One thing that we are taught in poker over and over again, be it from books, coaches, videos, or forums, is to constantly be the aggressor. "Attack weakness," we're always told. Another common phrase is "make sure you win the pots nobody else wants." One of the core problems with this is that aside from knowing that we need to be the aggressor, we don't really know how to spot weakness in the first place, and then when we do spot it, we often don't know how or why to attack it.
 
One thing I want to warn about before I go too much further with this is that you must be paying attention to the table in order to exploit weakness. Good players know how to mix up their game and disguise strength as weakness and vice versa. You must know your opponent well enough to be able to tell if their actions indicate real weakness or disguised strength.
 
There are really two types of weakness you need to be able to spot. There is obvious weakness, when your opponent makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is weak. There is also disguised weakness, where your opponent tries to hide how weak he is by pretending to be strong. We'll talk some about the more obvious signs of weakness first.
 
Pre-flop, there is the limper. Limping on its own doesn't necessarily signify weakness. In fact, a limp from early position can be quite strong. That being said, if someone is limping after the first two people have folded, I consider it a sign of weakness. Beginning or unsophisticated players are often doing this with exactly the types of hands you think they'd limp with: Smallish/medium pocket pairs, medium suited connectors, or weak broadway hands like JTo and QJo.

Okay, so we've got a middle/late position limper; how do we exploit him? If the stacks are deep, you can often raise from position to isolate the weak player. I prefer to do this from the button, cutoff, and 2 off the button and not try and exploit these players from middle positions, as we can often then run into a real hand. For this article, I'm assuming that we're exploiting the player because he is weak without a real hand. If we have a real hand, then we're obviously raising for value, and this all doesn't matter as much. With this range of holdings, sometimes the player will fold, but often, if you make something like a 4x raise to isolate them, they'll call, hoping to hit a flop hard and get your entire stack.

Okay, so let's for arguements sake say your opponent calls your bet. What are you looking for?? Ideally what you're looking for are either flops with lots of high cards or a good mixed flop (K82r) or the like. You're going to c-bet most flops though, since their range of hands is such that they usually either hit it hard or missed completely, and you're often only playing this hand to exploit that they're going to miss most of the time (or not hit hard enough to easily call).

Flops to really watch for are low, coordinated flops. A flop like 567 with two of a suit would really scare me, as that often connects with their mid/pair mid/connector holdings. Sometimes on the scarier flops, I'll do a delayed continuation bet (check behind on the flop and bet the turn when checked to). A weak player is often a great source of chips this way, because he will continuously limp-call and fold the flop, feeling like once he hits, he'll make all his money back. He won't, though, because you're making a play on him and will fold when he shows strength.
 
Post flop, the most common type of obvious weakness is the weak lead. This is when someone makes a less than 1/2 pot bet into a pot. Good players will often use the weak lead to entice action with their big hands, but bad players often do it because they feel they have a decent hand or because they raised pre-flop so they have to bet something, but they are scared so they don't want to bet a lot.

Attacking this type of weak play differs depending on who the pre-flop aggressor was, as well as position. With position, if you were the pre-flop aggressor, the weak lead from your opponent often means that he got a piece of the flop but isn't confident enough to check-raise you. A decent sized raise on the flop will often take down this flop, as he will convince himself that you must have a monster if you raised pre-flop then raised him again on the flop. If he was the pre-flop raiser, the same line often works too, as your opponent often feels since he raised pre-flop he has to bet, but he is afraid enough of the flop to not make it a strong bet.

Out of position, you can check-raise in an attempt to take the pot down right there. Another way to vary your game is to check/call and see if he will fire a second bullet on the turn. Many weak players aren't capable of this, so you can often steal the pot with a river bet. This calling strategy works in position as well, and can be a very powerful move against players who will take one stab at the pot but not two.
 
Then there are the disguised forms of weakness. Pre-flop, this usually includes raising from a steal position. Re-stealing from these players is very read dependant, and it requires you to be paying attention to the table. There are a lot of pre-flop stealers who will fold when re-raised (assuming stacks are deep), and there are others who will call with almost anything they raise with. I try and categorize players as I play with them based on their pre-flop strength of play and aggression and post-flop strength and aggression. If the person is a poor post flop player, I'll often smooth call and look to take the pot away later, but if they're strong post flop, I'll often re-raise and try and take the pot down right there, particularly if I believe they're getting out of line. If you're dealing with a player that hardly ever raises, then don't assume the raise is weak, even from a steal position.
 
