First, my apologies to the dozens if not hundreds of you who turned out to meet our plane as it landed in Florida. We were not on it, as health issues forced us to cancel the trip. We will try again soon, I think.

As some of you have been kind enough to ask, my second eye surgery went well, and is healing fine. I will probably need some final laser touch-up after things settle down, but then I should be able to drive, play and even possibly compute without glasses for a few years. Reading will still need some help.

Book sales have been going well, and I have gotten some very nice feedback, especially from several people who took time out of their lives to write to tell me they enjoyed and benefited from the book. These notes make me feel great, and I thank everyone who wrote (and yes I still reply to my e-mail messages).

OK, let’s get back to some No Limit talk. We are still in the early stages, so I will be saying some pretty basic things. It helps if we all get on the same page.

In limit, most things are about frequency. It matters a great deal how often a thing works. A-K wins often enough, so we play it. 7-2 does not, so we don’t. If we flop top pair, we treat it as the best hand, and generally bet/raise all the way (yes, I realize how overly non-specific that sounds.) Sure, we will lose to players who outrun us, but the profit in the long run comes from being ahead in the race, and staying there often enough. Pot odds dictate, but it is tough to give a guy terrible odds, so mostly opponents (or us) with good draws are getting the right price to play and try to draw out.

No Limit is not about frequency at all. It is about rarity. (Relatively) huge wins and losses center about the rare times when someone hits a miracle hand, gets all the money in, and gets paid off. OK, maybe not a miracle. Sets have huge value in both games, but are far more valuable in NL, where a well-hidden set can bust someone (and, for better players, the threat of a well-hidden set keeps them from being too aggressive with vulnerable hands.)

Players spend hours at the NL table waiting for the one or two opportunities per night to have the right type of hand or circumstance to spring a trap and double through (note, for the record, we are still discussing cash games, which are not timed events and players have time to wait for hands). Sure the give-and-take in between involves money, image, and action, but the real money is in stack off your opponent and that in most games is a rarely.

This frequency vs rarity issue is one of the reasons limit players have a tough time making the transition to NL. They think because they will win often with a hand, is is a good hand to play. More on this next time.

Holdemradio.com is, at least temporarily, out of business. The owner has run out of money, and the site is closed. Thus, all of the podcasts and other previous broadcasts are no longer available. This is really a bad beat, as I listened to some, but never downloaded any (I still live in the dark ages of the internet). If anyone has any of these recorded (like the ones I did, or co-hosted with Dr. Al), please let me know. I would like to have them.

On a somewhat more positive note, Dr. Schoonmaker, whose show I have been co-hosting, has agreed to move his show to roundersradio.com. This outfit has more listeners, and should be able to offer a better product. As Dr. Al is writing yet ANOTHER book (the man is a machine), we probably will not be doing the show on a regular basis until after May 1. We may tape a few sporadically between now and then, and these will be announced, here as are all of our shows, on my forum.

Thank you to those who listened to us, and I hope you enjoy the product in the new venue.

OK, nothing to do with poker, but I wanted to share this moment. I am having dinner with a bunch of professional gamblers, mostly sports bettors. This was Thursday, Jan 3, so inevitably, the conversation turns to the Iowa caususes.

“Does anyone know how the caucuses turned out?”

“O’Bama won by 9.”

‘Oh, how did Huckabee do?”

“He covered.”

I started writing this Thought before Christmas, and wish you all a Marry Christmas ad Happy Holiday Season. Now I am wishing you all a very warm and Happy New Year.

You can now listen to me (sort of ) every week or so. I have joined Dr. Al Schoonmaker on his Internet Radio Show, “The Psychology of Poker.” and will be co-hosting most weeks. You can find these shows on www.holdemradio.com. Click on the podcasts. Dr. Al announces each show on my forum, which I also urge you to join. Highly informative and affirmative discussion. No one is belittled there for posting a question. And you get some pretty good answers from the members. I chime in when I can.

New Year’s weekend is Las Vegas is always a great time for poker. This year Betty (my beautiful and talented wife) and I broke tradition and stayed home, as we still have some health issues. In years past, we have gone to the Bellagio poker room, and even once ventured out on The Strip. Since the Metro Police close all of the entrances and exits to The Strip at around 6 PM, and re-open them around 3 AM, you need to commit over ten hours to your stay. We were not up to it for the first time.

If you have never been to Las Vegas for New Year’s Eve, I promise it is worth it. The city is even more alive than usual, every resort/casino pulls out all of the stops for parties and entertainment, and the fireworks are amazing as they launch from seven different roof-tops from the Stratosphere to Mandalay Bay. This is a stretch of four miles of fireworks, all beautifully synchronized and amazingly colorful with the crowds in the middle of them.

I did play the three nights leading up to New Year’s eve, and did well two out of three (which, interestingly, is my lifetime average). Having New Year’s Eve on a Monday brought folks in early, and the action was excellent. More people play well these days, but the games are still good. There is a still a big difference between knowing how to play well, and doing it for several hours and days.

I will get back hands and poker specifics very soon. And I promise we will continue some explorations into No-Limit Cash Games. But a few (more) personal notes. I will have my second eye operated on Tomorrow to fix the cataract problems, and this should improve my vision. And the next week, we will be travelling back to Florida to visit my Mother again. She is doing great in her assisted living place.

Everyone take care, be well, stay warm, and have a great 22008!