The longest serving member of the United States Supreme Court, 1939-1975, Justice William O. Douglas once said, "It seemed to me that I had barely reached the Court when people were trying to get me off."

During his 36 years on the Supreme Court, liberal Douglas, along with Justice Hugo Black, was responsible for many of the decisions which extended the rights and protection of the Constitution to the dissident, the deprived and the disenfranchised.

"He knows no fear!" "He bets on anything and when he loses, he doesn't flinch or whine!" That's the kind of "over the table" gossip you can hear every day in a poker room. It brings up the question of whether people who play with no fear are better players or, quite frankly, what role fear and emotions have in the game of poker.

Continuing our efforts to turn over every rock to unearth ways and means of improving our performance and hence our bottom line, today let's discuss the bane of every poker player, namely getting stuck. No one enjoys sitting down at the table intent on playing his best game and begin accumulating chips only to immediately get off to a bad start and be down a stack or two before his seat cushion is warm But hey, it happens.

Tony Cosentino was born in Chicago, Illinois and right after his first year at Northwestern University he was drafted into the Army. He served his tour of duty in Germany and was honorably discharged in November of 1966.

Within a few months of his discharge Tony headed to Las Vegas hoping to reunite with some of his old friends in the gaming business. His first taste of employment in Las Vegas was as a shill at the Mint Hotel for $12.00 a day and no tips.

Cherokee Casino - Tulsa. Located off I-44, Cherokee Casino & Resort, "A stay and play environment . . . is the leader of Oklahoma gaming," according to CEO David Stewart. "We are the first resort destination, the first to offer poker, and the first to host poker tournaments in Oklahoma. All 75 of our gaming tables have automatic shufflers. We're expanding to 100 tables within a year." Of the 75 tables, 36 are poker tables and non-smoking. All gaming is open 24-7.

"Do not cast your pearls upon swine," The wise, wisest of them all said.

While I occasionally talk about overcalling, nothing drives home my teachings about the fundamental peril of that tactic better than an audio lecture I did years ago. It's one of the lessons you need to master to reach the higher tiers of poker profit.

Oh, I almost forgot to remind you. Soon I'll be making my lectures available at three web sites: Poker1.com, PokerPlayerNewspaper.com, and DoylesRoom.com. I hope you'll get the chance to visit me there.

Anglo-American relations have hit an all time low in poker terms if Max Shapiro's recent Card Player columns are anything to go by. These 'humour' columns under the title 'Big Denny Goes to Oxford' unfold the story of how "the students at Great Britain's Oxford University, scholastically brilliant but a touch behind the times, were finally discovering poker. Their representative, Chauncey Crumblecake, had contacted me, requesting that I secure the services of Big Denny, whom they had heard about from my columns, to teach them the game and set up a poker tournament.

Today I will analyze an actual hand that I played at the final table of a limit Omaha High-Low tournament. Let me set the stage for you. I was in the big blind with the blinds at $1,500 and $3,000. There were 9 players left at the table. I was low in the chip count with $6,800 in chips ranking me about 8th. The small blind in last chip position called "all in". He did not have enough chips to complete the call. I held the following hand: Qd Qs 6h Td. Everyone folded to the button, who limped in with about twice as many chips as I had. The three of us saw the flop Jd 6f 9d.

Dan Harrington states that it is probably wrong to fold kings in a normal tournament situation. There are limited opportunities and therefore you cannot try to out guess that one in 24 chance that you are against a pair of aces. He even stated that most of the pros are not savvy enough to fold kings. Those few times you find yourself against aces you still have a 1 in 5 chance of winning as well. Hoyt Corken's famous quote is "I don't care if he has aces, I have kings"! I agree with Mr. Harrington that folding kings can be almost impossible to do in a tournament setting.