How should I play pocket Jacks before the flop?
- It depends.

I'd like to try playing poker online, where should I play?
- It depends.

I've been winning pretty often at the $.50/$1 tables online, how much do I have to win before I'm ready to move up in limits?
- It depends.

Enough Already!!

How about some information that doesn't depend on anything? How about some Poker Truths!

Ok. Here are my . . .

1. We Keep Score With Money - that's right. If I win $50 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but piss away $400 on Friday night, I am what you would call . . . a loser.

That whole "I won four out of five" thing goes right out the window. You can tell the lady at the convenience store "I won again Sally!", but in the end the bankroll either moves up, or down.

2. It's All One Big Session - Lose today/Win tomorrow or Win today/Lose tomorrow, it doesn't matter. It's all One Big Session. It's in the end, that you'll find out if you won or lost. And the end doesn't mean how you did for the week, or the month, or even the year.

It starts the moment you first buy chips and lay one down on the felt, and ends with the last game you've played.

3. Good Players Can Lose - and that's a fact that we all try to seek solace in. Does this one seem familiar. . . "Well, I got my money in while I was ahead"?

Every good player has gotten the Villan All-In on their flush draw, the the River Rescue Squad delivers a flush. It happens. And it happens often enough so that a Good Player can play correctly all night, and still lose.

That's Poker.

4. Bad Players Can Win - that's the corollary. If a bad players gets lucky in a few pots, they can walk out ahead. I think we've all seen it happen. Hell, that might be a major part of the "cashout curse".

Well, if bad players can win, and good players can lose, what the hell is the point?

5. It's About Making Good Decisions - that's what will make the difference, and it's the only thing you can do. What should I do when I'm facing a rasie and a reraise with K5o? I fold them, and then see a flop of K55. Hmmmm.

Well, unless I'm trying to be the bad player that gets lucky and goes on short-term runs, I can take solace in the fact that in the end, folding is the right play. And it's my task to make decisions that show long-term profit.

6. The Long Haul Is What Counts - It doesn't matter if chasing that particular flush/straight/whatever the hell would have paid off. It's a matter of "Will that play produce long-term profits?".

That's why I like rabbit hunters, "See I should have called his All-In with my flush draw because it would have hit!". Aye, I got you captain. What about the next four times? Oh, nevermind.

7. If You Get Your Money In Early, How It Plays Out Is Just Drama - what do I mean? The following hand is NOT the world's worst beat.

We go All-In preFlop, and you show me your KK vs my 66. Flop of 4-5-6. (Woo-Hoo, I have you now!) Turn is a 7, yes! River is a King.

You did NOT just catch a 2-outer. You were a favorite from the time we turned the cards over, the board cards just came out in dramatic fashion. All the betting was done up front. Now the cards come out no matter what, and some times they're dramatic, other times they're not.

8. In Hold'em Games - We'll Be Using Five Board Cards All Night - adjust your strategy accordingly. Please do not be surprised that there will be a river card, or that it could affect the outcome of the hand.

9. PreFlop - You Can Never Be Ahead As Much As You Want To Be - Have you heard that AA v 72o is only an 88/12 favorite? I thought so. But it shows that nothing is a sure thing.

AK v AQ is a sweet match-up to find, but it's only 70/30. A pair of 7's over a pair of 3's comes in around 80/20. Hey four for you one for me, you're looking good, but not invulnerable.

Think about it, Yogi Berra only hit .285. The odds of him getting a hit are worse than someone crawling out from under AK with their AQ, and he's in the Baseball Hall of Fame!

10. You'll Get All The Action You Want, When You're Beat - which sometimes comes as a surprise.

Hmm this may not be an absolute truth. But, you can test it by betting hard into an opponent that has the nuts, and seeing what happens. I know I tried to stop doing that as the results were less than stellar.

11. Online Poker Is Not A Videogame - at least not in the sense where player skills like reaction time can put you ahead of your opponents. Although it may be satisfying, having the fastest "insta-call" finger at the table does not give you an edge.

