5 months IN COMA !!!!!!!!!!!! lol !!!!

Its been almost 5 months I couldnot interact with my readers. But now I am back, back from coma.......
Please dont ask..... lol!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned friends, Love you all............

Texas Hold’em Food Chain

At the top of our actual food chain is said to be the shark. The same applies to poker. Poker has few sharks and many fish. It is not surprising that the sharks remain on the top of our poker food chain. That is their place!

Day after day more sharks are born; they bring their unidentified bodies to an online poker table and start chomping. Never do they eat alive the oldest, biggest and best of the shark world though, only fish! Look at the most popular online gaming sites. They have their sponsored sharks at the tables daily. These sharks eat alive even the most talented of players – the wanna be sharks. The wanna be’s simply can’t compete in the poker food chain. They just don’t quite have the skills. I guess we could call them turtles, compared to the great whites of the online poker ocean!

We have tad poles and guppies also in our poker food chain. It doesn’t matter what these little ones do, they remain on micro tables. The medium fish have skills just a little better then theirs chomp away at their bankroll and increase in the poker food chain as they grow.

To make a chart of the poker food chain is really simple:

1. Great White Sharks: High Stakes Killers
2. Turtles – High Stakes Attempters
3. Medium Fish – Medium Stakes
4. Guppies – Low Stakes
5. Tad Poles – Micro Stakes
6. Fish Out of Water – Stay off the Internet Poker Tables until you can swim.
   

Where do you fit in to the “Poker Food Chain”? Wherever you fit you must play your stakes accordingly. You can make money in poker regardless of your food chain level – Unless you are a fish out of water! (If you are get lessons on poker strategy).

For those who want to be a turtle I have a suggestion – Play medium to high stakes instead of attempting to come face to face with a predator you cannot possibly beat. If you are losing at medium stakes, go and eat some guppies! Guppies of course can always eat some tadpoles.

Let’s look at this as a classic example. I stepped down in the online “poker food chain” not so long ago – for 1 day! I increased my bankroll by 15 times what it was! Morally it may be seen as wrong, being a medium fish playing guppies. Regardless if I attempted to eat a turtle I would have been dead and had NO bank roll at all! At times we all need to step down in the food chain as part of survival. If we were down to our last $10 on our online poker site we would hardly play medium stakes.

Again, look at your level on the “poker food chain” and don’t be too proud to be a guppy or tad pole when needed. I have seen 1 of the BEST ONLINE poker players playing in $1 SNG’s. There is no shame – be proud! This player was ranked 80th in the world of online poker and was playing $1 tournaments due to being kicked and booted and eaten alive by great white sharks. He should have remained a turtle and instead became meat and reduced to a guppy! Sometimes we need to go down to get back up. Remember the food chain when we do this. Every guppy can grow into a fish!

By :Danielle Adams-Benham

Trapping in Online Poker Holly Wood Style

There is nothing like performing a beautiful trap when you have the nuts! Sucking your opponent dry feels great, especially when it’s Holly Wood Style!

I was playing online poker at a cash table; I had joined a friend for fun. Internet Poker is a great thing when you have friends abroad, I joined at a cash table, talked away and my friend and I were having the time of our lives. I was playing very safe; I was really there for the enjoyment. Indeed online gaming can be fun with friends!

We were on a full table full of aggressive players. There was one man - as an example – whom they were calling “re-buy boy”, he continually re-bought (Although I missed taking his chips, I took his seat as he left). They were playing loose as hell and me tight, is my point. So I am sitting playing tight and was dealt Ace and 8 of spades. The flop comes down giving me my nut flush straight away. There was no prior raise for this particular hand but they were about to start. I was raised: a huge raise! I sat and thought, and thought until I had almost used all my time clock prior to calling. I knew I had the nuts but extraction was the key. The turn came and was useless to either person. Regardless, my internet poker Hollywood performance had paid off! My only remaining opponent went all in which is exactly what I wanted! Snap call this time, no more need for acts.

His response was “OMG, WOW!” “You obviously don’t know her,” says my friend. Indeed he didn’t, but he wouldn’t forget now. Online Poker Software developers have given us a time clock to make sure that the game is played at a fair and reasonable pace. I suggest you use the software developer’s online gaming tools to your advantage.

Use the clock to pull Holly Wood Acting Stunts, use it to trap, use it to its full advantage like I did. Good Luck!

