The Mathematics Behind 3-Betting - Strategy Article

One of the things I worked on at my 50NL experiment was becoming far more liberal with my 3-betting preflop, especially when I am out of position against position raises. Not only is this good for getting paid off with your strong hands, and establishing a dominant image on the table, it also has a very sound mathematical basis.

I'm going to discuss several scenarios and the mathematics behind them.

First scenario - you have AQ in the BB, and it's folded to the button (decent-ish 22/16 player). He raises pot, with 55. Standard stuff.

You should always be 3-betting here.

Imagine if you called his raise...The flop comes K 9 6 rainbow - you'd obviously check, and he'd make a standard continuation bet and you'd fold, thinking little more about the hand. This, in effect, has reduced about a 50/50 confrontation to about a 66/33 confrontation in his favour, as this is your approximate chance of hitting the flop. You are out of position, without the betting lead, and need to hit the flop to continue.

However, if you were to 3-bet, he'd be calling only for set value and obviously he'd only hit this about 1/8 and suddenly your hand turns to about an 80/20 favourite because he'd almost always check/fold to your continuation bet if he misses his set.

So by raising you have dramatically turned the tables on your opponent and made yourself a huge favourite mathematically, just by making another raise preflop - plus you give him the chance of folding and taking the pot preflop as well.

Second scenario - you have 22 in the BB, and it's folded to the button (same decent player) who raises with 65s. Standard stuff again.

If you call his raise, he'd continuation bet a Q 8 3 rainbow flop for example, and you'd be folding the best hand. Everything is against you - you are out of position, without the betting lead and missed your 7/1 shot to hit a set. And even if you do hit, would you get paid? Unless your opponent has a big hand himself(or loses his mind in this example) then the answer is firmly no. There is obviously a huge chance that a semi-lag or even TAG player would be open-raising his button with a wide range, so why should you just call with 22?

Turning the tables, if you were to 3-bet with 22, which is what I advocate, then he'd either fold preflop, which is fine, or he'd call, you'd c-bet the same flop and he'd fold. So you are forcing him to hit the flop in order to win the pot, not making you hit a hand so you are winning the pot with the best hand, not losing it with the best hand. Even if he picked up second pair or bottom pair he'd likely not continue with the hand.

Obviously your opponent's tendencies are very important when considering your options - a player who raises less than 5% of hands wouldn't be raising his button light, for example, but a 35/25 or a 20/15 even would be doing this a lot. Against a player who raised rarely, I'd be much more inclined to call and see a flop and hope to flop a set because there's more chance he'd have a geniune hand such as a strong overpair which could pay me off when I hit. As I said, even if you call with a hand like 22 and hit against a semi-lag/lag player then he almost always won't be paying you off anyway because he raised light to start with.

Your own image is also important - if it is one of getting out of line then you may start facing 4-bets a lot more because they too realise you are 3-betting far from premium hands yourself.

I hope you enjoyed reading the article, and as always I'd be grateful for feedback.

Dan.

Solid Profit, Although Running Bad

I've played a fair bit recently at 200NL on FTP, the games seem to have improved (and there are a lot more tables too) and there are a few donators I've noticed recently.

The work I did at 50NL experimenting is definitely paying off - I'm playing about a 21/19 game now and not only am I enjoying poker a lot more, I'm also getting more action for my good hands. The only problem is when I get allin on the turn against 10 outs of less I can't get my hands to hold up! I also am not flopping sets :-( But I'm running at 5.5ptbb/100 over the last week which I'm taking as a good victory.

