The birth of online poker 2.0

I think 2012 is going to be an excellent year for poker. With the recent DOJ statement that online casinos aren’t prohibited by the 1961 Wire Act and Nevada leading the way with legal online poker coming (hopefully very) soon I expect full-blown legal online poker in the United States by the end of the year. Now I don’t expect every state to get involved, and it’ll probably be a few years until the Feds, the states, and any other interested parties all take sides and online poker 2.0 becomes truly mature in this country.

But as a player, writer, and coach, I don’t need mature poker. I’m sure I will like online poker 2.0 in its nascent form. I’m thinking the very first day the pay games run, the action will be better than anything you’ve seen on the major sites for the past few years. And as the sites come online and compete for casual players through major ad budgets, I think we’ll get an influx of soft money like we haven’t seen since 2005. There’s an opportunity coming, and I plan to take full advantage since opportunities never last long enough. In the coming months I’m planning writings and maybe a few videos aimed at helping you get ready so you can take the fullest advantage of online poker 2.0 when it arrives.

Aussie Millions Envy

This month also marks the conclusion of the Aussie Millions Poker Championship at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia. I have to admit, this is one tournament I’ve always wanted to play. I’m not much for playing tournaments. My primary purpose for playing poker is to generate steady income, and in my opinion cash games are just plain better for that than tournaments are. Tournaments also require a major time investment, and one reason I always liked poker is the flexibility the game offers. I don’t like being told I have to play at this table, in this seat, from noon until 2am, whether I like it or not.

But I also get the upsides of tournaments. They’re fun, without a doubt. And the promise of a huge payday is nice. One year I’m going to make an exception and play the Aussie Millions. I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, and heading down under in January definitely seems like a good plan (even if I’m sitting in a casino half the time). A www.onlinecasino.com.au and a guide to Melbourne. If you’ve been to the Aussie Millions and have any feedback for me, let me know.

Calling 3-Bets Out Of Position

Oh boy. Someone pointed me to a thread in the microstakes forum at 2+2. In the thread, the poster has KQs in the small blind in a 25NL 6-max game. It’s folded to him preflop, and he 3x raises. The big blind 3x 3-bets. Blind versus blind. The poster 4-bets small and gets called. The flop is J-T-7 two-tone (no backdoor draw for our hero), and the poster check-shoves the flop and gets snap-called by KJ.

The poster’s comments about the opponent was that this guy 3-bets light a lot and he’s a suspicious player.

The poster’s commentary is that flat-calling the 3-bet is “****ing awful”, and he cites my book Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em as his source for why this is such a terrible play.

Let me start out by saying that if there ever were a place where it is a-ok to flat-call a 3-bet from OOP, this is it. (In fact in modern no-limit games there are plenty of places where flat-calling 3-bets both in and out of position is fine.) I would tend to call in this situation more than anything else.

It is true that in SSNLHE we warn against flat-calling 3-bets from out of position. The biggest problem with doing this is that, too often, when players do it, they make two major postflop errors. First, they mentally give their opponents credit for holding a legitimate 3-betting range rather than the wide range that light 3-betters have. Thus, they tend not to give their own hands enough credit, and they underplay. Second, they tend to play a fit-or-fold strategy postflop. If they fit, they want to shovel all the money into the pot. If they don’t “fit” according to their definition, they’re looking for the first opportunity to fold. The problem with this is that most people’s definition of “fitting” a flop is too narrow, and they end up putting big bucks in preflop and then giving up too often. Basically, they’re calling the 3-bet, but then just folding WAY too often on the flop or turn. Furthermore, they’re calling the 3-bets with too many small card hands that will be begging to fold once the flop comes.

Here’s the thing. In a blind versus blind battle against a notoriously light 3-bettor, KQs is a legitimate monster hand. There’s no question it’s worth playing against a light 3-betting range from the blinds. Now when I’m deciding whether to flat-call or to 4-bet preflop, I’m going to think about how my opponent is likely to make mistakes responding to my action. I tend to find that most players at the 25NL level will make more and more significant mistakes playing the 3-bet pot (even when they have position) than they will in responding to the 4-bet with a hand like this one, so I’m more inclined to just call the 3-bet.

