For example, some running backs and returners are better at using their blockers than others, having the patience to allow their teammates to run interference ahead of them and thus enable them to gain more yardage than they could on their own. Being fast enough to outrun tacklers or big enough to avoid being brought down are both good qualities, but so is having the presence of mind to see the entire field and allow your teammates to help you with their blocks as you carry the ball.

"Blockers" is a poker term, too, referring to cards you hold in your hand that effectively "block" your opponent from making possible hands. It is an especially useful concept to know in pot-limit Omaha, but it comes up now and then in no-limit hold'em, too. Indeed, understanding what blockers are and how to use them can be of great help when trying to narrow your opponents' range of possible hands.

One place in hold'em where the idea of blockers is worth considering is when you get involved in a preflop raising war with a single opponent and you hold a hand that contains cards that would normally be considered as part of your opponent's range.

The most common example of this would be when you hold a hand like Ah-Kh and raise, then find an opponent reraising you and looking as though he's ready to get it all in before the flop. Let's say he's a tight player whom you know for certain never four-bets without holding A-A, K-K, or Q-Q.

There are six possible ways to make a pocket pair, so that means you've narrowed his range to a tiny sliver of the 1,326 possible combos in hold'em -- just 18 of them. But in fact you have "blockers" to no less than six of those hands (Ah-As, Ah-Ad, Ah-Ac, Kh-Ks, Kh-Kd, Kh-Kc). That actually reduces the chances you're being crushed by A-A or K-K by half.

The idea of "blockers" can be useful to consider after the flop as well. Say you've opened from late position with J-J and gotten a single caller, then the flop comes Q-10-4. Your opponent check-calls, then checks after a 9 falls on the turn.

As you consider your opponent's calling range preflop, then narrow it a bit after he calls your c-bet, you now are contemplating the possibility of his having flopped a straight draw. However, having two jacks in your hand considerably reduces the likelihood that he has K-J or J-8 here. Your jacks are "blockers" to his having made a straight, thus helping you reduce his range of possible hands.

The same idea can apply when a river card completes a possible flush yet you hold the ace of that suit. For instance, say you raise preflop with As-Kh, someone calls your bets after a 2h-Ks-8c flop and 4s turn, then bets into you when the 9s falls on the river.

One hand your opponent might be representing here is a spade flush, yet the As in your hand and the Ks on the board tell you that in order for him to have gotten there he had to have called your preflop raise with no better than Q-x of spades. He could have it, of course, but these "blockers" enable you to entertain other non-flush hands as more likely holdings for your opponent.

The concept of "blockers" actually comes up much more frequently in pot-limit Omaha where you hold four cards rather than two, and thus have a better chance of having cards in your hand that prevent your opponents from completing draws.

For example, if you have J-J-8-8 and the flop comes 10-7-2, the eights in your hand function as "blockers" to an opponent drawing to a straight. Or say you hold Kd-Ks-7h-6h and the betting gets heavy following the turn with the board showing 8s-Ah-4h-5c. You have the current nuts with your straight and a small flush draw. It's possible your opponent may be drawing to a bigger flush, but if he is the two hearts in your hand serve as "blockers" to him getting there.

When putting opponents on hand ranges in NLH or PLO, many players often have no problem discounting the community cards when making such estimations. But often we forget to discount our own hole cards as well. Don't forget to see the "entire field" and take your own cards into account when trying to read opponents' hands.

In other words, use your blockers. And increase your chances of running well.

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In no-limit hold'em, most players quickly figure out that big pocket pairs and A-K are strong starters while Qs-2h and 8d-3c are not. But in PLO it often takes a while to realize that just because you've been dealt a couple of nice-looking cards among your starting four, that doesn't necessarily mean your hand is worth getting too excited over.

A hand like As-Ks-8d-4h might seem playable to a new PLO player, his head filled with ideas of drawing a flush or Broadway straight. But experienced players recognize the hand as lacking much potential, one reason being that if you do draw to that flush or ace-high straight, your chances of getting paid off by worse hands are slim to none. Even a couple of "bare aces" -- e.g., in which the two side cards aren't helping much like As-Ad-9h-4c -- is not really reason to celebrate.