I just shoved the turn here, the pot was about $100 but I really thought he'd call with AQ which I had him on. His call is terrible IMO.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573434

Pretty standard, I guess. I needed him to believe his overpair was good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573435

I think I played this hand really well. I had him squarely on 99-QQ, so I was 100% sure I was ahead when i c/r the turn. Sick river, although he had spade outs.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573437

Lol...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573438

This hand was pretty odd. I've experienced this betting pattern a lot lately. Fish will check/call flop and lead turn. It's almost like there's been some strategy article written about it! I must start reading those tips from the pros emails that full tilt sends! I decided to take a fairly passive line because of his odd line anyway, and my hand was good. I like raising the turn here a lot as well, but I just didn't know what on earth he had so I decided to use my position.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573439

On the same note, I've been lead at a lot lately when I've raised preflop. I just don't get it. This hand was pretty bizarre. I flopped trips and I didn't want to broadcast my hand by raising, plus if I raised then I'm not getting called by worse hands much. I almost raised the turn - perhaps I should have - and I didn't have him on an ace when he overbet the river. I wish I could work out what goes through people's heads sometimes.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573440

This hand was pretty funny. I had him on JJ/QQ, I knew he didnt have Ax plus I had the nfd.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573441

Shame he didn't have more money in front of him...Btw I called the 3 bet to trap.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573442

Lol @ his overbet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573443

Tough fold - but I'm pretty sure I was behind.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573444

Another tough spot. In retrospect I quite like raising on the flop again, as I feel he'd do this with Kc a lot of the time. Can't call the turn though.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573445

Nice turn for me...I actually thought he had the flush. Just proves you should never open limp!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573446

Very tough spot. I couldn't see how the K helped him, if he had K9 I was almost certain he'd raise the flop. I'm not convinced my shove is great because I'm hardly ever getting called by a hand I am beating - but if I check I'm going to face a big bet almost always and don't know where I am. A bit of a catch 22 situation. Luckily the mug called me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573447

QQ loses to TJ, allin

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573455

KK loses to QQ, allin

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573456

This was highly amusing. Never slow play!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573448

And the same guy, living up to his name!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?573451

I'll probably add the next strategy article tomorrow - it's about the mathematics behind a preflop 3-bet.

Good luck everyone.

Dan.

The Art Of Continuation Betting - Strategy Article

Continuation Betting seems to take a love/hate relationship in no limit holdem. Especially since the popularity of the Harrington series of books, almost all players make continuation bets on a very regular basis. But few players show any thought about both the size of their bets and when they do use this strategy.

When making a continuation bet, I advise that you make a bet of about 70-75% of the pot every single time that you decide one is viable. I like having a standard bet because then it means that your opponents will find it harder to get a good read on your game. You could have 6 high or a set, but if you decide to c-bet with 6 high then you'd bet the same %age of the pot that you would with your set. This is a mistake that i often see - people bet too weak or even too strongly with their c-bets. I really do think that standardising your betting is a very worthwhile thing to do.

As far as making a c-bet is concerned, I think there are three important aspects to consider: These, in no particular order, are board texture, position, and your opponent's propensity to fold.

The first of these which I am going to look at is your opponent's propensity to fold. This is where your Poker Tracker database comes in handy. If you datamine a lot or even just play a lot then you should have a pretty decent database of statistics on your opponents.

The two key statistics in this area are fold to continuation bet % and fold to flop bet %. Check/raise flop% is also fairly significant. If a player's folds to flop bet and fold to c-bet stats are less than 50%, you can be pretty sure he is making some very light calls on the flop. This could be with any pair, or even any draw including a gutshot.

These are players who you often need to take a different approach with - value betting your made hands and bluffing less due to their calling station mentality. I'd only c-bet these sort of players on flops that are very favourable for c-betting.

Anyone who folds to c-bets or flop bets over 70% is a good candidate to c-bet unless the board is very unfavourable to do so. These guys are generally looking for top pair or a decent draw to get further involved in the hand.

Against a player who doesn't fold enough to c-bets and you have position and check behind on the flop, you could try a delayed c-bet on the turn if your opponent checks the turn to you as well. Again make this a 70% of the pot bet. They should fold a lot of marginal hands as well here, they may for example think that you flopped a big hand and gave a free card to let them catch up but you won't give two free cards.

