I will be doing two radio shows and a charity seminar in May. The first show, with Al Spath and Konana Luce,. will be on Roundersradio.com May 12 starting at 6:30 PM eastern. The second will be on May 15 at 8:00 PM eastern with David Apostolico, also on Roundersradio.com. Both will available for podcast a couple of days later.

On May 23, I will doing a charity seminar In Nashville Tenn with high stakes player Terri Evanowski. This event, with registration starting a 5:30 PM and dinner served at 6:30 PM. It will be at the Hampton Inn an downtown and will include a dinner catered by Valentino’s Restaurant. Complementary soft drinks will be served by the Tennessee Titans Cheerleaders. In addition, a poker event will held with the opportunity to win a $10,00 seat to the World Series of Poker Main Event and Round Trip Airfare. The cost of the evening is a tax deductible $500 donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, and you can get more details from .

I am writing this on the high seas, as we are on a cruise for a couple of weeks. We will be back home in May.

Using the ship’s computers, I fat-fingered some e-mail and accidentally deleted about 20 messages. So if you sent me something in the last three or four days (April 16-19) and did not get a reply, I lost it. Please resend.

There I also a chance that on May 3, I will present a seminar in Nashville to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. You can find more details here as plans firm up. But if you are in the area, please set the time aside. It will likely be at the Gaylord Hotel and will request a donation of $100.

Many cruise ships now have automated poker tables. I like these for a lot of reasons. First, ships do not have trained dealers, so they tend to make up rules. Second, even if they do, they do not have the flexibility to switch from ring game to tournament. Automated tables can handle games of any denomination, and size, (up to ten players) as do SnGs well as rings. Only one person is required to run it, and he has only to enter the type of game and each player’s buy in.

This ship does not have this. They run a “tournament.” Here is a set-up. They play on blackjack tables limited to seven players. For each event, the buy in is $90 for 1000 in tournament chips with one rebuy OR add-on for $50 which gets you 800 more chips.

Now the structure. Ten minute rounds (not a typo) starting a 25-50 and doubling every level. Yes, at the end of a half hour, they play 200-400 with at most 12,600 chips on the table. Clearly an all-in fest starting after 20 minutes. I guess at least it levels the playing field.

And what does the winner get? He gets to play other winners throughout the cruise with the final prize (yes, one prize) of a free two-week cruise for two (cabin level unspecified), and an entry to an annual cruise company-wide with event with (they say) $100,000 in prize money.

Can you compute th4e amount of the entry returned to the winner(s)? Me neither, but it seems to be way less than 50 percent.

I took this cruise to get away from poker for a while, and the poker they play has made it easy. No way will I enter this thing.

Things are going quite well. Crossing the Atlantic on a cruise ship is a great way to relax. I will post again when I get home, or when I get final details of the Nashville seminar.

Here are a couple of hands I lost recently. I am not that happy with either, but in “tough” games, sometimes things are pretty unclear.

I hold Qs 10s in the small blind. Al fold tot he button, who limps. Weird, but there it is. Does he have A-A? I doubt it. I think he (a regular) is stuck, knows I often 3-bet (I would have here) and is just trying to see a flop.

I would often raise in the SB to kill the BB when I have a hand as good as Q-10 suited, but the big blind will never fold anything and I will be out of position against two, so I call.

Flop is Q-6-5. A decide to check and check-raise the auto-bet from the button (players who limp preflop in my game pretty much ALWAYS bet the flop if only the blinds are in and both blinds check. They are correct to do so.

OK, check-check-autobet-raise-fold. Now a reraise. What is this? A-A? A good queen? A draw like 8-7? I am pretty sure my queen is still good ad I fur bet. He calls. The pot is big, but I do not like his call.

The turn is a king,. I am not crazy about that either, so check. He bets. I call. He comments, “No raise this time?” This comment almost certainly means I am now losing, if I was ever ahead, I should check-fold the river, which is a 2 but I check call. He has K-9. He tells me he figured I figured he had nothing for his bet on the flop, so he reraised to show he did even though he didn’t. Then he caught his out. Fun, huh?

Similar hand. SB, and me in BB with 6-7. I take the free play. Flop is K-K -7. Two spades, I have none. SB checks, I bet as I do not want anyone play on. I do not even want to try to pick up the autobet.

Limper raises. What can this be? Does he have a king? Can’t be. First, he is likely to have open raised. Second, with a king he is highly likely to wait to punish me on the turn, No, this is just a nonsense raise. Maybe a flush draw.

Perhaps I should 3-bet here, but I call (SB folded) and see if the turn is a spade. Bang! Spade four. I check. Wait. He is checking his hole cards. Now he bets. Does he have a flush and knows to me a false tell. I doubt that. I think he has nothing and is afraid the check and show it. Should I raise? Probably I should as I am pretty sure my read is accurate, but at the table I did not. I called. River Q. I was hooping for no queen, no jack )quack) I check-call. He has Q-10 off with no spade and takes the pot.

These are not bad beat stories. And I could have played each one differently. Probably even better (though I could have played worse too and folded the best hand) . Just another day in the life. But I thought they were interesting examples of how the $30-$60 is playing these days. Much money to be made, but you have to work for it.

OK, maybe Thought of the “Week” is becoming a misnomer. I apologize for the lack of frequency. I do enjoy writing these, but I have had some other things on my mind. I still keep up with the forum, answer posts as I can.

I have been playing more in the past week, which is a good sign on several fronts. One thing I have noticed in the past few days is several instances of totally wild play. You just do not see that many $30-$60 maniacs in the course of year, and this past week there have been four different players assuming the maniac role. By this I mean raising with far to many hands, sometimes all of them, going too far after the flop, and, naturally, laying a series of beats on the other players.

Maintaining your equanimity under those circumstances is critical, and for many, quite difficult. When I started playing, it was impossible. Every time I lost a pot I “deserved,” it tied may innards up in knots. A guy would hit is kicker, make runner-runner miracle, flop trips with his 3-2 when I had kings, and find other creative ways to drive me nuts. I tried to remain stoic looking as I played through the psychological pain, but it was tough. Often, I tilted (some), and tried to give them a dose of their own medicine. Usually, I just gave someone else a dose of my chips.

One day, still several years ago, I took a terrible beat. To my surprise, nothing happened. I was looking for that familiar intestinal-clenching, blood-rushing sensation, but nothing was there. I sat there in amazement and tried to decide what happened. I still have no idea. Maybe I had passed the statute of limitations on beats. Maybe I had been playing enough years successfully that somehow inwardly I realized that either these were a part of the game I had better get used to, or my results over the years were good enough that I knew I was winning player in spite of these (actually because of these, but I did not understand that for a while).

Since then, the evil sensation has not returned. I still suffer flashes of annoyance when someone shows me two rags that beat my lovely premium holding in an unlikely scenario for a huge pot, but I no longer get upset. I do find myself playing too loosely with these characters at time, as did last night, and had to rein myself in. I set a goal of folding hands for 45 minutes to get better control, and came close, playing only one hand (and losing that one after putting in multiple bets on the flop with a large advantage).

Overall, I am glad I spent so much time in low limit games, learning, among other things, how to play with wild players, how to take the ridicule they heap on you when they are winning, and how to control myself when “unfair” things are happening. While it was surprising to see that many “any two cards” guys and “I raise two-thirds of the pots” guys in a short period of time in middle limits, it helps to have lived through the range of experiences and wild swings before.