Online Poker Cheats

A few days back a lot of cash went missing out of my bank account. Needless to say, I was frantic. I was told at the bank that this happened when I used my visa card to pay for a lot of shopping. The card was swiped thrice, so thrice the bill amount was credited into the store’s account. Such incidents I am told are quite common. You need to be careful and alert at all times.

You might have come across many people who are afraid of making any kind of online transactions. Security is always at risk, they say. Online poker players too are wary of online casinos. They feel that the game might be rigged, as in the casino might be using bots (which are software programs pretending to be human beings) as other players which will help the casino win all the games. They also worry about their credit card details which are given to the casino to make payments. You might be enjoying a game of poker at home with a steaming mug of hot chocolate and in the meanwhile, someone has wiped your account clean.However the chances of such a thing happening are very difficult due to the responsible gaming norms set in place by the sites

Players too, collude with each other at times and try to manipulate the game. The online casinos, however, are vigilant at all times and can easily detect such frauds.

Rounders’ connexion

Word is out that Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio is all set to star in an untitled film that centers on the world of online casinos based in Costa Rica.

This film is written by scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who gave us the cult classic Rounders.

Rounders is set against the backdrop of New York’s underground world of high-stakes poker. It is the tale of Mike (Matt Damon), a master card player who trades the poker-playing rounds for law school. Even though, the new life he’s staking out seems like a legit road to success, it’s short on the thrills and excitement of back room poker games. So, when Mike’s longtime friend Worm is released from prison, and they need to quickly earn enough cash to pay off a huge debt that Worm owes; Mike deals himself back into the world of Rounders.

A “rounder”, by the way is a person whose sole means of earning a living is by playing cards. The film was widely appreciated by poker lovers. It greatly added to the popularity of Texas hold’em and other poker games.

There are pro poker players today who credit the movie for getting them into the game. The film drew in recent successful players such as Hevad Khan, Gavin Griffin and Dutch Boyd. One of the best descriptions of the influence the movie has comes from pro player Vanessa Rousso: “There have been lots of movies that have included poker, but only Rounders really captures the energy and tension in the game. And that’s why it stands as the best poker movie ever made.”

Rather than just being flamboyant, like the Bond movies, Rounders dwelt into the nitty-gritty’s of back room poker games in style.

At a point when the stakes are being raised, Mike stops and contemplates the game. He remembers a quote from Jack King’s book Confessions of a Winning Poker Player about how poker players don’t recall big wins they have, but remember accurately their big defeats.

The final scene shows Mike in a taxicab to catch a flight to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker.

Learning to play poker: a novice’s experience

When I had just begun playing poker I was the raving maniac. A player who kept on calling and betting irrespective of what hand I was dealt. I never ever used the fold button and kept on loosing irrespective of who I was playing against. I would call this my kamikaze phase. Come to think of it the Kamikaze Pilots of World War II at least knew what they were up to. It took me the hard way to learn that just looking up a few poker rules and regulations and reading a few blogs does not qualify you to play online poker overnight. The kamikaze phase continued for some time till it came to a point that I started folding more frequently then the rest of the players in the poker room. I finally realized that one needs to vary your poker game play else your opponents begin to read your moves. The only saving grace in all this was that I was playing with play chips and not hard cash.

The next phase was a more calculating one. I happened to come across a couple of poker odds calculators. These tend to give the mathematically correct odds to know if you should be in the hand or not. Why I say mathematically correct odds simply because you have no way of knowing which cards may be there in you opponents hand. Also there is a large chance that there could be another Kamikaze maniac sitting on the same table as you. What really set this phase apart was that I began to look and calculate odds before deciding what to do next. I have still a long way to go and every day is a new day. I think I must add here is the fact that the more you play poker online, the more you gain in terms of experience and tactics which make you a better poker player as time passes. There are no short cuts in life and the same holds true for poker

Baccarat

In the original Casino Royale (both Ian Fleming’s novel as well as the 1953 film), James Bond is seen to be playing Baccarat. In fact, he is seen playing the game in subsequent novels as well, and it has been said that it is 007’s favourite game.

Baccarat is believed to have originated in Italy, and then introduced in France by the then-king, Charles VIII. It is mostly played in casinos, and as with most casino games, has several variations. There are 3 main variants of baccarat in existence today, chemin-de-fer, banque, and banco punto.