The second category you need to look at is position. It's cliched but position is king in no limit holdem. Blank cards could win a hand if you were a good positional player. It's advantages are also apparent in the art of c-betting. I'd be much more inclined to c-bet if I had position and it was checked to me. If the board was somewhat drawy and I was out of position then this would make it less favourable to c-bet.

Finally, we need to look at board texture. I'm going to assume we have position in all instances against a fairly standard 30/10/2 player - as a good NLHE player you should be playing most of your pots in position. I'm also going to assume you have AKo in all instances unless specified.

Flop 1: JT8 with 2 suits. This would not be a good flop to c-bet generally. There is a big chance that your opponent has hit a piece of this flop or has some sort of draw. You are going to be check/raised a fair amount on this flop if you bet. So I'd usually take the free card and hope to spike a Q for the nuts or even an A/K which could be good enough to win the hand.

Flop 2: 448 rainbow. This is an ideal flop to c-bet. Your opponent should not be loose enough to play 4x, there are no draws and unless he has 8x (which is also unlikely) or a pocket pair he won't usually play back at you.

Flop 3: Q96 all one suit. This is a poor flop to c-bet. If your opponent has a piece of this, whether it's a pair or a face card of the suit on the board then he is not going away. Unless you have a flush draw yourself, I'd advise checking behind here.

Flop 4: A93 rainbow. You have 44 this time. This would be a good flop to c-bet as well. There are no draws and almost always your opponent will fold unless he has an ace or a set. The other benefit here of betting is that if you get called, you may often get to see 5 cards which give you chances to spike a set and win a possible large pot.

So to summarise on board texture, rainbow flops are good, boards without possible open ended straight draws are good. Flops with Ax are good. Paired boards are good. Flops with cards close together (particularly high cards) or with flush draws on are not good.

Finally, you may encounter opponents who don't check the flop to you. They bet minimum instead. I assume this to be a check and proceed with my usual c-bet. Often these players have some sort of weak pair or a draw and don't know how strong their hand is. I'll give them all the encouragement they need that their hand is no good and raise them and fully expect them to fold. If they bet minimum and call, I'd say they are very often on a draw.

And that's pretty much my thoughts on c-betting. I hope you found it useful and as always, I'd be grateful for any feedback.

Prison Break

I never thought I'd say this, but Lost has been knocked off the top spot in my favourite TV series charts. At the moment it's pretty dull stuff IMO although obviously still great TV compared to the crap we get generally. But I'm in the process of catching up with Prison Break. Everyone kept going on to me about how good it is, and finally I got the series 1 box set at the weekend. I've watched 7 episodes so far and this is by far the best series I have ever, ever watched. If you haven't seen Prison Break yet, you honestly have to buy this as soon as possible. At least I am never bored at home when I'm not playing online at the moment:-)

I've also bought The Professor, The Banker and The Suicide King and this is looking like a decent book. It's about the real life high stakes poker games between a banker, Andy Beal, and the corporation (High Stakes pros). It's pretty good so far.

Music wise, I'm really into a mix session that I downloaded from www.djrobknagg.co.uk. It's only about 45 minutes long but very good. Anyone who likes piano house, or 90's dance music in general should really like this. I'm also really liking 'I just wanna know' by Taio Cruz at the moment too, which should show how diverse my music tastes area anyway! This song was actually picked up by a record company from his myspace website. Garage music wise, I'm liking 4u4me by Sunship - you can hear a sample of this on their myspace website as well. Sunship have always done great garage tracks.

As far as poker is concerned, I've played 2k hands at 50NL today so far just to finish tweaking a few things in my experiment, and I'm gonna play a bunch more tonight (4k hands for the day hopefully) before I resume back at 200NL tomorrow. The funny thing is, whenever I have played 50NL I've actually made really good money :-)

That's about it for now, I'm gonna put my next strategy article up today or tomorrow about continuation betting, and the impact of your opponent's poker tracker stats on it. I hope you'll like it anyway!

