Howard Lederer & Annie Duke Poker Blogs
Or: How to prevent bad beats by always going in with the worst hand.

"The smarter you play, the luckier you'll be."
Mark Pilarski

Happy New Year!
This is amateur night, of course.
The pro's stay home.

This is gonna be a long post, so let's get right to it, shall we?

My regular readers have heard me squawking about wanting to tackle satellites to the

Phil Helmuth Poker Blogs

"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

What's the best way to shake up an otherwise boring Monday nite? No-limit multi-table tournament, that's what! I've shed the grinder persona and am solidly in no limit tourney mode. I'm one of those types who doesn't excel when playing both limit and no-limit. SNG's are a

Russ Gorgiev - GCA Poker Blogs

"The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; happens at the poker table all the time."
General David Shoup

Quick post of a few random thoughts.

Anyone else notice Russ Gorgiev's - GCA conspicuous absence from RGP? For the record, he sent me a nice holiday greetings email. Sorry Russ, I'm still not giving you my credit card number even if

Phil Helmuth Poker Blogs

"Las Vegas is the only town in the world whose skyline is made up neither of buildings, like New York, nor of trees, like Wilbraham, Massachusetts, but signs. One can look at Las Vegas from a mile away on Route 91 and see no buildings, no trees, only signs."
Tom Wolfe

From a prior post of mine:

John Feeny talks about the "strategic moment" in hold em in his fine book,

Poker Blogs: Merry Christmas!

Wanted to post a few links for the faithful. I've updated nearly every day thus far and I'm not gonna let a little holiday like Christmas get in my way.

To be honest, I'm kinda tired of linking. I'd prefer to just ramble about poker but I worry that folks (all ten of you) are only coming here for my linkage. It's a difficult balance, poker links versus commentary.

Phil Helmuth Poker Blogs

I'm going to play the DrudgeReport of Poker Blogs today. I've discovered some outstanding poker linkage and two top-tier poker blogs. Enjoy the fruits of my labor and please come back.

But first, I woke up this morning both alarmed and pissed, thinking I had dropped 100 big bets in 3.6 last night. Make that ALARMED. Logged into Party and realized that I had just

Party Poker Blog

"Hold em is to stud what chess is to checkers."
Johnny Moss

Of course, Russ Gorgiev - GCA says stud is the best for learning. On the other hand, Johnny Moss, Mike Caro and Doyle Brunson say otherwise. Which is credible, a life-long cheat or the latter three?

Doyle Brunson > Russ Gorgiev

The complexities are so great in Texas Hold em that Doyle, in his treatise, SuperSystem,

Evelyn Ng Online Poker Diary

Nicole Sullivan
Nicole Sullivan poker online poker
Nicole Sullivan Bravo Celebrity Poker
Nicole Sullivan" "poker" "poker"
"Nicole Sullivan" poker

"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the

Party Poker Blog

If you're no longer a novice, but not a professional player, game selection may be the key to winning money. Without using any selection, you'll probably lose dramatically. By using selection moderately, you'll probably lose a little or break even. But by using game selection prudently and consistently, you probably will be a winner from now on.
Mike Caro

/PartyPoker rant

Can

Phil Helmuth Poker Diary

Life can only be understood backward but it must be lived forward.
Kierkegaard

Won big early last night in 3.6 on the strength of limp-reraising twice with KK and hitting a set once and having them stand up in the other. God knows it's easy to win when the deck hits you in the face, especially on a loose, aggressive Party Poker table.

Let's crank through some poker

Evelyn Ng Poker Diary

Raising to Thin the Field:

There is a popular misconception that a primary purpose of raising before the flop is to drive other players out of the pot - to limit the field. It's an idea that keeps getting repeated over and over again in poker books - a mantra to soothe the soul. It's an idea that's just wrong.

So far I haven't found a single texas hold em book that

Phil Ivey Poker Journal

"Is it a reasonable thing, I ask you, for a grown man to run about and hit a ball? Poker's the only game fit for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and every man's is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork? There's only one way to make a fortune, and that's to down the fellow who's up against you."
Somerset Maugham

Great news -

Poker Journal

"Money effects emotions, and emotions control most players. Poker involves the winning and losing of money. Common emotions of anger, excitement, greed, masochism, sadism and self-pity will often take control of players during the action. Most players fail to recognize or are unable to suppress these emotional influences that decrease their objectivity and poker ability. The good

Pokerbrat Poker Journal

"Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow."
Proverbs 13:11

My wife taped this to my monitor when I woke up this morning, stating she thought of me when she read it. And she's right, that's exactly how I feel about growing my poker bankroll. Let's call the above a 'prayer for grinders' shall we? Poker has taught me many things

Phil Helmuth Poker Journal

"The whole problem with most players is that they want success without work. Their mental picture of a successful gambler is like the Hollywood image - some guy betting big money and doing nothing but win. Well, gambling is a profession that takes hard work to learn and skill to stay on top. You can't buy an education and say, "Stick it in my head." You can't become an

Poker Blog

"Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens."
John Luckacs

I discovered today that I have a

Phil Helmuth Party Poker Blog

"Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life."
Anthony Holden

Blogger went down again tonight. Lost my original post. VERY

Phil Helmuth Poker Journal

"I think that we are all in the right place at the right time almost every day. It's the people who are prepared to be lucky who can take advantage of being there. How do these people position themselves to be lucky? It was Goethe who said, 'Anytime that you take the first step toward trying to achieve something in life, all manner of good things will mysteriously fall

Poker Diary

"See, in my world - the world of high-stakes gin and poker - we play for cold, hard cash. It's all business, pure and simple. Anyone who thinks cardplaying is a 'game' - I'll show you a loser. Money... M-O-N-E-Y. That's how you measure success. One dollar at a time. One chip at a time. That's how you keep score."
Stu Ungar

Poker blogs kick ass.
Create your own - it's free and easy

Poker Blog

"The overlay is of paramount importance."
Stuart Reuben

TGIF. Even though I'm sick again.

Been playing $50 NL this evening. Still wearing my grinder hat and slowly re-adjusting to the no-limit mentality, but playing well enough to be up about $30. I suppose I'm better off erring on the side of caution rather than pushing any perceived small edges.

I had an interesting discussion

Phil Helmuth Poker Blog

"Poker is America's most favorite game. Seventy million adults play cards and about 47 million Americans prefer poker. Poker is as American as baseball and hot dogs. Many of our most famous presidents were poker enthusiasts. Poker contains a greater amount of skill than bridge, or any other card game, according to authority John Scarne."
From a 1970's Gardena cardroom

Poker Blog

"When we play, we must realize, before anything else, that we are out to make money."
David Sklansky, Theory of Poker

The bold text above is actually Sklansky's and not of my doing.

Thanks for reading my daily updates.

Because I am a cableless loser, I didn't get to watch the big Celebrity Death Match Poker show on Bravo last evening. I truly enjoyed reading all the disparaging and

Poker Blog
I've got your poker links per usual

Article About Doyle Brunson & the World Poker Tour in Slate Magazine.
Crash and Bluff

Also, a poker link from MediaWeek. The online article is shorter than the one in the actual magazine (page 8!), but is still interesting, nonetheless.
Doubling Down on Cards

CNN says poker is a cultural phenomena, yadda, yadda, yadda.
The hottest game on

Poker Blog

"There can be no self-deception for a poker player. You have to be a realist to be successful. You can't think you've played well if you lose consistently. Unless you can judge how well you play relative to the others, you have no chance."
Mickey Appleman

God, ain't that the terrible truth. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Again, thanks to everyone reading. It's nice to see