Post flop, the most common type of disguised weakness is the overbet. Again I caution you that good players will overbet their good hands sometimes to look weak, but average players often do it to discourage calls. Before deciding to try and exploit an overbet you perceive as being weak, make sure you look at the flop texture. Draw heavy boards are more likely to get overbet with a real hand as players attempt to protect their hand. Overbets on uncoordinated boards are more the type of plays we're looking to exploit. Again, how you attack this comes down to your read. Against some players who aren't capable of firing two bullets without a hand, you are better off calling and waiting to see if they can fire twice. Against players capable of firing twice, you'll want to raise to represent real strength. Mixing up your game and playing your opponents based on their strengths and weaknesses is of the utmost importance.
 
These are just a few of the more common forms of weakness I see, but there are many more. As you play more, you'll learn to identify them as you play and exploit them. One thing you'll notice I didn't talk about is short stack play. If you choose to attack weakness as a short stack, you're just pushing all in, be it pre or post flop. These plays often work, but when they don't, you can often look silly showing down garbage. If you're in the medium stack range, you should be limiting how much you're attacking weakness without a legitimate hand. If you have a 10 M stack and you raise a middle position limper and then c-bet the flop, you're often using close to half your stack on the play. While it may be +cEV to do so, you can often use those chips better with your real hands later. Attacking weak plays is something that, when done right, works about 80% of the time for a small pot and doesn't work 20% of the time for a larger pot. Make sure you can afford the chips that 20% of the time, or else don't do it.
 
Also, when we're attacking weakness it is a steal, and we must treat it as such. A steal doesn't become a value play because we hit middle pair, unless we hit a flop with two pair or better with our trashy hands (again, for this article, I'm assuming we're attacking them without real cards), it's still a steal. We've shown a lot of strength in the way we've played hands against the weaker players, and if they suddenly spring out of the woodwork, they've often hit their hand. If you're not disciplined enough to be able to lay down middle and even top pair with your raggy hands when you're trying to steal from a weak player, then you're probably giving away any profits and more you're making from your plays. A steal is a steal, and doesn't become a value play unless you hit two pair or better.
 
Lastly (and probably most importantly), be selective. Use your table image and play style to dictate how often you attack players who show signs of weakness. If you do it every time, it becomes obvious and exploitable (I'll limp with Aces because this guy always raises me!). If you go card dead for a little while, use your tight image to pick up a pot. If you've been getting hit in the face with the deck, use your image of always playing good cards to pick up a few pots. Knowing how and when to do it is largely a 'feel' thing, but you should be aware of how people at the table are reacting to you and adjust your game accordingly.
 
Best of luck
 
-Rizen / Eric Lynch

 Step One: Baseline Operations

"So high-speed Internet access makes me more vulnerable, since attackers are coming at me faster?" - Idiot AOL user on a commercial "Yes, exactly." - Retard AOL system administrator on the same commercial

You've probably seen that commercial, and you probably believe in it. It's not true. In fact, people who are on dial-up are probably MORE at risk than broadband Internet users, since most (if not all) dial-up users aren't using a hardware firewall to protect them. This article will continue to address only users with broadband connections.

What You Will Need to Protect Yourself - Non-negotiable pieces of the puzzle

-A good router (I recommend the Linksys WRT54GS, as it offers wireless access and is an overall good piece of hardware for the cost).
-Good anti-virus software (most commercially available software is going to be good enough, regardless of the brand - don't buy into the brand war hype. My recommendations are Kaspersky Anti-Virus or BitDefender).
-Good Antispyware software (Microsoft Anti-Spyware is pretty good, but you should use a combination of MS Anti-Spyware and Spybot Search and Destroy to catch everything. Lavasoft's Ad-Aware is good, as well).
-A legitimate copy of Windows XP. This is non-negotiable. You NEED to have a non-pirated version of Windows XP, because of Windows Updates and the possibility that backdoor software was built into your copy of pirated Windows. If you refuse to spend the money on a registered copy, stop reading.

Optional Protection

-A software-based firewall (ZoneAlarm is a good choice, but if you use BitDefender, it has a built-in firewall as well).
-Third-party router software (I recommend dd-wrt for your Linksys WRT54GS, but I will not discuss at length on how to configure it).

