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Good Lord - I just noticed the 20th most popular "poker" related search phrase on the web is "throat pokers." Is that some bizarre porn term?

I truly enjoy thinking/reading about poker strategy. The more I learn, the more I question. Learning - improving in poker is a beautiful thing. It's an affirmation. Poker is really nothing but a decision making process over and over. Paper, rock, scissors. Making adjustments to your and your opponents adjustments.

It's skill and judgement that determine profitability. Culpability is crucial. In the long run, you don't get paid paid to win pots, you get paid to make the right decisions. It's like stratego, but better. :)

Low limit online poker. Is there such a thing as optimum bluffing frequency in low-limit poker play? I doubt it. There have been many, many columns written about the perils of No Fold em and I won't regurgitate them here, but the fact remains - at 3.6 and under, I do very, very little bluffing. That sounds like the antithesis of a successful (profitable) poker player, but this is low-limit, folks. There ain't any muscling going on and you are gonna HAVE to show down a hand if you wanna scoop that pot. I'm not talking about semi-bluffing - I'm referring to naked bluffs. Limit play. Sure, I make stabs at pots here and there but it ain't something I make a habit of. Perhaps I'm giving up some equity here?

I'm only thinking about this because I found this site where a guy is selling his book on how to win at online poker. He posted a sample chapter which coincidentally was about online bluffing. In my mind, upon reading it, he sure as hell hasn't played on Party Poker. To be fair, he had some solid assertions that "the underdog in the hand may very well be the money favorite" relating to multi-way pots and such, but still: just say no. Save it for higher limits or especially, big bet poker. Don't get fancy when the fish are schooling. Ram and jam when you have the best of it - let it go when you don't.

Again, this doesn't apply to value betting on the river. This rant only pertains to flat out bluffs.

Spent some time digging through PokerTracker this evening. When I first shifted back to limit play after about a solid year of nothing but pot-limit and no-limit play, I refused to play Ace-crap. I wasn't as bad as Doyle Brunson famously not playing AQ, but I was pretty damn close. :)

I had learned the hard way that you can lose a lot of chips quickly with a bad kicker. But now that I'm back in the limit fold, I play a shitload more of these starting hands than I ever used to.

After more than 50,000 hands tracked:

AJ - loser
AT - loser
A9 - loser
A6 - loser
A5 - loser

That's some pretty pathetic play, don't ya think? I'm glad that I've found a leak to plug. It will take some more analysis to determine if I'm playing these too often out of position, taking them too far when it's obvious I'm beat or perhaps I just suck playing Ace-rag (likely answer).

Been beating the hell out of the Wilson Omaha Hi-Lo software. Prolly start playing some meaningful limits here soon. It's interesting that the Wilson software uses a point system to assess starting hands just like Mr. Hutchinsons does.

You NEED to be playing at Party Poker. 42,000 players right now. How many does your site have? Seriously, give Bonus Code IGGY a try - you'll thank me later.

Up about 20 BB while typing this out. All on bluffs. ;)