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.