Operating A Professional Poker Room by Nick Gullo 2006, 134pp, $39.95 Gullo Pens Vital Reading For Poker Poker might have become the darling of the universe recently but the game has long suffered from a major information gap.

Judging from the number of how-to-play books on the shelves, that breach certainly doesn't apply to instructions for players but it's an area that truly affects them, especially if they play in brick-and-mortar cardrooms. That missing link, so to speak, is a complete and standardized instructional -- a book or guide on how to run a poker room.

It's hard to believe that it happened to me. But it did. I figure, at the very least, it will be an interesting and cautionary tale for the rest of you. I was visiting Las Vegas on what has become bi-annual poker playing jaunt. My mission was to research the state of 7-Card Stud in the city - something I reported on in two earlier Stud Sense articles. It was also a good excuse to tour many of the more popular poker rooms.

Remember that there are two ways to win a pot: Either (1) you have the best hand at the showdown; or (2) your opponents think you have the best hand and fold before the showdown. In the September 19, 2005 issue of Poker Player, I described the "Esther Bluff."; I have been keeping statistics to evaluate its effectiveness. Here are my findings. . .

I have shown you what hands win and lose in tight, average and loose games. Now I ask, what hands would win and lose if no one folded? Suppose we sat at a table where the dealer would simply deal to all ten players and no matter what the players held or how the betting developed all ten players would call to the river. There would be a showdown of all ten hands at the river. The best hand or hands would win. Would the distribution of winning and losing hands be effected?

Hobby and I had been enjoying Margaritas on the fantail of Lazybuns, his ocean-going abode at Marina del Rey. If for no other reasons, I'd befriend Hobby for his ability to make the M-drink. There are none better-nowhere!

Were it not for their calories, I'd make them a steady diet. I try to limit myself to two, but Ms are like peanuts, the more you have the more you want. I was still salivating when Hobby came from below decks waving a paper.

"Remember Sugi Yamamoto?"

Whenever I'm seated at a poker table, one of my main missions is to make my opponents feel comfortable with me. I believe the more they enjoy my presence, the more money I'll make.

Poker players do not always win and it is difficult sometimes to understand the fickleness of the cards when they are playing poker.

Editor's Note: This feature is an adaptation of material that may be part of Ms. Eolis' book in progress, Power Poker Dame.

With an estimated fifteen hundred poker players on board, the M.S.Westerdam departed from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida pier. A blasting horn signified the official start of the Party Poker Million V, featuring the most prestigious annual Limit Hold'em tournament on the planet. The biggest poker room in the world moved seamlessly from cyberspace to the elegantly appointed digs of the cruise ship to host the most diverse poker festivities of the season.

Gamblers, gunslingers and gold miners first opened the West in the decade before the Civil War. Frontier life was hard and harsh. There was little law and even less justice. Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth IL in 1848.

He had four brothers: James, Virgil, Warren, and Morgan. His father and two oldest brothers fought for the Union during the Civil War.

After the War, the Earp family moved to San Bernardino CA. There the boys soon learned to hate farming. As a teenager, Wyatt got a job as a stagecoach driver and later as a buffalo hunter providing meat for railroad construction workers.

When you look down at your hole cards and see those pungent eyeballs looking back, your blood races, your heart pounds, and your hands begin to sweat. It's a natural reaction to pocket aces. After all, you've got the best possible hold'em hand. Everyone else is chasing you. In this instant, many players have an urge to drag (slowplay) aces. May I suggest that you fight this urge? Around here we have a saying:

SLOWPLAY ACES, GO TO HELL

Here's why, in three easy reasons.