Your network should look something like this:

Cable Modem -> Router -> Computer

And if you have wireless devices, the router feeds them data as well without a hard-wired connection. Let me say this right off the bat: Using wireless Internet for online poker is dangerous and not recommended. You are putting yourself at higher risk for comfort. If this is okay with you, so be it.

Step Two: Initial Setup

The steps you should take in order to secure your system are as follows:

1) Reformat your system.
2) Reinstall Windows with a legitimate CD-key.
3) Do not connect your system to the Internet yet.
4) Install all hardware drivers that you have without using the Internet.
5) Install Anti-Virus software and optional firewall software.
6) Scan your system and data backups for viruses.
7) Connect your router to your computer, but do not connect the cable modem to the router.

After you have completed those steps in order and to the fullest extent, you can move on to Step Three.

Step Three: Configuring Network Pieces

After you have connected the router, you will need to consult the installation manual to perform the following tasks. I cannot address all of configuration possibilities of the routers, so I am going to give you general instructions.

1) Hold the reset button on the back of the router for 45 seconds continuously.
2) Connect to your router's web-based interface using the default login and password.
3) Change the default login and password using at least eight (8) alphanumeric characters that cannot be found sequentially in any dictionary.
4) If you use wireless, enable the wireless option and change the following settings: Enable wireless security (use WPA2 Pre-Shared Key if your systems support it, WEP is not secure enough), set a password that is NOT THE SAME as your router login password but still using the same guidelines as step 3, change the broadcast channel to something other than the default (usually channel six).
5) Disable uPnP through the router, if possible.
6) Set up all necessary port forwarding fields. If you don't know how to, follow the instruction at portforward.com.
7) Set up a static IP for ALL systems that will access the Internet on the network, and be sure they are outside the DHCP range of your router. If you don't know how to do this, see portforward.com for instructions.
8) Enable the hardware firewall and disable anonymous requests from hitting your computer, enable NAT (Network Address Translation), and filter IDENT requests.
9) (Optional) Set up QoS for your poker programs to improve speeds.

This is extremely important: Disable uPnP through Windows XP. http://grc.com/UnPnP/UnPnP.htm has a step-by-step guide. This is what allows people to run Trojan programs on your system without using port forwarding to gain access to your system.

After you have taken these steps, move forward to Step Four.

Step Four: Connecting Your Computer to the Internet

At this point you can connect your router to the cable/DSL modem. Be sure to power cycle the router when you connect it to ensure a good firmware restart and connection to the ISP. Go into the router's configuration and ensure that your computer is outside the DHCP range and using a static IP address as you set up in Step Three, Substep Seven.

At this point, you should update all of your software definitions and hardware drivers. Update the Anti-Virus definitions first, then your firewall (if you have a software one), then the hardware drivers. Reboot the system. Run Windows Update and download and install ALL of the updates. Reboot the system.

Scan the system for spyware/adware.

If you have a software firewall, disable Windows Firewall. If you don't, you should probably leave it active, though it doesn't do a whole lot. If you don't want to go through the pain of application protection through ZoneAlarm (I don't), you can use ISS BlackIce Defender without AP to stop basic port scans and see incoming transmissions.

Optional: At this point I recommend writing down all of the settings you used in Step Three to setup the router successfully, and install a third-party firmware that is compatible with your router, such as dd-wrt for Linksys WRT54G and GS routers. They provide added features and security, as well as the ability to boost the wireless signal up to ten times the strength of the default firmware for better connectivity.

Optional: If you have a software firewall, be sure to monitor the programs that you allow outgoing access. Don't trust things that require keyboard/mouse hooks.

Step Five: Ongoing Security Procedures

Now you have a pretty good setup through Windows XP and should remain fairly secure. However, no matter how well you set up a network and a system, it can always be exploited. Be sure to follow the directions below to help minimize the chance you will be hacked:

- Run a full anti-virus scan every other day. Let it run while you sleep.
- Update the anti-virus definitions every week, at least.
- Scan your system everyday for spyware/adware. Let it run while you sleep.
- Stay on top of Windows Updates. Download and install them constantly.
- Check technical sites like AnandTech or Slashdot once in awhile for potential hardware/software exploits that Windows Update doesn't catch immediately.
- Don't use peer-to-peer file sharing (I named sample programs and services, but they are all censored. I can only hope you know what LW, KZ, and BT stand for.) Obtain your files legally to minimize risk. Never install pirated software. I realize that everyone on the board probably does (including me), but your risk goes up if you do this on the same machine you play poker on. You have been warned.
- If you run a server for anything (FTP, streaming audio/video, etc), buy another cheap computer and use that for those operations, or buy a computer solely for online poker with no other functionality.