As any decent pot-limit Omaha strategy book will tell you, it is preferable for all four cards in a starting hand to "work together." Ultimately you have to play two of those four cards in order to make a hand, so you'd like for each of the four to have some way of working with at least one and perhaps more than one of the other cards you've been dealt. Ways cards work together include being of the same rank (pairs), being close in rank (connectedness), and/or being of the same suit (suitedness).

Of those three ways your starting cards work together, it is generally not a challenge to recognize when your hand is suited or double-suited or when you hold a pair (or two). However, evaluating starting hands for connectedness -- in other words, for their potential to make straights -- is probably one of the more misunderstood aspects of PLO. Indeed, even experienced players might look down at certain starting hands, note what appears to be "connectedness" between all four cards, and mistakenly decide they have been dealt a strong hand with lots of potential.

Let's take a quick look at this subcategory of starting hands in PLO, all of which feature four cards that "work together" by virtue of being connected. That is to say, every card in the hand is either right next to another in rank (e.g., 10-9-8-7), or only include one or two "gaps" in the sequence (e.g., 10-9-8-6 or 10-9-8-5). In other words, none of these hands feature pairs, and while we're setting suitedness aside for the moment, we recognize that having a hand that is suited or double-suited always makes it better to play.

Within this group, then, we can further divide the hands into three smaller groups: rundowns, one-gap hands, and two-gap hands.

Rundowns

By "rundowns" we refer to four cards in sequential order -- e.g., K-Q-J-10, 8-7-6-5, etc. Such hands offer excellent straight-making potential, including multiple ways to make nut straights. Most rundowns should be considered especially good starting hands, although the lower the rundown the more speculative the hand becomes.

Be especially pleased when you are dealt rundown hands from A-K-Q-J down to 9-8-7-6, be glad but cautious with 8-7-6-5 to 6-5-4-3, and don't bother with 5-4-3-2 as you need a perfect flop (i.e., exactly three cards) to make a nut straight.

One-Gap Hands

One-gap PLO hands include hands like Q-J-10-8 or 8-6-5-4. Again, big cards are always preferable for obvious reasons, so if we are comparing hands we'll always rank K-Q-10-9 higher than 10-9-7-6. However, when evaluating such hands for straight potential, we also want to focus on where the gap occurs, because it actually matters a lot in terms of affecting our ability to make the nut straight.

It is always better for the gap to come at the bottom of the hand rather than at the top. Thus even though they look very similar, 10-9-8-6 is actually a much better starting hand than 10-8-7-6. Why? Because while both hands can make straights in multiple ways, you're more likely to end up with a non-nut straight when your gap comes at the top than at the bottom.

Not to belabor the point too much, but look again at those two hands above.

You hold 10-9-8-6 and the flop comes a handy J-7-5 -- one of those nice flops that perfectly surrounds your hand. You have a big "wrap draw" with 16 outs that can make you a straight (the three 10's, three 9's, three 8's, three 6's, and four 4's). And all 16 of those outs are to the nut straight, too! A nice spot to be.

Compare holding 10-8-7-6 when the flop comes J-9-5 -- again, note how the flop neatly surrounds your hand and fills its one gap. Again you've flopped a big wrap draw with 16 straight outs (the remaining Q's, 10's, 8's, 7's and 6's). But this time only six of those outs are to the nuts (the sevens and sixes). A formula for disaster, this.

Two-Gap Hands

Two-gap hands are less strong as starters than rundown hands or one-gap hands, but still have a lot of straight potential. Again, the bigger the cards the better, and as with one-gap hands, it is preferable for the gap to appear at the bottom than at the top. So Q-J-T-7 is better than Q-J-8-7 and much better than Q-9-8-7.

I won't go through another example here, but the same idea from the previous section applies. If the gap is at the top of your starting hand, you might well flop a big draw, but most of your straight outs will be non-nut outs. Meanwhile if the gap is at the bottom and you flop that big draw, you'll have a better chance of drawing to the nuts.

Suitedness is another factor that might encourage you to be more willing to play such straight-making hands. Of course keep in mind that when playing a hand like 9s-8d-7s-6d, you are primarily gunning for a straight with the flush draw being something you'll consider as either a backup (coming backdoor on the river) or for which you'll have blockers to someone else drawing to a better flush to beat your straight.

