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To: George Statham who wrote (385)	2/9/2014 1:52:12 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 935

<< I'm not sure that texas hold-em doesn't simplify things more than I'd like though.>> Let me assure you it does not. My guess is that what you are seeing as simplicity is that you can't see the depth of the game. No insult intended. I earned a lot of my college money playing low ball in the clubs in San Jose California. Low ball was the only fast big money game there was in those days. Regular poker was way to slow and hold em didn't exist. But low ball is almost a finite game. When hold em revolutionized poker many low ball players could not make the adjustment. Too complicated. Having common cards in the center adds so much to the game. With regular poker it is hard to get hands, so it is a slow game, but in hold em (withcommon cards it is a much faster game) e.g. if an Ace flops and two people have an ace then they both have a pair of aces and whomever has the high card wins. So let me translate that for this one play and introduce "position". I never play less than an AQ in the first three positions. Most will play an ace J or some ace anything, but they are wrong. You have 6 or 7 players behind you. What if someone raises? They surely raised with something better than an AQ, so now you are stuck. You have to call that raise and even if you hit what do you have. If an ace falls he probably has an AK or pocket Aces. On another you cannot play small pairs or small suited connectors with less than 5 people and no set no bet. Last are things like "negative expectations bets". Very few players know that one. Even th good players i.e. on the river you never bet if the only way he can call is if he can beat you. So the common cards makes the game at least 13 times faster (I can't figure it out exactly-lol) than five card poker. Now there is a huge difference between limit hold em and no limit hold em. My skill is in limit, although I am pretty good at no limit. But in limit I can play anyone on earth. Poker is a much more complicated game than chess, IMO, especially no limit. What's more chess is really a left brain game while poker is mostly a right brain game. The average person can learn the math and probability, but in high stakes poker either limit or no limit bluffing is integral to the game. And bluffing takes great skill. What I also thought was very interesting was how Doyle Brunson in his book (supersystem) brought a brand new concept to poker called "power poker" and it is counter intuitive; People had not figured it out until his book, yet it revolutionized poker. In my community I used to play with my scientist friends (a lot of PHD guys and good players) but I could smoke pot, drink beer, and come in blind in every hand and still beat them because of "power poker" in which I would push them around. As smart as these guys were and one had a PHD in biological statistics and articles in Scientific American, they could never figure out how I was beating them. Still can't. To me that showed the power of education. Cheers,