Kyle Boddy

POKER MUSINGS   

"The game [of poker] represents the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great."

-Walter Matthau

"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, "Poker and the American Character" (1963)

"Perception is reality."

-Immanuel Kant

"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."

-Stuey Unger

"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 ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a "flush." It is enough to make one ashamed of one's species."

-Quoted in A Bibliography of Mark Twain, Merle Johnson

"Trust everybody, but cut the cards."

-Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936), American Humorist

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well."

-Jack London (1876-1916)

"Poker is a strange occupation. You never know how it's going to bend your personality. But likely as not, it will bend it."

-Doyle Brunson Poker Wisdom of a Champion, 2003

"If you ain't just a little scared when you enter a casino, you are either very rich or you haven't studied the games enough."

-Anonymous

-Bonnatti's Law in John Peers, comp. 1001 Logical Laws, p. 147, 1979

“Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn't play poker.”
-- Amarillo Slim

“They anticipate losing when they sit down and I try my darnedest not to disappoint one of them.”
-- Amarillo Slim

“Poker is a game of people... It's not the hand I hold, it's the people that I play with.”
-- Amarillo Slim

“The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius.”
-- Big Julie

“Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.”
-- Steven Wright

“Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.”
-- Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia (1832)

“You call...gonna be all over, baby”.
-- Scotty Nguyen, during the 1998 World Series of Poker.
Down to the final 2 players, he said this to his opponent while holding the winning hand.

Mae West: Is poker a game of chance?
W.C. Fields: Not the way I play it.
-- My Little Chickadee

"If you don't have my money then you are mine."
-- Rounders

"It hurts doesn't it? Your hopes dashed, your dreams down the toilet. And your fate is sitting right besides you."
-- Rounders

"It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money. "
-- Rounders

"In the poker game of life, women are the rake"
-- Rounders

 Pot-limit draw is a slightly different beast. The basic guidelines remain the same, but you have more choices in how to play an individual hand. You can come into a hand initially for varying amounts, and a raise can encompass a spectrum of amounts rather than a single fixed figure. You also can play some hands that you would not play in the limit game, while you would be well-advised not to play some that you would in the limit game.

I number positions before the draw by how many act after the current position. Thus, the button is called position 2 because the small and big blinds have not yet acted. This allows guidelines for all game configurations. You will find eighthanded, sixhanded, and fivehanded games on different sites. In the eighthanded game, the under-the-gun position, just to the left of the big blind, is position 7, while in the fivehanded game, the under-the-gun position, just to the left of the big blind, is position 4. In all three variants, the cutoff (one position to the right of the button) is position 3.

The guidelines to follow, generally, are:
Opening Hands
• In positions 7, 6, and 5, your minimum opening hand is a pair of aces. And you rarely limp; usually come in for a raise. You may think this a bit tight, but it’s based on what hand figures to have positive expectation against the remaining players. A pair of kings is likely beat against seven unseen hands. Unlike hold’em, a hand does not have three more rounds in which to improve. In draw poker, the best starting hand almost always has a huge edge, particularly against only a few other players. So, most of the time you try to avoid situations in which you have the worst of it.

In the sixhanded or eighthanded game, you can sometimes limp in from these positions with one pair if you also sometimes limp in with better hands. Neither should occur often.

• In position 4, add kings.

• In position 3, add queens and jacks.

• In position 2 — that is, on the button — come in with tens.

• The small blind gets a little tricky. How you play depends on what you know about the player in the big blind. Lacking any information, limp in with A-Q to a pair of sixes. This is one of the few times that you can limp. Raise-open with anything better. This means, come in for a raise with sevens or better. If the big blind is aggressive, do not play no-pair hands and play small pairs cautiously. If the big blind always raises when you limp, limp and reraise with good hands perhaps one-fourth of the time. Sometimes also limp and call with a big pair. But be careful, because the larger the pot gets, the larger the potential next bet. By trying to get “cute,” as many players do, you can cost yourself a lot when a big hand gets beat.