Dan.

Taking A Look At Your Game

This is something I really recommend, especially when you are running/playing bad.

Take a step back and really analyse your game. If you are running bad, there are often elements of your play which you can criticise as well. For example, if you got sucked out on because the guy hit the flush on the river, did you bet enough/at all to protect your hand? That sort of thing. I've been doing this a lot recently, and also catching up on some CR videos. It's easy to fall into a rigid routine of only playing x hand in x position and become predictable and easy to read, as well as a bit of a nit.

So I am currently doing an experiment at 50NL - playing much more of a LAG style, bigger preflop raising ranges, more 3-betting preflop etc and generally trying to develop a harder style which will help me at higher stakes. I 6 tabled for about 1500 hands so far today and made about 6.5 buyins lol. I was basically running the tables and people were only playing back at the 'wrong' times which was pretty funny. The flip side of this is that you have to stick with your good overpairs and tptk much more because people will play back at you with less because they have seen you are 'willing to throw some chips around'. It was pretty funny to see how some people regard your play - one guy asked me why i was playing crazy preflop lol. I was like 22/20 on that table...

I'm probably going to stick at 50NL over the weekend, and get a ton of hands in whilst developing and getting confidence with this style before I think about using it at any higher games, but I think this is a very necessary thing to do if I am going to succeed at higher stakes.

I guess the message is - if you are running/playing bad, take a while to analyse your game, look in poker tracker at all the hands you have dropped over 1/2 a buyin with and see if you really are spewing chips and making suboptimal decisions. And don't be scared to drop down to experiment and try some things out which will improve your long run game.

Dan.

Turn Aggression - Strategy Article

I've been thinking about turn strategy, when you have position, a lot recently, particularly with marginal hands. Whilst I've been playing 1/2, I've noticed that a lot of players react to their opponent's weakness on the turn with aggression on the river. This was less the case at lower stakes where the players are more worried about their own cards.

I'm going to use some examples here:-

A $1/2 game online.

It's folded round to you in the cutoff, and you raise pot ($7) with JTo. The Big Blind (50/5/2.5) calls. Pretty standard really. Pot is $15 preflop.

The flop comes J 7 3 with 2 suits. He checks and you bet $11, your standard continuation bet into a $15 pot. He calls. Pot is ~ $35.

The turn comes a total blank, an offsuit 2. He checks. This is where the situation gets interesting. A lot of people would advocate checking behind 'for pot control'. This, in my opinion, is a fundamentally wrong strategy for several reasons. What I advocate is a bet, which in effect determines the price of a showdown.

Let's look at the two scenarios in more detail.

First scenario, he checks and you check. Pot would still be ~ $35. No matter what comes on the river, you are gonna be facing a bet with about 90% certainty on the river.

If the river comes an overcard, is your second pair good? If the river comes a low flush card, is your top pair good? If the river comes a straight card, is your top pair good? Was he slowplaying a monster (set?) from the start? All these questions going through your head, because you don't really know where you are.

Now, imagine what is going through your opponent's head at this time. 'Well I called his continuation bet with flush draw/straight draw/second pair/top pair weak kicker and he checked behind on the turn. Looks like he doesn't like his hand too much, probably has AK. I've missed my draw/have a weak hand but I'm gonna bet him off his and not give him the chance to bluff on the river - I've got the lead on this hand now and I'm going to take advantage - betting is probably the only way I am going to win this pot'. And why not? Everything is in his favour for a bet. But he can't bet small - because that would make it easier for you to call. So it's safe to assume he'd be betting 70% pot - pot in almost every instance. So about $30 let's say on average. Could be slightly more, could be a bit less. You then have a very tough call to make with what is, in essence, a marginal hand.