As our bud Pud has been noting in his posts, there's a lot more to think about in PLO. But having a reasonable grasp of starting hand selection, including understanding the straight-making potential of your hand, can give you an edge over many PLO players.

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Now, as anyone who hangs out among the "micros" well knows, we see lots of strangeness from time to time down here. But in this case the player struck me as otherwise solid. And he was running well, too, all of which meant his stack was steadily increasing as we went. But still, the min-bets kept coming.

Then I noticed something else. These min-bets were starting to bother me a little. I kept finding myself in awkward spots, trying to figure out how best to respond to these tiny bets.

I kept thinking about it afterwards, then it occurred to me to call on a friend of mine who might be able to offer some ideas for dealing with the min-bettors -- noted poker author and coach Tri Nguyen.

Besides authoring numerous poker strategy texts -- including some like Let There Be Range aimed at higher-stakes players -- Tri has additionally written books geared toward beginners and coached many players of all skill levels. He's also won a heck of a lot online himself.

So I gave Tri a call to see if he could help me with my problem.

Short-Stacked Shamus: Thanks for helping me out here, Tri.

Tri Nguyen: No problem. So you're asking about someone min-betting a lot on the flop, right?

SSS: Yes, he seemed to do it in just about any situation. Whenever he was first to act, or if it had been checked to him, he always seemed to make the minimum bet. And I realized it was kind of making me more confused than it should have. Is there some sort of default strategy I might consider for dealing with the min-bettor?

TN: Was it raised preflop or was it a limped pot?

SSS: Both. He'd min-bet in a multiway limped pot. He'd also do it after having called a preflop raise, or even after raising himself before the flop and getting called. So if there had been a preflop raise, his min-bet would be way out of proportion to the pot... like 1/15th the pot or whatever.

TN: I see. Off the top of my head, here's my default strategy in a raised pot. Because he's doing it all the time, it's not like he's only choosing to make the min-bet with big hands or weak hands. He's doing it with his entire range, so I don't know anything about the strength of his hand.

SSS: Right.

TN: So what I would do as a default strategy is just call with any of my marginal holdings. Even if I have a weak hand I would just call, because in a single-raised pot you have such good odds to do so. Then if on the turn he doesn't do it again, you can just bet to take down the pot.

Meanwhile, if I have a decent hand and he does it I would raise it to build the pot up. Of course, from a game theory point of view, that really isn't the way to play it, because if you are just raising with your strong hands and calling with your weak hands he might catch on to that.

SSS: That's true.

TN: But the main reason why you shouldn't be afraid of that against this particular opponent is because he's min-betting into the pot... that is to say, I don't think he has any idea of what game theory or range-balancing is anyway.

SSS: Haha, okay.

TN: So you can just play in this exploitable way against him and should be able to do well against what he's doing.

SSS: So why do you think he's doing this? I mean what could be the benefit of minimum-betting like that? Other than bugging me!

TN: I think that the reason that he's doing it is because nobody is fighting a bet against him. Also, I assume that at these low and micro stakes the games are not very aggressive?

SSS: That is correct. A lot of passive play and calling and giving up on hands going on.

TN: Okay. That probably means that when he does do this, a lot of people just look at their hand and think he's trying to "trap" them into calling. So a lot of times they just fold, or call and then fold on the turn to another small bet.

SSS: Of course, what was complicating things for me was the fact that there were other players in the hand, too. So he would make the min-bet, and whatever I did I had to do with the knowledge there were still often a couple of other players to act, too.

TN: I see.

SSS: So I felt like I was being affected by him. I guess I was mostly doing what you're describing -- that is, if I had a marginal hand, I'd just call. But if I had, say, a drawing hand that I might bet in this spot if checked to, his little bet meant I now had to raise...

TN: If that's the case, I think you have to look at both the positions and who the preflop raiser was. Let's say you are in a three-handed pot and the initial preflop raiser checks the flop, then this guy makes his minimum-bet. If you want to raise, you can be confident that the original raiser is going to check-fold a lot. Also, if the min-bettor was the preflop raiser and he leads with the minimum bet into the two of you and you have to act next, you're in a difficult spot but I would still make a call there with my marginal hand.