• Play your big blind dependent on the opener’s position and whether he came in for a raise. If two or three limpers — or more! — come in, raise with a pair of kings or aces, or anything better. With two or three players already in for a small raise, call with about a pair of tens or higher, any come draw, or any two pair. With a larger raise, you probably need a pair of kings or better to call. Dependent on the size of the raise, reraise with about jacks up or better, and, of course, trips or better.

Notice that where I said to come in for a raise, I did not specify how much. This depends on both your hand and the texture of the game. If there is a lot of calling and not too much reraising of raises, when you open with one pair, generally open for twice the blind. This is because big pairs are hands that like volume, and you want other players to come in incorrectly with smaller pairs. You will see this a lot in pot-limit games, and it’s wonderful for you. In any variety of poker, when someone calls with a worse hand than yours, four outcomes are generally possible:

• Neither hand improves and the better hand wins.

• You improve and your opponent doesn’t.

• You both improve.

• Your opponent improves and you do not.

In only one of those situations does your opponent sometimes end up with a better hand. Even there, in the last option, you may be so far ahead of your opponent that he can improve and still lose. And sometimes when you both improve, your opponent improves more than you do. That happens much more in draw poker than in other games. But, generally, in three out of the four possible outcomes, the better starting hand wins. In two of those, the better hand generally wins the betting before the draw and not much else, because there usually is no betting after the draw. This neglects value-betting and catching bluffs, but they can be neglected for this discussion.

The third outcome is the interesting one, because that is the one in which you make the most money. If you make three of a kind against an opponent who also does, and the opponent started with a smaller pair, because of the larger potential bets, you make far more than when this happens in a limit game. Let’s say, for example, that you open for $4 with a pair of aces in a pot-limit game that has blinds of $1-$2 and someone calls behind you with jacks. You each make three of a kind. If the big blind called the opening bet, the pot contains $12 (the $1 for the small blind will get raked). When the big blind checks, you bet $8. The player who made three jacks raises $10. (He might raise more, or if he is typical of many players, he might raise just $8.) The big blind folds. If he started the hand with $50 or so, he now has approximately $30 left. Your best move at this point is to reraise him all in. Most players call in this spot, and your only danger is if he has made a miracle three-card draw, and the odds against that are worse than 75-to-1. You can see that a play that is bad in limit — calling with a hand that is most likely worse than the opener’s — is catastrophic in a pot-limit game.

Good pot-limit draw play involves building pots. To maximize your winnings, you want to make some pots larger so that subsequent bets can be larger. To minimize your losses, you want to either make some pots smaller or drive others out.
You also don’t want to make some bets that would be automatic in a limit game. Examples from a fivehanded game with blinds of $1-$2 clarify these points.

Stealing a Pot
This example shows a hand played completely different from how it would be played in a limit game. The player to my right, WillieWooWoo, was very predictable. I knew how the size of his bet related to the strength of the hand he held. He opened for twice the minimum, $4. That told me that he had better than one pair. I had a flush draw.

In a limit game, I would never call an open-raise with a flush draw, because the expected value is negative. I needed to make at least five times the initial bet to warrant my staying, and that would rarely happen. Most of the time I would get three small bets before the draw and the equivalent of two small bets after the draw. Sometimes I would get four small bets after the draw. But for an investment of two small bets, I could expect a return when I made the hand of seven small bets at most, or less than 3.5-to-1. In a $1-$2 limit game, say, if the first player came in for $4 and I called, in five times that the situation came up, I would lose $4 four times, or $16, and I might win $15 once, for an overall loss of $1. Much of the time that I hit the flush, I would win less, because typically a player who has two medium pair checks to the one-card draw and calls. Sometimes I would win more, and sometimes I would lose more, when the hand got beat. Overall, though, calling to draw to a flush without proper pot or implied odds is a losing proposition, and I would never come in in a limit game behind one player who had just opened for a raise.