If there’s a hand that makes something on more flops than KQs, I’m not sure what it is. Something is as little as overcards and a backdoor flush draw. When your opponent is aggressive and has wide ranges, flopping something with KQs gives you license to continue in the hand. Again, how you continue depends on the sort of mistakes your opponent is likely to make. If your opponent is going to make too many folding mistakes after the flop in the 3-bet pot, then I would consider lines that involved semi-bluffing the flop or turn. (E.g., donk betting the flop, check-shoving, betting the turn if the flop gets checked through, etc.)

If my opponent is suspicious, however, and unlikely to fold incorrectly, then I’m often going to try to extend hands through to the river. Getting to the river will allow my hand value advantage to play out because it maximizes the chance of seeing a showdown. Getting to the river also helps me because my opponents tend not to read hands well once the board gets crowded. I’m going to make a lot of money against a suspicious opponent when I catch a king or queen and get paid two postflop streets of value… sometimes even getting stacks in by the river. I’ll also be able to find spots where my opponent’s turn play turns his hand face-up and I can bluff profitably. (Even suspicious players don’t look you up when they have air.)

Basically, against a light 3-bettor who is also suspicious and doesn’t like to fold early in the hand, I’m going to rely on the preflop hand strength of KQs to justify early bets preflop and on the flop. Then on the turn and river I’m going to rely on my (hopefully) superior hand-reading to find value and bluffs where appropriate. This is, of course, aided by the fact that my starting hand is quite good.

Bottom line, when people 3-bet you really light in position, you have to have an out of position calling range. Suited big card hands are probably the perfect hands for this range, since they hit so many flops and they flop top pair often allowing your opponents to value-own themselves. Even on a rag flop with a backdoor flush draw you might take the 3-to-1 odds and float out of position looking for something positive to develop on the turn or river. (Either good cards or your opponent taking a line that betrays weakness.)

When your opponents are aggressive and bloat pots with light 3-bets and auto-flop c-bets, you have to get sticky with them. You can’t just fold all day long. You have to gamble. As long as your hand compares well to your opponent’s actual range (rather than the range you’re scared of), you’ll be fine. Yes, there’s variance. And yes, you’ll have runs where your opponents outflop you a bunch of times and you lose X buyins real fast. That’s modern no-limit.

But as long as you’re willing to hang in there and not just call preflop and check-fold flop, calling 3-bets out of position can be just fine.

It’s $49.99 plus shipping (and sales tax for Nevada residents).

Order here (purchase links at bottom of page).

Assuming there isn’t a disruption in the supply chain, the first books should ship end of next week/beginning of the week after that. Books ship via USPS Priority Mail, and Priority Mail International for purchases outside the US. I will personally sign every book in the early orders, and if the first shipment sells out I will fulfill orders on a first come/first served basis.

Get $25 off on Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em. That makes the PDF, Kindle, or iPad/iPhone versions only $4.99, over 85% off! You can get all 3 versions or the paperback for just $9.99 (plus shipping on the paperback). To redeem this deal, use discount code BLACKSSNLHE and click here.

Get $7.50 off my newest e-book How To Read Hands At No-Limit Hold’em. It’s been getting great reviews so far, and for the next three days it’s going to be an even better deal. Hand reading is the most important poker skill there is, and this book can help you take your game up two or three notches. To redeem this deal, use discount code BLACKHAND and click here.

You can also buy the books as gifts, even the e-books! All you have to do is purchase the e-book and then send me an email at edmiller@notedpokerauthority.com with the recipient’s name, email address, and an optional message.

Don’t miss this deal.

(Moneybookers/Skrill customers: These prices are also good for you through Monday, November 29th. Just send payment to moneybookers@smallstakesnolimitholdem.com and follow up with an email to edmiller@notedpokerauthority.com with your name, email address, and the e-book title you want to order.)

If you miss the show or don’t live in Vegas, it’s available on iTunes. Just search for Gambling With An Edge podcast, and you can download it to your PC, iPod, iPad, whatever.

The reviews are starting to come in for it. So far here are the reviews I’ve seen:

Bill Rini

I really can’t recommend How to Read Hands enough. It’s a true original in a sea of poker books that do nothing but rehash the same old strategy concepts. I can truly say that this is one of the first books I’ve read in years that I’ve felt is a must-have book for aspiring poker players. Don’t buy this book at your own peril.

