POKER

Text messaging and internet chat boxes seem to have spawned sucha vast escalation of acronyms and unpronounceable codes that thepoker world is now awash with them. In fact, there are so many thatsome poker websites publish glossaries of terms to enable theuninitiated to find their way round a written account of a handexample.

Under the gun, poker speak for first to act, has become UTG, andHJ is often used to indicate the player two seats to the left of thebutton, which in poker parlance is known as the hijack position.Tracking software, which enables players to analyse opponents'playing characteristics, uses such gems as VPIP - voluntarily putmoney in pot. This is quite a useful statistic - and translated intoa percentage can give an indication of whether a player is "tight"or "loose".

And of course styles of play also get their own acronyms. A pokerseminar in London this weekend is advertising workshops withsessions described as LAG, TAG and SB.

These describe three different approaches to accumulating chipsin tournaments, the first translating as "loose aggressive", thesecond as "tight aggressive" and SB as "small ball". The latter wasa term coined by New Zealand professional Lee Nelson in his ratherexcellent book Kill Phil a few years ago. In simple terms, it meansa strategy for controlling pots to keep them small, thereforelessening the risk of going broke.

This method of play will be expounded by Neil Channing, founderof the Black Belt Poker Academy, which is staging the series ofworkshops. He clearly knows his stuff, having racked up tournamentwinnings of 1.8m over the last decade, 680,000 of which came fromtaking the Irish Open title in 2008.

Another of the speakers, American Alex Rousso, has won a similaramount but with a different strategy. She will be giving the insidetrack on the tight-aggressive approach. Those who adopt this styleplay fewer hands, are more selective on what to play and when, butdisplay significantly higher aggression when they do get involved.

Advocate of the "loose-aggressive" style is Jamie Burland, whosetournament earnings of 93,000 pale into insignificance against hisco-speakers. But the high-risk style he will be expounding isprobably the most commonly adopted by the new generation of youngplayers who currently dominate the poker scene.

At the heart of the LAG philosophy is that exponents can playalmost any two cards pre-flop on the basis that they can outplaytheir opponents on subsequent betting rounds.

While a player taking this approach may appear to be out ofcontrol, the truth is that they are not. To describe someone as aLAG is therefore not necessarily an insult. To call someone an "LAP"is, however. It stands for "loose-passive", which isn't actually anacronym but has nevertheless crept into poker's esotericterminology.

Details of the workshop, tickets 150, can be found onblackbeltpoker.com.