It’s a different story in a pot-limit game. I called and the big blind called. The big blind drew three cards, WillieWooWoo took one card, and I took one card. I did not make the flush. The big blind checked. WillieWooWoo bet $2, the minimum. This told me that he had two pair and had not improved. He did not want to check and then perhaps have to call a pot-sized bet, so he made a protection bet. I raised $12. The big blind folded. WillieWooWoo thought for long enough to convey the idea that he really had a hand but was smart enough to make a good laydown. I had taken the pot away from him. If he had bet more after the draw, I would have folded quickly, figuring that he had made a full house. Now, if I had made the flush when he bet that $2, I would have raised only $4. This was a small enough raise to keep him in. He would not have liked it, but would have called. So, my play was a very low-risk way of making money with a hand I wouldn’t even play in a limit game. I would either miss the hand and take the pot away from him or make it and win a reasonable pot. My only dangers were that he would make a complete hand at the same time that I made my flush — but that would happen only once in approximately 60 times that this situation came up — and that the big blind would make three of a kind and, after having passed, call a bet and large raise. But that’s why they call it gambling. I would win this pot probably more than 80 percent of the time the situation came up, compared with the 20 percent or so in a limit game.

Now, had the player on my right been someone listed in my notes as a calling station, I still would have come in, but with the intention of either betting or raising the pot, but only if I made my hand. Many players in pot-limit games bet the minimum after the draw without having improved the hand they originally raised with and then call any raise. I would almost always make more than five times my original investment against such a player.

From CardPlayer.Com

Musashi explains many different techniques in his book, but there are a few themes that run through the book.

Timing

Timing is choosing the moment to make your move and it is understanding the opponents' rhythm.  To move in slowly and then speed up will throw off the opponent's timing.  Ensuring you are in striking distance when you want to strike is timing.  Arriving at the strategically correct time is timing.  Knowing when to act on a decision you made is timing.  In sword fighting the sword amplifies the subtle movement of breathing.  By watching the tip of the sword (kensen), you can attack while the opponent is breathing in.  When breathing in, it is almost impossible to attack.  Also, for example, if you understand the opponents' rhythm and speed you only need to be slightly faster than them to win.  This conserves your energy/resources.

General knowledge

Musashi was skilled in the arts and crafts.  His observations of these activities were applied in his techniques.  for example in his Book, he explains that carpenters find a use for every kind of wood, even the apparently useless and similarly we can find a use for every person under our control.  Importantly he never lost sight of his identity.  He was Samurai.  He made art, but was not an artist.

Scalability

Musashi frequently says his ideas are scalable to large groups:- explaining in a one to one metaphor and applying it to controlling tens of thousands.

Perception

The power of observation was a primary skill to Musashi.  This meant noticing everything, but also observing in an objective manor.  This helps explain his interest in Zen and Tibetan Buddhism which concentrate on being able to see the world as it is.  Musashi knew our desires and fears colour our perceptions of a situation

Controlling the enemy's mind

Possibly the purest expression of this idea comes late in the book where Musashi explains that some schools of martial arts have special methods of jumping twisting and contorting to gain an edge in the field.  Instead, he says, keep your mind and body straight and force your opponent to contort their mind and body.  This is Musashi's way.

Practice

This should be first and last really.  Musashi says again and again:

You must practice this well.

This can only be understood by practice.

Practice this well.

You can't learn this stuff reading a book.  Only an opponent can test your understanding.  Reality will strip away your erroneous ideas. 

Musashi's Rules of Learning Strategy

In the Earth Book, Musashi explains the basis for his teachings; how to read them; how to understand them; how to practice them.  Here are his nine rules for learning his style of strategy.

Click on the image that corresponds to your screen resolution.  If you don't know what that is, this page will detect your resolution and send you to the right wallpaper page automatically 

Musashi Screensaver

Some quotes from the great book, with images of Musashi's home region and a castle he stayed in.  A 2 MB download.

Download Sun Tzu Art of War Wallpaper

The Sixth chapter of the Art of War says: "When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil.   When full, starve them.   When settled, make them move."  Here is a wallpaper with that quote in English and the original Chinese plus a lucky Chinese wall dragon in the background.

Click on the image that corresponds to your screen resolution.  If you don't know what that is, this page will detect your resolution and send you to the right wallpaper page automatically. 

Download Sun Tzu Art of War Wallpaper 2 - The Sequel

"In conflict, straightforward actions generally lead to engagement, surprising actions generally lead to victory."   Sun Tzu certainly valued deception, surprise, feints and illusion.

Click on the image that corresponds to your screen resolution.  If you don't know what that is, this page will detect your resolution and send you to the right wallpaper page automatically.  

Download Art of War Wallpaper 3 - Famous Quotes

The fundamental principle of the Art of War is deception.
When capable, appear incompetent.
When active, appear inactive.
When near, appear to be distant.
When distant, appear to be near.

