A hush fell over the crowd of paralyzed military heroes, war veterans, poker celebrities, and supporters of the American dream as poker pro Kenna James belted out, "Oh, say can you see ..."

The charity fund-raiser for the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), held in Washington, D.C. had now formally commenced.

You want to make the most of this home game. I'll start you off with a quiz to see how well prepared you are to turn this into a profitable opportunity. Answers below.

1. Your number one objective for this home game should be to:

a) get invited back
b) win money
c) make friends
d) earn the respect of the group

2. It is a dealer's choice game. When it is your turn to call a game you should,

a) call your best casino game- hold'em or stud
b) call 5-card draw hi-lo, the best dealer advantage game
c) call whatever the last guy called

In October of 2007, a relative amateur online poker player won two significant tournaments-the Full Tilt $750,000 Sunday tournament where first prize was $197,984 and the PokerStars Sunday Million which awarded a first prize of $240,633. But the winner of the events was no stranger to poker. His name was Chris Vaughn, and he was the managing editor of Bluff Magazine.

I previously explained Self-Effectiveness Training (S.E.T.) and how I applied it to relationships between couples, with families, and at work with co-workers. In my previous article (Ready, Set, Play), I applied some of the principles of SET to poker.

The game of poker consists of two entities-fish and fishermen. The fish could be newcomers who don't know much beyond what they've seen on TV or old timers who never wanted or never bothered to learn the tricks of the game. The fishermen are the players who have watched the fish, learned how they swim, and then baited hooks and cast nets to catch them one by one.

That is precisely the focus of James McKenna's newest edition to your poker library must-haves, Beyond Traps-The Anatomy of Poker Success.

Does 1,325-to-1 look like long odds to you? Those are the odds of which hand you will receive at the beginning of every new deal at the hold'em table. There are 1,326 possible starting two card hands. While this number is correct, it encompasses every possible hand, and distorts what is important to us as hold'em players.

Before the flop, the starting hand of Jc-Js has the same exact value as Jh-Jd. Of course, if the board ultimately contains either four clubs or four spades then the first hand's value just soared.

Poker is a game of information. The more information you glean, the better decisions you'll make while playing a hand.

One viable form of information is called tells. One of my poker heroes, Mike Caro-The Mad Genius of Poker-has made tells a sort of science. In his Book of Poker Tells, Mike defines a tell as "any mannerism that helps you determine the secrets of an opponent's hand."

3 A.M. in Las Vegas. I couldn't sleep and wandered over to MGM poker room for another late night session of $2-$5 no-limit hold'em. I found myself involved in a tough situation only fifteen minutes after I sat down.

Player A was a middle-aged guy without a wedding ring. I couldn't tell if he was a local or not. He wore khakis and a golf shirt. Based on his tan, I pegged him for a golfer. The one time he showed down, he had called a big raise in position with A-10. He flopped trips and cracked someone's jacks. He had about $650 in front of him and was sipping coffee.

It's 62 degrees here on Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks. Winter birds are chirping about poker in a vocabulary I still don't understand after five years of research. As soon as I crack their code, I'll pass along their avian advice, especially on no-limit hold'em. The sun is shining. Animals are prowling.

A relative of mine recently passed away. He was a great man. Kind and honest, he was just the type of guy you'd hope to have as a friend and poker tablemate. Since he'd been fighting Parkinson's disease for quite some time, we all knew his days were limited. Because he also knew his life was whittling down, he chose to prepare his own obituary notice.