value from low stake LHE comes from people calling with reverse implied odds and raking in teh munniez when they "hit", note taken

live 2/4 is unbeatable.

Hello A_Schupick, I am new to the forum and desperatly try to play poker. I am blind, and i heard you were too. Do you know a way to play poker on pokerstars? I have jaws, but dont read the cards nore the tables. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the reply.

Hey, I'm going to do a bit more research about Jaws before i get back to with a good answer. I have used Jaws a lot, and really don't like it. For me, I am not completely blind, so i just sit really close to the monitor when I play, but I have a few people i ask this question to in my network, so let me do that and I will get back to you in a day or so, hopefully.

Thanks for the reply. even if there's a way to know what the cards are, thats fine, even if its without jaws. I'm just fully blind and would really like to know if there's a way to play pokerstars. Thanks a lot.