Use bait to lure them.
Use confusion to take them.

The image is a sunrise silhouette at the Great Wall in Winter.  The original text appears in the top right.

Sun Tzu, Art of War Screensaver

Some quotes from the great book, with images of China's great castles and Great Wall.  THe main wall in the background, by the way, is from the Shaolin Temple in Henan.

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A-Q may look almost as playable, even as raise-worthy, as A-K, yet being that single pip lower makes it a much weaker starting hand.

This is especially true in no-limit hold 'em, in which each pot you enter provides a golden opportunity to lose all your chips. If your kicker determines who wins the vast majority of pots when an ace hits the board, it's good to remember that close counts in hand grenades, horseshoes and love, but not poker.

A-Q often turns out to be what is called a trouble or trap hand. This means that the bigger a pot gets, the more likely you are to be drawing almost dead, but the harder it will be to fold, particularly when an ace or two appears on the board, or a king and a queen. The hand is even dangerous when the board is queen high, because if your opponent holds queens, kings or aces, your goose will be thoroughly cooked.

It's for reasons like these that T.J. Cloutier and others recommend folding A-Q in the first five positions, and playing it cautiously as you move closer to the button.

"If somebody raises, what do you do with this hand?" Cloutier asks rhetorically in his blue book, "Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold 'em." The answer is obvious: Fold. "When you move in on them," he says elsewhere, "there are a lot of players who will call a raise for all their chips with a hand like A-Q. They're not good players, but they are out there."

In his useful if absurdly braggadocio primer "Play Poker Like the Pros," Phil Hellmuth puts A-Q in the same category with small pairs, while rating A-K closer in value to nines, 10s and jacks. He advises even tight beginners to take a flop with A-Q, but as cheaply as possible.

In "Super System 2," Doyle Brunson says that A-K is his favorite starting hand, A-Q his least favorite. This is why Brunson is probably the only player in the world with two hands named for him: 10-2 because he won two World Series of Poker championships while holding it, and A-Q because, as he writes, "I try never to play this hand."

I wish I had taken his tacit advice when I was lucky enough to make the final table of the 2000 World Series. On hand nine, in the big blind, I found the A-Q of clubs and got ready to raise. Three players ahead of me folded, but Hasan Habib, in the small blind, raised all-in right in front of me. Now at a full table, suited A-Q is a much better hand to raise than to call with, but five-handed it can fairly be called a monster. I had about $525,000 to Hasan's $415,000. I'd also put Hasan on a steal.

It was that passage from Cloutier -- whose right elbow happened to be brushing my left one -- that stuck in my craw: There are a lot of players who will call a raise for all of their chips with a hand like A-Q. They're not good players, but they are out there. Yet I didn't think Hasan had a better hand.

When I finally said, "Call," Hasan turned over an ace and a four, both of hearts. Delirious with joy, I flipped up my suited A-Q. Only the three remaining fours or a flurry of hearts could beat me, though I still had to endure the flop of Hasan's and my life: a nine, then a six, then a king, all of spades. So far, so fantastic. Dead to a four, Hasan groaned, shook his head. Unless the next two cards were both spades, every other card in the deck would give me the $970,000 pot.

The crowd was bellowing dozens of things, but all I could hear were Hasan's fans pleading for fours. Even so, I was confident I was going to win not just this pot, but the tournament. One and a half million bucks. The gold bracelet. I'd be poker's new heavyweight champion.

My faith seemed confirmed by the five of diamonds on the turn. Close to a four, I silently gloated, but no suck-out cigar. I gleefully calculated the odds of a pot-splitting flush: Zilch! Nada! Zero!

From the way Hasan was holding his right arm, I could tell he was getting ready to shake my hand. I actually felt sorry for the guy. I had won my $10,000 seat eight days earlier when he and I were heads-up in a one-table satellite, and this would be the second time I'd beaten him out of serious money. So when the river card flashed as the -- what!? -- four of clubs, I reeled in stunned silence, even though a chorus of curses and fours was bouncing around in my skull.

Three hands later I found an A-2 and moved in for $96,000. Steve Kaufman called and showed me A-Q, and this time Brunson held up. A few months after that, Hasan kindly gave me a tour of the house he had bought in Los Angeles, in part with the proceeds of finishing fourth instead of fifth, where I'd finished. I am welcome in that house, or at his place in Las Vegas, anytime I happen to be in the neighborhood.