In fact, even with marginal holdings I would consider raising over that min-bet some of the time, because by raising I get those left to act to fold a lot, too. Because while they might have hands with which they'd call there, when they see the min-bet and then a raise they are going to fold a lot as well. It's kind of tough to give a single strategy here, because I have to see the cards, the position, and what the stack sizes are, but I think that's a good default strategy to keep in mind.

SSS: In other words, don't let that min-bet keep me from exploring options... such as to raise...

TN: Right. Also, when raising I wouldn't even necessarily make a big raise. Let's say the pot is $15 and he bets $1 into the pot, I would just make it like $5. It gives you great odds for fold equity -- you're betting just $5 to win $16 there. And others will often just fold even to that small raise, not even thinking about the odds you're giving with the $5 bet.

SSS: I see.

TN: Another good thing about making the small raise, if the players acting behind you just call, you know it is unlikely that they have a strong hand, especially if it's a drawy board. So on the turn you can bet again and expect to take the pot down.

SSS: That's very helpful. It's funny how the little bet kind of disrupts the usual way of thinking there. And how it affects the table dynamic, too.

TN: Yes, but it doesn't have to. In fact, if he does that a lot -- especially if he's min-betting into a pot that was raised preflop (like $1 into $15) -- what you can do is just view that as a check.

SSS: That had occurred to me. To try to pretend like it is just a check. But it really isn't exactly a check, though, because when I call I'm letting others know more about my hand than if I were able just to check behind a check, right?

TN: Right. You know, whatever he's doing by min-betting -- whether he's a good or bad player -- there is a train of thought in his head that is leading him to do it. So I'd definitely need to see a hand history and go through to try to see what he's showing down and then form an overall strategy from there.

SSS: I think one other thing that maybe added to my confusion here was the fact that this min-betting into raised pots is something that I almost never do myself. Is there ever a situation when you use this strategy -- to open with a min-bet on the flop like that?

TN: Actually, if there's a place where I would min-bet it would not be on the flop, but more likely on the river. There I would do it mainly against a weak player who is not overly aggressive and against whom I want to see a cheap showdown. Say I have two pair and the river completes a draw or something. I don't want to check and face a large bet and risk getting bluffed off the hand. So I might make a min-bet right there and hopefully he has two pair or just a pair and just makes a crying call.

SSS: I see. But you'd only try that with weak players.

TN: Definitely, because if I tried that with a good player, then I'm just opening myself up to more work. I'd just get into a leveling war with him and waste a lot of energy on the good player, when I could be focusing on the weaker player and taking money from him. Energy allocation!

SSS: This is very helpful. Thanks a lot, Tri, for giving a little energy toward helping with this problem!

For more PLO advice from Tri, check out The Pot-Limit Omaha Book: Transitioning from NLHE to PLO. Also visit his website, Daily Variance, for information about more poker ebooks by Tri, poker books by other top pros, as well as numerous additional resources.

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The other truth was that when it comes to online poker, the lower the stakes, the higher the chances one will encounter chat box lectures on strategy. And how, on the whole, such lectures are usually a lot more entertaining than edifying.

The star of the hand we'll call LecturingLarry. Larry had been sitting out and thus had posted a big blind from middle position when it folded to him. He checked, then the player to his left made a pot-sized raise. It folded to the big blind who called, then Larry cheekily reraised the pot, a move which actually managed to get a fold from the initial raiser. But the big blind called, and so the two remaining players saw the flop come Qc-7h-5d.

The big blind checked, and Larry hastily bet the pot (about half his remaining stack). His opponent check-raised the maximum, and Larry called with his remaining chips, turning over Ad-Ac-7c-4h. Alas for Larry, his opponent had flopped top set as he held Ks-Kh-Qs-Qh. The case queen came on the turn, ending Larry's hopes for a two-outer save.

Larry did not respond to his misfortune well. In fact, he was livid, and thus decided to take the opportunity to deliver a lesson to the table. Besides being a bit scattered in his thinking, Larry's typing skills weren't the best either...

LecturingLarry: godo job
LecturingLarry: kk qq hige plo hands
LecturingLarry: tood call
LecturingLarry: vcall gait obv aaadn hopt o hit a 4 pouter

I liked the slip there at the end where Larry typed "pouter" instead of "outer," a word that clearly applied more to himself than anything else. I'll spare you more of Larry's poor typing for the moment and instead just summarize three main points from his tirade, each of which actually highlight different problems that result from overvaluing A-A-x-x.