Now let's go back to the turn again. He checks, and you bet. You want to protect your hand against a draw, and you want to find out where you stand more, as well as reducing significantly the chance of you getting bluffed on the river. This is pretty important by the way. It would take a pretty gutsy/stupid opponent to lead out on a total bluff with a big bet on the river when you have shown total strength throughout every street, and your likely holding would be an overpair, AJ for top pair top kicker or a set. Therefore you can assume that it's pretty likely that if you bet the turn, and your opponent calls and then he leads/pushes river, your top pair is no good. This would also be true if he check/raised the turn. In my instance, this is hardly ever a bluff, and almost always a hand which even beats top pair top kicker.

So, you decide to bet $25 into the $35 pot (70%). Your opponent calls with his flush draw/straight draw/weak pair. He is almost always going be checking the river to you, which you should then check behind unless your own hand significantly improves on the river.

You have determined the price of the showdown is $25 via your turn bet, and that you want to be betting instead of calling. This is also obviously good because if you call a bet you can only win if your hand is good. But if you make a bet you can also win by betting. For example if villain had QJ on this hand, maybe he'd fold the turn because it looks like he was beat. You have also managed to save $5 on your marginal hand at showdown.

So to summarise:-

You have got your marginal hand to showdown cheaper by betting.
You have reduced the chances of getting bluffed on the river significantly.
You are charging for draws, thereby protecting your hand.
You have more idea of knowing where you stand in the hand, rather than playing a guessing game.

All pretty good advantages, I'd say.

To finish, I'll quickly refer to some other example boards. Say for example a King comes on the turn instead of the 2. I'd still bet if checked to me. Many people are very fearful of the overcard but why? Why should he have a King? There's no logical reason. Many people would have c/r flop with JK anyway. There's still a good chance you are in front.

Say for example it's the same board J 7 3 2 but the flop was all of one suit. You've bet the flop with top pair (whether your kicker is of the suit or not) and your opponent calls. If he checks the turn, I'd still bet again. There's a good chance he has Q/K/A of the suit of the flop and if you check behind on the turn he'll bet the river regardless of if it comes or not, for the reasons I've already discussed.

A final example is if the flop was QJ7 with 2 suits or similar, so you flop second pair instead of top pair. I'd also often bet the turn given the same betting pattern. There's a good chance your opponent is drawing and you are in front and I also think if you bet the turn he'd definitely fold JT/JK/JA a lot of the time which is obviously a huge advantage. It's also even harder to call a sizeable river bet which could often be a bluff as unless the river is a card lower than 7 you aren't going to be liking the river very often.

There is one final thing to mention - if you have a good hand (perhaps top pair top kicker or higher) you may want to check behind on the turn to induce a bluff on the river. This would be pretty dependent on a lot of things though, such as your hand, what range you put your opponent on, the threatening nature of the board and yours and your opponents image.

I hope you like the article, I'd be grateful for any feedback.

Dan.

Running Badly

Well I knew this time would come...

But at the moment I'm running pretty badly. I just can't hit a flop and if I do, disaster strikes. If you hit with AK, the flop comes KJT or something similar, and if I flop a set the turn/river bring the board to 4 to a flush lol.

I guess these times are meant to try us, and I think the key is to minimise your losses in these situations, by either not tilting or not playing. It's hard for these type of things not to affect your confidence but its hard not to put the other guy on a monster every hand when he puts money in when you are constantly getting beaten down.

I'm not hugely down but it's still not pleasant.

Full Tilt have done a reload bonus for $1000 (50% bonus so $500 bonus) and with this and their good statement regarding their stance on poker legislation, I think they could be all set for a big market share increase. I'm already noticing several more thousand players on at peak times. Hopefully this can cover some of my losses :-)

I'm gonna be going away for a few days from Sunday so I won't be updating most of next week, or even playing, and I think a weeks break is necessary. I haven't had my A game mind on for a couple of weeks now and I need a week away from poker to refresh my mind and come back to my best. I want to start 8-tabling soon as I am gonna really have a good go at making a run up to 2/4 pretty quickly when I get back, and I want to get a ton of hands in every day. I'm also hoping the break will help me get properly motivated to play like 8 tables 6ish hours a day. This would be pretty good.