Think that was brutal? At the same 2000 final table, after everyone else had been eliminated, Cloutier fought his way back from a 13-to-1 chip deficit to pull almost even with Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. Holding A-Q, T.J. enticed Chris to go all-in with A-9, and a fatal nine fell on the river. At that table at least, T.J. and I both should have listened to Doyle.

Except when only two survivors remain in a tournament, poker is seldom played heads-up in home games. One reason is that the social dimension -- pizza, beer, conversation -- is enhanced by a full table of players.

And without a professional dealer, it is an onerous task to shuffle and deal every other hand while trying to play the present one: It can lead to both carpal tunnel syndrome and, worse, the sort of puddin'-headed blunders you'd never make while focusing just on your cards.

Even so, interest in heads-up action expanded in 2001, when Texas banker Andy Beal began a series of individual showdowns against a consortium of pros. Ted Forrest, Jennifer Harman Traniello, Doyle and Todd Brunson, Phil Ivey and a dozen other stars have pooled their resources to be able to face Beal one at a time for stakes as high as $20 million a match. The series will recommence at Wynn Las Vegas next Wednesday.

Many of the millions of Internet players also choose to play two-handed poker. With a computer shuffling and dealing in a flash, the steady intensity of one-on-one, winner-takes-all matches is an appealing alternative to the sometimes glacial pace of nine-handed ring games and tournaments.

Solid play at a full table often involves patiently folding two dozen hands in a row; heads-up, you need to play almost every one. Automatic folds like Q-9 off-suit become raising hands.

No-limit hold 'em against a single opponent is like a street fight, and betting the second-best hand wins a healthy percentage of pots. Few players have much experience at this, however, and the standard primers focus almost exclusively on nine-handed strategy.

But now, Lee Jones, the author of "Winning Low Limit Hold 'Em," and James Kittock, a math professor at Mission College in Santa Clara, have devised what they call the Sit and Go Endgame (SAGE) system. (A sit-and-go is a small tournament, often involving only one table.) They developed it after noticing that most players, including some pros, play far too tightly heads-up.

The system is designed to work when the ratio of the smaller stack to the big blind is less than about 10 to 1 -- for example, when the big blind has climbed to 1,000 chips and one player has fewer than 10,000 remaining.

In this case, the small blind (who acts first) must often choose to either jam (go all-in) or fold. Once the small blind jams, of course, the big blind must choose between calling or folding, and the SAGE system also shows how to optimally defend the big blind.

The system is based on what financial number-crunchers call "equilibrium strategy." If either player deviates from the strategy, his dollar expectation goes down.

Jones and Kittock rank the 169 hold 'em starting hands according to their "power" in heads-up play. A-A is first, of course, and 3-2 off-suit is last. The main departures from full-table values are that big cards become even more valuable, small-suited connectors even less.

The system assigns each card a "power number" based on its rank: A equals 15, K is 13, Q is 12 and J is 11, with 10 and below at face value. You determine the "power index" of your hand with this formula: Double the power number for your higher card, then add the power number of your lower card. If they're a pair, add 22. If they're suited, add 2.

Next, figure the ratio of the shorter stack to the big blind, then use this table to determine whether your power index is strong enough to play the hand. (Jam is small blind; call is big blind.)

Ratio/Jam/Call

1 17 any

2 21 7

3 22 24

4 23 26

5 24 28

6 25 29

7 26 30

Under this system, if your hand's power index is strong enough, you should jam if you're the small blind or call if you're the big blind. For example, say the blinds are 500/1,000, and that after the blinds are posted, the small blind has 5,635 chips and the big blind has 2,865 chips, producing a ratio value of about 3 (that is, the smaller stack is only about three times the size of the big blind).

If the small blind has pocket 3s, his power index is (2 x 3) + 3 + 22 = 31. If the big blind has Js - 4s, his power index is (2 x 11) + 4 + 2 = 28. Because the small blind's power index of 31 is much greater than 22 -- the power index needed to play a hand at that ratio -- he should jam. With the same hand, the big blind should call.

The smaller the ratio, the better the system works. Above 7 to 1, you should simply play good poker -- try to get a physical read on your opponent, decide whether a bluff might work, evaluate your hand and so on. But if you think your opponent is substantially better than you, you can use the SAGE system and be confident you're giving up only a minuscule edge.