Bob Dancer

Miller’s book is not meant for skimming. It actually assigns homework![. . .]Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I think it’s good. In my opinion this book provides an excellent way to learn an important skill. This particular skill won’t come automatically, at least not to me, but now I have a roadmap I can follow. And it’s a roadmap that makes sense to me.

Get this brand-new e-book by clicking here.

Why preorder, you ask? Why not just wait until it’s out? Well, if you order today, you get the following perks that disappear once the book is released on Tuesday:

• All three electronic versions for the price of one. You get a PDF version, a MOBI version, and an EPUB version. This lets you read the book on your PC, on your Amazon Kindle, on your iPhone, iPad, your Nook, your whatever. After release it’s $5 extra if you want all three versions.
• $5 off Flopzilla hand analysis software. Flopzilla by Scylla is a terrific companion for the e-book, and if you buy today you get a $5 off coupon.
• $60 off a 4 hour coaching package. This is the real payoff. Buy the e-book today, and get $60 off a 4 hour coaching package. If you think you ever might want a few hours of coaching from me, you can buy the book today and get MORE THAN YOUR MONEY BACK once you sign up for coaching. There’s no rush on using the coaching. You have until the end of 2012. Again, buy the e-book today, sign up for coaching later, and the book is essentially FREE plus you get an extra $10 discount to boot.

Look. That’s $70 in discounts, and the dang e-book only costs $49.99. Not only that, but the e-book is one of a kind, the only one out there that’s focused like a laser on the single most important no-limit hold’em skill—how to figure out what the other guys have.

If you play any poker at all, this deal is really a no-brainer. It’s just a fraction of a $1-$2 buyin. You learn how to read your opponents’ hands. And you get $70 in discounts.

You’ve got one day left. Don’t miss it.

As if that weren’t enough, I’m going to offer another deal. Today only. Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em e-book, $10 only. Here’s what you do. Click Add To Cart under each book you want to buy. If you’re buying Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, use code OCT17 to get the super-sale price of $10.

HOW TO READ HANDS E-BOOK PREORDER

SMALL STAKES E-BOOK

Add in Flopzilla (with an extra $5 off) and you have everything you need to be a no-limit hold’em force for under $100. Order today. You won’t see a better deal for a long, long time.

I’ll be honest. I’m surprised that no one else has written this book already. Hand reading is the single most important no-limit hold’em skill. Really it’s the single most important poker skill, period. If you can read hands better than your opponents, you’ll win. If you can’t, you won’t. Maybe it’s not quite that simple, but it’s close enough.

Yet here it is, nearing the end of 2011, and no one has written a book on hand reading yet. Really?

Well, the wait is almost over. How To Read Hands At No-Limit Hold’em breaks down this holy grail skill in painstaking detail. I start at the beginning and guide you step by step through the hand from preflop play through the river. At each stop I show you the process professional players use to figure out the cards their opponents hold. Sprinkled throughout I share with you exclusive tips and hand reading shortcuts I’ve developed throughout my playing career.

You know what made me want to write this book? Well, besides the fact that it’s on the most important and valuable poker skill there is and no one else wrote it first? I decided to write this book because I got sick and tired of reading accounts of voodoo hand reading.

How many times have you been reading a hand a pro wrote up when you come upon a line like this. “At that point, I could just feel like I had him beat.” Or something like this, “I wanted to call, but something about the situation told me it was time for a big laydown.” If you read about poker as much as I do, you’ve probably read lines like these a million times.

They drive me absolutely freaking crazy.

What is that supposed to teach you? That you’re supposed to have premonitions when you play poker? That professional poker is about being a claravoyant or having ESP? That if you don’t have the “feel” for poker, you might as well rack up your chips and head over to the roulette wheel?

No no no no no. That’s not what hand reading is about at all, and I can’t help but think that some of the guys who write this stuff do so because their own hand reading is shall we say a bit fuzzy.

Hand reading is a simple, straightforward, logical process. No voodoo. Believe me, you don’t have to be Miss Cleo to play top-notch poker. In How To Read Hands At No-Limit Hold’em, I show you how mere mortals like us can use plain old logical deduction to draw seemingly supernatural insights into what our opponents hold. And, as I do in all my books, I use plenty of example hands so you can see how this process unfolds in the heat of battle.