I'm add another strategy article tonight as well - I hope everyone like the one about game selection and I've written another one about playing the turn aggressively. In my opinion it's where a lot of pots get decided and that good turn strategy is something which is very beneficial to a players winrate. It's something I've looked at in great detail recently, and I think it's importance increases as you move up stakes.

Thats it for now, peace everyone.

Game Selection - Strategy Article

I once read a phrase in a poker book:-

‘If you were the 6th best poker player in the world, you’d be pretty pleased. Until, you sit at a table with the top 5 players’

Online, there are an abundance of sites, and tables per stake, that you can play at and sit at. So why pick the first table that has an empty seat? That’s lazy, and lazy doesn’t get you the money!

I’d estimate that good game selection can double a player’s winrate. That sounds a lot – but I’d also estimate that 70% at least of my profit comes from fish! If you are on a table with no fish then it follows you have less chance of winning!

So how do you find a good table? Here is my advice.

When I log onto Full Tilt, I get PokerTracker and Poker Ace Hud running immediately. I then scan the tables at my limit, and load up all those that have the majority of players with decent sized stacks at them. This is vital because playing against short stacks destroys the implied odds of hands like pocket pairs and suited connectors, and negates the effect of a LAG or semi LAG style. It also follows that if you consider yourself a winning player, you’d want to sit on a table where there’s more money to win. Thereby, making more of your edge.

I’ll then wait for a couple of minutes for HUD to pick up the tables. Once this is done, I’ll scan each individual table.

I’ll basically ditch any table with an average VPIP of <30%. This would be a tight table generally. One exception to this rule would be if there was one fish on there – I mean a massive donator – with like 2x buyin or more, and there was a seat available on his direct left or two to his left. I’d probably take that seat.

After doing all these processes, I’ll have a shortlist of tables to choose which ones I will play. The next step is to analyse which is the juiciest…Here I’m looking for players who are loose/passive – I’m talking VPIP of >40% with a PFR of <10% - with decent money in front of them. I wouldn’t really tend to avoid a particular regular, but if there are a couple of decent regulars with a fish I may give the table a miss possibly.

After all this, you should be able to compact all the available tables into a group which will be the tables you are going to play at.

If there is a waiting list for a table – join it. Be patient! Don’t be tempted to give up waiting on a table and join a worse one.

When I choose a particular seat on a table, I don’t really want any loose players on my direct left. Basically they are going to be floating you without knowing it, meaning you are playing pots out of position which is obviously not ideal or conducive to winning poker.

You want these loose players to your right – Where you have position on them and you can make them pay for playing pots out of position with substandard hands and suboptimal decision making.

If I was offered a seat on a juicy table with a 60/5 with 1.5x buyin who would be on my direct left, I’d probably turn it down and wait for a better seat. Unless the table was full of players like that, in which case I’d have to take it! But generally, I’d reject the seat and wait to get position on my target(s).

It’s also important to realise when a table has gone bad, and that it’s time to find another one. If table VPIP has gone below 30%, that’s often a pretty good sign. Other factors may be if your main fish leaves the table, meaning you are left with tight regulars. Just walk away and find somewhere better to play!

I’ve been in situations before where there’s been a big fish on a table, and 3 or 4 pretty solid players. I’ve then stacked the fish almost immediately, and he has left the table. As soon as that big blind hits me, I am gone too! It’s not expected of you to stay at the table after you’ve won a big pot. Poker is a ruthless game, and you have to take the decisions which will benefit you the most.

And that is my guide to game selection. As I mentioned earlier, good game selection can really boost your winrate. If you don’t practice it, you really are throwing $ away!

