The Winning Room
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You may have noticed that while using your poker calculator it displays your hand odds while also using terminology like “hand rank”, “group”, or “group rank” all of which in some way or another refer to author David Slansky’s Group Hand ranking for hold’em poker. Originally described in the classic book, “Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players”, Slansky rated all the starting hands and put them in groups according to their similar win rate.

By clustering hands based on win rate and strength, it’s easier to keep track of basic betting strategies associated with each individual hand. For example, in Slansky Group 3 hands you will find 99, AQ, ATs, and JTs among others. The best cluster though is Slansky’s Group One which includes AA, AKs, KK, QQ, and JJ. They are going to show very high percentage win rates on your poker calculator as well as “raise, and re-raise” recommendations.

In adopting the Slansky Group of Hands your poker calculator could in effect make you a “book player”, because many, especially the mathematical poker calculators don’t take other factors into account at the poker table. However, as a guideline, your poker calculator is going to have the exact odds, and correct mathematical indication served up for you, David Slansky style.

Poker calculators have adopted this because, well they are just software designed by programmers, and not necessarily poker enthusiasts, but Slansky is a Poker icon, educator, and author. I have had several poker calculators running at the same time for testing, and have found very similar results and percentage recommendations, because they generally use the same statistical backbone as Slansky Group of Hands.

The difference between them lie in how their other features are factored in, such as how it monitors your position, how many players in the pot, how many tight or aggressive players, stage of a tournament, and if a player’s stake is up or down significantly.

Although published years ago, by using The Slansky Group of Hands, poker software offers credibility to the ranking system, although it sure didn’t need it. Professional players have known these rankings and what to do with them for years. Seasoned opponents will also know how to use them against you, if you are an obvious book player, so mixing it up is always a good idea.

Some other books published by David Slansky include The Theory of Poker, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, and Hold’em Poker.

The people you meet at a craps table have any personality you can think of and a diverse group of characters. Many of these craps players will become your friends but others will have made it a fleeting visit to both the casino and a detoured stop at the table, so you are unlikely to ever see them again. What brings all of these different people together is one common goal. Every single player who has ever played or thought about playing craps pursue the once in a lifetime “monster roll”.

The much-dreamed of monster roll is borne out of greed. You can accumulate a lot of money from a craps table during a 20 minute roll if you know what you are doing. Most people won’t because they are just pressing and so never pick up the first chip. Others at the table are content (not happy mind you, but content) with small but steady mediocre wins. The majority, however, will be waiting on the table to run for the monster roll which will stand in a class of its own and give them something to brag about for years and years to come.

It’s often said you will only see one of those rolls in your entire lifetime although some people, usually those full of hot air, claim many more than one while others are just waiting on that “one roll” so they can call it a day and go home. If one of these rolls is experienced the player will just anticipate the next one, it is unlikely a dedicated craps player could give up the game altogether after taking the casino to the cleaners.

Craps is a lot like life in that when things are going good the optimist will expect that to continue because in life, it often does. The pessimist will rely on the “what goes up must come down” theory and full expect something bad to happen at any time following a spate of good fortune.

In craps, if you ever have the opportunity to catch “the monster roll” please understand there will be many other rolls which may not be as exciting as “the big one” but can still be very profitable.

You never know, a life changing moment may begin with the very next roll and it would be a shame for you to miss out on the thrill and more importantly, the profits!

David Walker runs online casinos UK and free bets websites. A free email course: “Seven Days to Better Betting” is available at both of these websites.