Full Tilt Poker

I got dealt some pretty bad hands in the last few days by forces far out of my control. I awoke April 15 to find that the feds had indicted 11 executives on multiple felony charges, including bank fraud and money laundering, at the three top sites in America's online poker market and seized their Web domains. If you logged on to Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars, you got to look at the shiny logo of the FBI. I like to play the 50-cent minimum, no-limit game on Full Tilt, and that's what I saw that Friday instead of direct access to the $216.

Two online poker sites shut down by the federal government last week have been permitted to start up again, but only to help players get their money back, authorities said. Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars regained access to their domain names after striking agreements with the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, which Friday accused founders of the sites of bank and wire fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. The agreements prohibit the sites from allowing patrons in the U.S. to play for money on the venues.

Who wants to bet that the recent federal crackdown on Internet poker sites won't stop Americans from playing poker online for money? Federal agents seized the websites of three of the world's most popular online poker companies Friday, indicted 11 of their executives and associates, and filed a lawsuit seeking at least $3 billion in penalties. It was the most extensive enforcement action taken by the government since Congress enacted a law in 2006 to prohibit banks, credit-card companies and others in the financial industry from processing online gambling transactions.

Bradley Franzen, one of 11 executives charged in a crackdown against the three largest online poker sites open to U.S. players, has pleaded not guilty. Franzen, 41 and from Illinois, was released on $200,000 in bail after turning himself in to the FBI on Monday in New York. The 11 executives — three of whom were the respective founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker — were charged Friday with bank fraud, money laundering and violating gambling laws. The government also sought to recover $3 billion from the companies.

Perhaps the most important part of bluffing is having your play tell a believable story, and a big factor in convincing an opponent to lay down his hand is betting like you mean it. Today's hand from the World Series of Poker $10,000-buy-in main event involving colorful pro Gavin Smith provides an extreme example of what not to do. With blinds at $50-$100, respected pro Ivan Demidov open-raised to $250 from under the gun. The player on...

One of the important things about today's hand from the $25,000-buy-in World Poker Tour Championship at Las Vegas' Bellagio in 2010 is knowing some history. Aggressive pro Josh Arieh had just lost about $40,000 in doubling up an opponent. The next hand, he raised with pocket kings and won. In this next hand, with blinds at $500-$1,000 plus a $100 ante, Arieh raised under the gun with pocket aces and was called by Cliff Josephy and Kathy Liebert, the pros immediately to his left.

You're making decisions all the time at the poker table, starting with whether to play the cards you're dealt. As a hand proceeds, you're making decisions based on your read of the strength of your hand relative to your opponent's, and then deciding how to balance maximizing your holdings against potential losses. Some of the most critical decisions come on the turn, and even if you take the pot, there still might be a question of whether you made the most of it, as in this hand from the $25,000-buy-in World Poker Tour Championship at Las Vegas' Bellagio in 2009.

Of the many factors that can help you deduce an opponent's likely holdings, his playing style and betting pattern rank perhaps as the most important, as they were for veteran British pro Joe Beevers in this hand from the 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000-buy-in main event at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. With blinds at $100-$200, Beevers open-raised to $600 from middle position with pocket 6s. Only the big blind called. "He has been playing too many hands," Beevers said. "I've seen him turn over rag aces.

Here's a poker truth according to maniac pro David "The Dragon" Pham: "A good poker player is always lying. Always lying. An honest player cannot be a good player." In today's hand from the 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000-buy-in main event at Las Vegas' Rio Hotel, Pham shows how players attempt to deceive opponents through their action, their talk and even showing a card. With blinds at $50-$100, a player in middle position raised to $250. A player in late position re-raised to $800.

"A nothing hand," feared pro Howard Lederer called it. He folded pocket 9s to a river bet while out of position at the $25,000-buy-in World Poker Tour Championship at Las Vegas' Bellagio in 2009. No big deal. Thing is, the kind of analytical thinking required to label a hand as "nothing" is part of the education of a tournament player. With blinds at $400-$800 plus a $100 ante, Lederer, a winner of WPT and World Series of Poker events, raised to $2,200 with his wired 9s from the cutoff seat.