There’s one other thing that made me want to write this book. This information is going to be brand new and absolutely eye-opening to a whole lot of people.

I don’t like to waste my readers’ time with rehashed info they’ve heard a thousand times over. I like to zero in on the areas my readers need the most improvement on and hammer, hammer, hammer. I know this book is going to hit the mark.

I’ve worked with dozens of students over the past six months or so, and I’ve given them a sneak preview of some of the ideas in this book. It’s been eye-opening to nearly every one of them. These are people who have paid hundreds of dollars to learn from me, many of whom already win consistently at the $2-$5 and $5-$10 level, and this stuff was brand new to them.

And you can learn it for just $49.99. It’s an incredible value. In just one session of $1-$2 no-limit hold’em, you can easily win enough to make the book pay for itself.

You don’t have long to wait. Preordering starts on Tuesday, October 4th, and the book will be released to the world two weeks later on Tuesday, October 18th.

Make sure you get your order in before the 18th, though, because if you do, you get the follow bonus perks:

• All electronic formats for no additional charge. You get a PDF version for the computer, a PRC version for an Amazon Kindle, and an EPUB version for Apple iPad and iPhone, Barnes & Noble Nook, and most other e-reader devices. If you order after the 18th, it’s $5 extra for all the versions.
• A $5 off coupon for Flopzilla software. Flopzilla is a terrific and inexpensive software package that will be an invaluable companion as you learn to read and analyze hands logically. I show you how to use it in the book, and if you preorder you will get a coupon for $5 off Flopzilla.
• $60 off a 4 hour coaching package. This is good for new students and also for my existing students. You can get a 4 hour coaching package for $60 off the normal price. If you take advantage of this offer, it more than pays for the whole book.

Ok, enough sales pitch. I’m sure you’re convinced, and you’ll head on over to notedpokerauthority.com on Tuesday to be one of the first to preorder your copy. Until then, here’s the table of contents to help you wet your whistle.

• INTRODUCTION 7
• PART I: CORE HAND READING 9
• PLAYER TYPES 11
• THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF HAND READING 14
• HAND RANGES 17
• HAND COMBINATIONS 22
• PREFLOP HAND READING 24
• HAND READING ON THE FLOP 34
• HAND READING ON THE TURN 56
• HAND READING ON THE RIVER 78
• PART II: HAND READING VARIATIONS 89
• WHEN YOUR OPPONENTS DON’T COOPERATE 91
• WHEN DON’T THEY BET? 100
• GETTING RAISED 109
• DISCOUNTING HAND COMBOS 126
• POLARIZED HAND RANGES 128
• HAND READING IN MULTIWAY POTS 135
• USING FLOPZILLA TO PERFECT YOUR HAND READING 140
• PROFILING PLAYERS USING BAYESIAN INFERENCE 148
• QUICK CONCEPTS AND KEY POINTS 160
• PART III: HAND READING IN PRACTICE 167
• CONCLUSION 189

I had my suspicions of this back in April when the DOJ said that Full Tilt could resume operations outside the US if they returned the US-based players’ money. Full Tilt responded with a series of statements that boiled down to “Players’ money, huh? You mean you want us to just return all of it?”

But I have to admit I didn’t anticipate the scope of the fraud. The DOJ complaint alleges that Full Tilt maintained $390 million in player deposits while having only $60 million cash on hand. Where did the rest of the money go? Directly into the pockets of company principals Howard Lederer, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Rafe Furst, and Ray Bitar to the tune of $440 million over the past four years.

Sounds like a massive global Ponzi scheme to me. I have a couple thoughts about this.

Prohibition creates criminality

When you prohibit something, you necessarily create criminal enterprises. This is just as true with online poker as it has been with alcohol in the 20s and drugs today. I’m willing to give Lederer, Ferguson, and company enough benefit of the doubt that when they launched Full Tilt Poker in 2004, they were not intending to preside over a massive criminal conspiracy. Those were the heady days when poker was absolutely exploding and money was raining from the heavens. They likely just saw an opportunity to launch a business and went for it.