Some Calm After Yesterday

I've been reflecting on the situation regarding the US legislation. I've read tons of forums for basically the last few days and I've made a decision that my funds are safe, as a non US player, in Full Tilt Poker.

I know this is a lot different to my comments yesterday, but I actually feel as though Full Tilt is probably the safest site out there (with the majority of US players on it). I would be getting my money out of some other sites though if I had it on them though.

Unless a company goes bankrupt then I don't think non US players have anything to worry about particularly - I don't see Full Tilt going bankrupt, in fact I can actually see growth for them, but I can see certain other ones (no names mentioned) which I would be very scared if I had money in them.

I tested FTP with a withdrawal which got processed (albeit after some time), so I'm gonna place some trust in them at this current time. Obviously things are subject to change though!

I've written a strategy article about Game Selection. I'm going to add it tonight. I think it's a subject which many players under rate as a crucial facet of a big winrate. I know so many players who just sit at a non-full table, and barely look at other tables. As I mentioned yesterday, I am writing some more on other subjects too. The idea is to add one every day or so, I'm planning on writing 6 or 7 which should be pretty good hopefully.

Dan.

What On Earth Does The Future Hold?

For those who have been hidden under a rock for the last few days, I'm talking about the impact of the US legislation effectively banning monetary transactions for US citizens to online poker sites.

Living in the UK, it doesn't directly affect me. But, in several indirect ways, it sure does.

How safe is anyone's money? Having money invested in a US site worries me. And obviously i don't want to lose it. Party Poker lost 60% of their value on the UK stock exchange today. Not that I play on there, but it doesn't inspire confidence.

Where are the fish going to go? Many people speculate that there will be ways round this legislation. I am more sceptical. Whilst there may be ways of doing it, who are going to be doing this? Surely the vast majority will be the serious players, whilst the fish will just waste money on something else...

The only ways that the situation will be the same this time next year, or even this time in 5 years is, in my opinion, one of two ways. Firstly the american situation gets resolved and everyone can continue as before. Secondly that there is huge advertising in the far east and we get a load of new players from there. The chinese who i know who play poker are huge gamblers, which could be good for us.

I'm actually seriously considering withdrawing all my online bankroll. Some people may view this as extreme, but surely when you have a decent amount of money in an institution and it's very existence is under threat, even if you have a 5% doubt in your mind that you could lose it then surely withdrawing it is the right option. Obviously I'm not giving up playing poker, far from it in fact, because I fully intend to carry on playing for a living. I'm just probably going to assess the situation over the next few weeks and try to work out if it's safe to redeposit and play, and if so, to decide which sites are safe.

On the poker front I played sparingly in the late stages of last week and picked up just over 4 buyins. I guess I picked a bad week to have most of the week off.

I actually had a good weekend away from poker. I went out into town on Friday night, on Saturday I didn't do too much but made $420 on poker, £60 on a football bet and £190 on machines. On Sunday I played football, we played really well and beat a team who were unbeaten this season 4-2 away. And then a few of us went to Spurs and we beat Portsmouth 2-1. Bit of a dodgy penalty but never mind, we are usually on the receiving end of bad decisions!

I really hope that the situation gets resolved (or even made clearer) regarding the future of online poker, but I have little confidence that it will in the immediate short term. I cannot believe that these huge multi million (billion?) companies have not even had meetings about this matter or drafted some sort of contingency plan or looked into potential implications in advance. But that's what I'm reading - they simply thought it wouldn't happen.

If I do decide to withdraw my roll online today I'll still be very active in the cardrunners forums as usual, and I'm also in the process of writing some strategy articles, so I'll still be involved with the game. I've written an article about table selection which I'll add probably tomorrow. I've got tons of thoughts on some more too. I really hope this isn't the end of poker online as we know it.

Good luck everyone, and if anyone has any thoughts on the matter, please feel free to comment below.

Dan.