Players of the game rely on luck, and there isn’t much skill involved. For this reason, it is a popular game in casinos, each player hoping to “strike it big” that night. The highest score a player can receive is 9. Number cards are scored at face value, while tens and face cards are worth zero points. In hands where the total of the cards is higher than ten, the tens place is ignored, giving a final total of 9 or less. A zero hand is known as Baccarat, and as such this game is the only one of its kind to be named after its lowest hand.

Online Casino

I woke up a little early yesterday, with a lot of time on hand to read the daily papers with my cuppa tea. The brushing and bathing could wait. Well, what do we have? An entire page of the local paper is screaming about how the local cops have sealed the lids on gambling addas (read kiosks) in a city in Goa. The cops are now basking in the glory of the media glare, on their way to become the next Scotland Yard.

Social activists say that there is nothing unusual in the police raiding the small time matka (read betting) houses and so on, they usually do it when they don’t get a share of the booty. Small time gambling and betting is usually considered illegal by administrations and public alike. In that light, how would you describe gambling at a casino? The only differences here are the ambience and the kind of people who visit these places. Rich businessmen cruising around in their swanky cars, spending their money at a hip casino gives you a picture of an upwardly mobile, “uber- cool” guy. Matka houses are visited by men from the lower strata of society. A group of such people huddled up in a small cubicle is usually eyed with suspicion by the public. For most of us living the good life, anything that comes from the streets and its by-lanes is scum.

Offshore casinos have come under a lot of flak lately. It seems that they pollute our culture and attract a lot of other evils. You never know, you’re next trip to the casino could land you in a cell. Don’t fret; you can always play your casino games online. Poker, baccarat, blackjack, they’re all there…waiting for you….to be played in the privacy of your home. No other smartasses around you, telling you how to play your game…and the money just pouring in.

National Heads-Up Poker Championship

With Poker being ever popular, there has been a flood of events being aired by television networks in the US. The WSOP airs on ESPN, the world poker tour, a worldwide series of poker tournaments broadcast on the Travel Channel. The National Heads-Up Poker Championship on NBC is one such made for TV event .It is a $20,000 buy-in invitation-only tournament centered around no limit Texas hold 'em.

The participants include many of the world's best poker players. The 2009 edition was a three day event with 64 poker players facing off at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Out of these 64, six spots were reserved for qualifiers – four from online competitions and two from tournaments at Caesars.

There is a slight difference in the way the NHPC is conducted over other poker tournaments. In the NHPC, players are seeded randomly in the first round with players divided in four brackets – Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades. Players winning a match advance to the next round. Here winner of the spades bracket plays the one leading the clubs bracket. The same holds for the remaining two .A best of three final then decides the champion who takes home the $500,000 check. This year Huck Seed emerged victorious taking the event from Vanessa Rousso.

Strategy tips to play Omaha hi low

Play to Win: The spirit of the game is in winning it, so after the flop, if your high hand is not a sure winner and might have to split with the low, or even if you are playing for low but don’t stand a decent shot at the high hand, it’s a good idea to check/fold and get out early.

Slow play most Omaha hands: Early raises are risky unless you know you can't lose.

Avoid playing middle suited connectors. Hands like 8h 9h spell bad news in high-low split. In order to make the high end of a straight, you need to catch the cards that will also qualify low hands. To play these you also need a suited ace or an A2.

Do not overbet A2, A3 and 2 3 nut lows. You could end up getting quartered as these are often shared with another player. If there are two playing the same nut low and one going high, every bet you make contributes 1/3 to the pot that will only pay you 1/4 back. It makes sense to check around. Fast play, here will make you money if there are three or more other players with either high or losing low hands.

Beware of uniform flops, like 8 7 6, they could easily turn into straights that can overtake your high pair trips, or other good hand.

Watch out for Suited Flops that can make a completed flush. Hold the nut in that suit, or have trips or two pair that can fill up.

Check the raisers chips. Players that are close to all-in often rush the betting just to get all their chips in a sink-or-swim last hand.

Study your opponents, especially when you are not playing hands and can pay careful attention. Look for any "tells" (give away mannerisms) that disclose information about their hands etc.

Get caught bluffing once in a while, as it varies your play. You win pots that you don't deserve when your bluff works. You lose a few chips when it doesn't work but it will get you calls from weaker hands down the line when you are really strong and need the action.

Pay very close attention to your cards. Omaha High Low hands can get confusing. You think you have a nut hand winner when you don't, or you have the best possible hand and not realize it. Avoid these costly mistakes.