1. Overvaluing aces in PLO often also means devaluing other hands.
Larry's derisive comment about his opponent's hand instantly betrayed a lack of understanding regarding hand values in PLO. In fact, K-K-Q-Q double-suited is a monster of a starting hand, one that the big blind might well have reraised with rather than just called. ("u fold his hand preflop?" asked another player of Larry afterwards, recognizing the absurdity of Larry's position.)

2. Overvaluing aces in PLO often narrows one's preflop three-betting range.
For whatever reason, Larry didn't take the opportunity to open-raise his A-A-x-x hand when he had it, but decided instead to do something unusual and limp-reraise. Kind of surprisingly, the original raiser decided not to stick around, but the big blind called. Larry's reference to his opponent gunning for a four-outer afterwards -- besides ignoring the flush and straight possibilities of the BB's hand -- seems to suggest he thought his three-bet should've signaled to all that he had aces. While it's true that a three-bet (especially from out of position) can mean A-A-x-x, not everyone restricts their preflop reraising to hands containing aces.

3. Overvaluing aces obscures the fact that PLO is a post-flop game.
Actually, overvaluing any starting hand in PLO can hurt one's post-flop game if doing so causes one unreasonably to commit to a hand before seeing the flop. Pot-limit betting ensures that in most cases the majority of the money goes in after the flop, not before. And, of course, hand values change considerably in PLO once those first three community cards are revealed. Even a flop as benign-looking as Qc-7h-5d can be dangerous for the player holding an overpair and little else, especially once his opponent check-raises him.

There's more to say about A-A-x-x, including the fact that not all hands containing two aces are of equal value in PLO. In fact, if the other two cards don't provide suitedness, straight possibilities, or a second pair, the hand becomes much less than premium -- worth seeing a cheap flop with, but not worth pushing too hard without improvement.

There's more to say about Larry, too, I suppose. But we'll just let him speak for himself...

LecturingLarry: i can see why 85% of allplayer lose money
LecturingLarry: nothgin perosnal
LecturingLarry: bu t u suck atpoker
LecturingLarry: u are oging to p,ay yoruhadn hoping ot hit 2 to 4 outs?
LecturingLarry: sems kinda dumb huh?

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I didn't cash, but then I suppose even if I had won I wouldn't have cashed. (Insert frowny face.)

As an American whose only online poker accounts were on sites targeted by the "Black Friday" indictments and civil complaint unsealed on April 15, I am presently having to do without online poker. I have begun to explore some of the other, still available sites and will perhaps before too long make the not-insignificant effort to get some funds into an account and get back into the game. But for now, like a player who is "card dead" and enduring a sequence of unplayable hands, I am having to be patient.

The game I miss the most is short-handed, pot-limit Omaha, a game that even if I lived in close proximity to live poker (I don't), I probably would not be able to find that easily, either. Over the last couple of years, I'd probably spent at least 80% of my time at the online tables playing 6-max. PLO, a game I've found much more engaging than no-limit hold'em.

While I remain a "recreational" player -- perhaps more serious than most, though hardly a threat to move up to professional status -- I did learn a little something about PLO strategy while playing those thousands of hands online. Reading Jeff Hwang's books on PLO (reviewed here) helped a lot, too.

I realized this week how some of the lessons I'd learned from PLO could be said to have application to "Black Friday" and its aftermath, at least in terms of being an online poker player in the U.S. and having to deal with the sudden unavailability of my favorite sites. Here are three ways you might say PLO has helped prepare me to deal with the current state of affairs.

Learning to Read

When it comes to evaluating starting hands, new PLO players generally have a much steeper learning curve than do those playing their first hands of hold'em. Sure, the NLHE newbie may not realize at first how suited connectors can become big profit-makers if played effectively, but for the most part it isn't that difficult to recognize big pairs and Broadway cards make for good starters in hold'em.

By contrast, evaluating starting hands in PLO is a more complicated matter. Here, too, some of the best ones -- like A-A-J-T double-suited -- might be obvious even to new players. But it usually takes novices a while to learn that starting with a couple of aces isn't always the cat's pajamas in PLO. Or that run-down hands like J-T-9-8 have great potential, too, especially when suited/double-suited or played from a positional advantage.

