[AaronBrown]

Thanks for the kind words.

Although you never know what the other guy is holding (except for the ones who wear mirror sunglasses), it often helps to figure out the best play against the most likely hand. At least you know your play is right against some cards, a lot of players do things that can't be right against any cards.

There are a lot of possible poker hands, and only three possible choices, fold, call or raise (or maybe a few more with spread limits and no limits, but still a lot less than the number of hands). If one of these actions is right against the most likely hand, it's not a bad guess that it's right against the majority of hands your opponent could have weighted by probability. Anyway, there are worse ways to play poker, like making it too complicated and doing something really stupid.

I usually figure the most likely case, then try to figure something that could make it worse, and something that could make it better. That's usually enough to make a decision at the table. At home with computer is another story.

I have not made it to either place this year yet, I've been playing only private games. Too busy. You wouldn't know that from 2+2 posts, but I do those mostly when I'm taking a five minute break from working.