12. Live Poker Is Not An Athletic Competition - you could have seen that one coming. Although if you're fit of body enough to endure 14 hour sessions without nagging aches or pains, that's an advantage.

But, after having seen a 6'3" 245lb. linebacker lose all of his chips in a hand to a 60 year old grandmother of three, it became pretty obviously that bench-pressing stats don't come into play in this "sport".

13. Winning Chips Builds Stacks Better Than Winning Pots - and that makes sense when you think about it. It's wonderfully satisfying raking in pot after pot, but you don't get any check marks in any column for winning a pot. You do get credit for winning those chips though.

I'm not going to get involved in the "this style of poker" vs "that style of poker" debate, there's nothing to be won there. You can go after a ton of little pots, or lie in wait for the monstors. All I'm going to say that I always remember that the final score is tallied in chips won and not pots won.

14. Bad Beats Only Happen When You're Ahead - after all, if you were behind, they wouldn't be bad beats. They'd be something like, "No Big Surprise" beats.

Heh, I have three outs. Look I missed. Guess I lose. That's No Big Surprise.

The obvious bummer of a bad beat is that when you're ahead, you'd like to stay ahead - especially if you have a lot invested in the pot. The solace is that you're making good long-term decisions. And that's good poker.

Bad beats still suck, but which guy would you rather be, the one that wins 3 out of 46, or the guy that wins 43 out of 46?

15. Stacking Off Is Part Of Poker - this comes on the tail of the Bad Beats idea. Sometimes you lose all of your chips in a pot. And it's not wrong, and that's all there is to it.

I know a friend who decided to give cheap cards on the turn to people on flush draws because he didn't want to lose chips when they hit. He'd "wait them out".

I told him he's nuts. Part of the profit in the game comes from punishing draws. Why give them correct odds to call? Because he was afraid of losing a stack, and this was in a ring game!

If I have Aces, and you have J6o, I'll play for stacks. And sometimes I'll lose. I can live with that.

16. Texas Holdem Is Not The Only Game Of Poker - although it surely seems to be the most popular.

The H.O.R.S.E. event at the World Series of Poker has taken over as the largest buy-in event in the series. And for that, you'll need both $50,000, and some serious 7 Card/Omaha skills.

17. The "other" Form of Poker is Full of Crappy Players - it's a fact, almost. If you play live poker, then online poker players suck. They play mediocre hands, way too hard, and usually from out of position. And they get lucky.

If you're an online poker player, then live poker players suck. They get bored because the game is so damned slow, and start playing mediocre hands, way too hard, usually from out of position. And they get lucky

Of course there are top pros in both arenas, and nobody is talking about them. We just mean the regular ham and egg'ers. Oh yeah, they cheat in those "other" games too. Hand signals, foot signals, bottom deals, cell phones, instant messengers, juiced flops - that's why I can't beat those games. They're rigged!

18. Women Can Play Poker Too - there isn't any heavy lifting involved in a game of Hold'em. Why any man would think they have an advantage over a woman because he's a man, and she's not is beyond me. But go ahead fellas, if you think anyone with a bra on must play pretty weak cards, re-raise her!

Oh yeah, if she's attractive, she's a Really Bad player, trust me ;)

Oh, this leads to a revelation . . .

19. There are More Transvestites in Online Poker Than There Are in . . . - I don't know, somewhere with a lot of transvestites.

This is obviously a market reaction to the previous truth. If someone named Luscious Lucy gets called down repeatedly by guys with crappy hands, next week the shrewd poker players have screen names like SandyDD and HoldemHottie. Nevermind that their names are Ralph and George. It's the perception that counts.

So, just because someone has an enticing screenName, and an avatar of a beautiful young lady, don't go getting all soft on "her".

And FINALLY . . .the one that sometimes makes me want to Scream!!!

20. It's Not All Luck - if it was, we'd be playing Bingo, not Poker. And no one would ever ask what we would like to do (raise, fold?) because it wouldn't matter.

I do have to admit that hearing people tell me poker is all luck should make me feel lucky to have players like that at the table with me. ;)