Starting with four cards means you have six different two-card combinations to choose from to make a hand -- as do all of your opponents. And since it is often the case that multiple players (i.e., more than two) see flops in PLO, the range of possibilities following a flop is much wider in PLO than in NLHE, making it more challenging to "read" the significance of players' subsequent actions.

"Black Friday" took many by surprise, but now we find ourselves looking back at all of the potential signs perhaps indicating the Department of Justice was about to suddenly "raise the pot" (so to speak) and force the largest online sites in the U.S. to "fold."

The arrest of payment processor Daniel Tzvetkoff last spring, the sudden uptick in legislative machinations on both state and federal levels to regulate online poker, and the announcements of those partnerships between the sites and land-based casinos all now appear as related bits information. Put together, they seem now both to suggest something about the strength of the DOJ's hand and that (from the feds' perspective) "slow playing" was no longer an option.

But like a PLO hand, it was a complicated situation, hard for many to "read" and understand definitively.

Dealing with Swings

For various reasons, PLO tends to be a more "swingy" game than other varieties of poker, with a higher "variance" that often translates into sudden changes to one's stack size, overall bankroll, and/or peace of mind. For some, this aspect of PLO makes it a more fun game to play, more likely to get the adrenaline pumping than saving an extra bet in a fixed-limit game or lots of folding in NLHE might.

Just as reading hands and situations in PLO can provide a special intellectual challenge, handling those head-spinning highs and precipitous plummets can present a psychological challenge to players, too. Most frustrating for me would be sessions that would begin with a hundred well-managed hands during which I'd slowly but satisfyingly chip up to improve my stack by a buy-in or more, only to be suddenly felted in one of those all-but-impossible-to-avoid coin-flip situations that will come up now and again in PLO.

When such misfortune occurred, I'd try to remember the flips I'd won -- or those hands when after getting it in as a huge dog I'd luckboxed my way into some undeserved success. I also developed other means by which to improve my perspective on big wins or losses and become less emotionally affected. And the more I played, the more I was able to "embrace the variance" (as Deuces Cracked instructor bellatrix recommends)

It should be obvious how this kind of mental training to handle abrupt changes in fortune comes in handy in the face of an event like "Black Friday." I'm one of many who have been affected in ways that go beyond the temporary lack of a game to play. But using my experience with PLO as a guide, I step back and recognize how rapidly things have changed in poker over the last several years.

"Black Friday" was certainly an especially big pot to lose, but if recent history is any indicator, there will be more big pots, I'm sure.

Thinking Ahead

As a "post-flop" game, PLO requires one to think beyond those initial preflop raises to prepare oneself time and again for multiple decisions on subsequent streets. As Jeff Hwang points out in Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy, PLO "is very much an implied-odds game," especially when played deep-stacked. In other words (suggests Hwang), it is often best to keep in mind that in PLO, really, "every hand is a drawing hand -- including AA hands."

I know from my own experience with PLO that whenever I felt as though I was playing my "A-game" I was consistently doing a good job thinking beyond what was happening preflop to anticipate how I'd be responding to various community cards and opponents' actions after the flop. A stronger player or strategist could probably better articulate what I'm trying to say here, but there's a "rhythm" to PLO to which I sometimes felt especially attuned, and getting to that point often involved focusing more on potential developments than the current situation.

By the same token, I knew I was off my game whenever I fell into what might be called a "made-hand mentality" wherein I was too preoccupied with making (say) my flopped top set stand up than considering the larger picture -- i.e., one that included dealing with the consequences of the turn and the river!

Again, I'm going to try to apply this ability to look ahead when assessing the current situation faced by U.S. players. Some observers have already begun to describe how the events of the last two weeks may in fact prove beneficial in the long run when it comes to those ongoing efforts to license and regulate online poker in the U.S. While I'm too much of a cynic to be overly optimistic, I can appreciate the importance of thinking about the "big picture" and not getting too wrapped up in how lousy a hand we've just been dealt.

PLO is a complicated game. So, too, is the "game" surrounding the future of online poker in the U.S., a game made even more complex thanks to the many political, cultural, and economic forces affecting how it gets played. (Or not.)