First, I want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. Despite some setbacks in the Tanenbaum family, we have a great deal to be thankful for, and I hope you do as well.

OK, I will discuss poker in a paragraph or so, but I wanted to bore you for a moment about my book (”Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy”). It is now available from several sources (including me, see “Buy Barry’s Book ” post below) but the world largest (and perhaps least organized) bookseller, has now listed it as “in stock.” Amazon maintains a list, updated hourly, of best selling poker books. Mine, for a brief shining moment, reached #13 . I do not look every hour, but I do check once or twice a day. It mostly hangs around the low twenties and high thirties, which I am still quite proud of. Thanks to all of you who acquired it.

Remarkably, in spite of that success, no one has yet posted a review of the book on Amazon.com. It is the only book in the top 100 with no reviews for it. So, if anyone out there has read it and liked it a lot, please feel free to post a brief review there. If you disliked, it, thanks anyway for getting it anyway. You can sell it used on Amazon as well.

OK, poker. I wanted to say a bit more about the theme of optimal vs exploitative play. If you have not read my last essay on this site, scroll down and check that out first, so this will be in context.

Ready? Welcome back. Part of my thesis is that you can go beyond simply playing exploiattively, by working hard to create opponents’ mindsets and situations in which opponents become more exploitable that they would be without your intervention. You still have to begin by observing opponents to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Then determine how to either turn a weakness into a bigger weakness, or turn a strength into a weakness.

Let’s assume, for example, that you are playing against me. You observe that one characteristic of my play is that I make a much larger number of value bets on the river than most of your other opponents. I consider this a strength, take pride in it, and teach this method to students (who use it quite profitably). Can you use this against me?

Yes, you can. First, by checking decent hands to me when I have position on the river, I am far more likely to bet than the average guy. Thus, you can check-raise me more readily than you can others (or just call to see if your hand is better. You need bet less often for value yourself, as I w ill do it for you) . I will walk into your trap more often.

Second, you can bluff raise (or check-raise) me, as I am more likely than most to a) have a thin value bet, and b) be willing on occasion to lay it down. While it may just cost you money, it will cause me to rethink my play to adapt to your new countering of my desire to extract maximum value. If I decide to change my game because you have deciphered and exploited my desire to value bet, then I am no longer value betting as much as I would like. In this way, you can force me to play differently than I prefer, and also force me to perhaps be more predictable.

I hope you do not mind if I do not list all of the ways I will try to counter your counterplay, as I still play for a living. It does not often happen that I meet a player who can out play me in this aspect of my game, but they do appear and force me to adapt (if in fact I realize what is happening to me).

Anyway, my point is not to tell you how to give me difficulties at the table. It is that you can find ways to either enhance or refute your opponents’ tendencies once you recognize them, if you are willing to do the work, and accept the increased volatility when you make the counterplays (for example, I am not always value betting, and frequently bet hands others may slowplay so I will be more difficult to read).

Do not overdo you exploitation of these tendencies. IF an opponents, say,. likes to steal on the turn, and you, having discerned this, bluff raise him often, he will stop doing it. If you bluff raise him on time in three, or two times in five, he will have enough success with the play that he will keep on trying it. Moderation is difficult, but, as friend pointed out, there is a reason why the Goose That Laid the Golden Egg story has been around for thousands of years.