Then came the UIGEA in 2006, and Full Tilt made an important decision. They chose to remain in the United States market when other more established sites like Party Poker withdrew. This decision nearly instantly catapulted Full Tilt from being a second-tier site into being one of the top two poker sites in the world. But it also meant that, as time went on, they would be facing more and more enforcement measures in the United States designed to shut off the fire hose of money.

The government squeezed and squeezed, and instead of doing the responsible thing and admitting that they could no longer do legitimate business in the United States, Full Tilt doubled down on their decision and started going further and further outside the lines to keep the money flowing.

It was likely during this period that these four named in the complaint came to the realization that Full Tilt Poker was not a business built for the long term. It would eventually get squeezed to death by the US Government. And that left them with a choice. They had hundreds of millions of player deposits under their control. When the bottom fell out of the business, as it inevitably would, who should get the money? Should they simply return hundreds of millions to players all over the world and say, “Thanks guys, we’re glad we could do the right thing and return your cash”? Or would that money look better stashed away in a web of personal offshore accounts?

The people who ran Full Tilt Poker were criminals. That much is now clear. But I think that they didn’t set out to be criminals. If the US Government hadn’t taken such a myopic stance toward online poker from the UIGEA in 2006 up to Black Friday in April of this year, Full Tilt would have been free to operate as a legitimate business, and the temptation to convert this enterprise into a Ponzi scheme would have been one I think those who ran Full Tilt may have been able to resist.

To me it’s clear that online poker should be legal worldwide. If it had been, Full Tilt players might have their money today. So I blame the crooks at Full Tilt for this, but I also blame shortsightedness in the Federal government.

This does bring up one final cautionary point. Any business—legal or illegal—that accepts deposits and maintains balances one behalf of people can be turned into a Ponzi scheme almost at the flip of a switch. And any stressor that causes ones of these businesses to falter, one as simple as a loss of competitiveness, can create the temptation for the owners to transfer cash reserves to a bank in the Caymans. Then one day you’ll wake up to a message on their website that says, “Thanks for the cash, guys, it’s been fun.”

Play live poker

This is a big black eye for online poker, no doubt about it. But to me as I alluded to above, I think it’s really a big black eye for any business that accepts deposits, and particularly for those that are subject to government scrutiny and pressures. The fact that Full Tilt ran online poker games as opposed to, say, selling online ads is nearly incidental. Poker, the game, really has nothing to do with it.

So how about live poker, guys? No deposits required. Little to no cheating at the small stakes. Plenty of dead money. Free drinks. And a whopping $1/hour in comps. It really ain’t a bad deal.

I’ve always prefered live poker. Yes, online poker was much more lucrative, particularly pre-UIGEA. But it’s never been about the money for me. Sure, I make my living at poker so I’d better win money at it, but I don’t need $440 million in cash distributions to be a happy man. Unless you’re trying to make a mortgage payment on the Empire State Building each month, live poker offers the opportunity to make a nice side income (or even full income) with few of the pitfalls you’ll find online.

And nowadays live poker is spread in most states of the US and many countries worldwide. Chances are you live within a reasonable drive of a cardroom. Give it an honest shot. You might come to like it.

And an update on my upcoming book release

Lastly, a plug for my new book. How To Read Hands At No-Limit Hold’em is the only book anywhere that teaches you that critical no-limit skill, hand reading, step-by-step and in depth. It’s written with all those live small stakes games in mind, so when you do go play live poker, you’ll have a big edge.

How To Read Hands breaks down the thought process used by top no-limit players and shows you how to apply it to example hand after example hand. Read this book, and you’ll be finding new and lucrative bluffs and value bets in no time. It comes out October 18th, and preordering begins here at Noted Poker Authority on October 4th. Just two weeks until you can order your copy. Get psyched.

• It’s coming out Tuesday, October 18th.
• Presales will begin two weeks prior on October 4th.
• The price is $49.99.
• At release the book will be available in three formats: PDF, PRC/Kindle, and EPUB. A paperback will likely be available a few months later.
• Those who buy a presale copy will receive a few goodies with their purchase.

I’ve released enough books by now to know the things you guys want from me before release. You want a picture of the cover, a table of contents, some excerpts, and a number of questions answered.

I’ll be posting all of this in the weeks running up to the start of presales, so stay tuned.