Poker strategy

If you’ve just gotten into a game of poker and you’re in a mood to rake in big bucks, keep in mind you need to have a game plan. Simply put, you need to plan your strategy in such a way that you gain maximum leverage over the other players throughout the session.

Your play at the start of the game will determine the course of your game. You could either be aggressive and active and dominate the game or play it cool and avoid confrontation. However, being passive does not mean that you allow other players to dominate your play. Remember, you’re playing to win.

When you’ve just settled in at the poker table and play has just started, you’ll have around 9 to 10 players with you. These guys are usually very aggressive at the beginning of an online poker game. What they’re hoping to do is build up a big lead over the other players so they can play it cool in the middle of the game and save their energy to bounce back at the end of the game.

You can, in fact, use their strategy to your advantage. Use the continuation bet feature and turn the tables around. You could win yourself a few rewards towards the pot. A continuation bet is an ancient online poker strategy. This bet is made after a flop in online poker tournaments. The player will raise a hand during the game after which he has already gained control of the game.

Taking control of the hand together with a possible position will make your opponents check to you.

As the game continues on, the other players will have no idea whether you hold a monster card or not. At the end of the supposed last card hand and you lay out your bet, your opponents will rack their heads to decide, especially if the continuation bet is large enough.

Your opponents will push head on towards the end of the game, since it is their strategy to be aggressive.

If you are faced with the online poker strategy using continuation bet, an aggressive player must weigh his chances, but usually should not stop being aggressive and must be ready to risk all that he has. You need to see through the other player’s bluff and his continuation bet and dare him in the game. This way, you’ll earn rewards towards the top table and will in the end win the pot.

If you’re using the passive style of play, you’ll have to avoid confrontation. Wait it out and be patient till some of the players are knocked out of the game. You wait for one wrong move and then take them out. The advantage here is, you get to observe your opponents’ play and the pattern of their strategy. You then come up with ways to counter their strategies and win yourself rewards.

Remember that your strategy within the early stages will determine your play in succeeding rounds. You may want to win the game or just earn rewards, either case keeping up till the end of the game is essential.

The Art of winning at a Poker Game

When does one win at poker? It does seem to be a very nice question to ask, but a very difficult one to crack. One way of explaining a win would be when you play poker, the way you would if you could see your opponent’s poker cards. Conversely you would also gain if your opponent plays his cards differently from the way he would have played them if he could see your cards.

This simply means that if you are successful in inducing your opponents to play the poker game differently than they would if they could see your cards than most of the time you would end up winning. Bluffing and slow play at a poker table are classic examples of this. Bluffing helps in masking your poker hand from that of the opponent and induces them to fold superior hands. However if a poker player observes that you never bluff then you have had it. They won’t call their bets unless they have very good hands.

Slow playing is just the converse of bluffing where you bet low even if you have a great hand. However if your opponents observe that you never slow play then they will pounce on any sign of weakness.

Poker Mathematics

The very end objective of poker – that of wining the Pot , links Poker to mathematical probability and permutation combination rules. Betting and raising by players depend on their perception of the probability that his / her hand has a stronger ranking than that of the other players in the game as well as the various combinations possible with open cards on the table. The deck of 52 cards used in poker helps in restricting the number of permutation and combinations.

The poker variant being played also has a strong correlation with the mathematics of the game. For example in Texas Hold’em after the flop an individual player has 2 hole cards open along with the 3 community cards open on the desk .This means 5/7 or ~72% of the hand is defined in the first round itself .While in Omaha post the flop 7/9 or 78% of the players hand is defined .

But does this mean that every Poker player needs to be a mathematical nerd. I sincerely don’t think so. A bit of luck and common sense may well suffice.

A Brief History of Poker

As has been the case with many games, the origins of poker are unclear. Poker may have had its origins from the 18th century games of brag (England), pochen (“to bluff” in German), and poque (French for “pocket”) all of which had bluffing, betting and poker hand ranking as part of their poker game play.

Poker reached American shores in the 1700s, where it spread and acquired its modern name. Poker was a popular game on Mississippi River steamboats and in the saloons of the Western frontier during the gold rush. The 18-1900s saw newer variants of poker being adopted, the 52-card deck becoming standard and official rules being drawn up.

Modern poker tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began in 1970. Starting with just a handful of players, the tournament grew into one of the largest poker events in the world. Notable champions from these early WSOP tournaments include Johnny Moss, Amarillo Slim, Bobby Baldwin, Doyle Brunson, and Puggy Pearson.

A spot in the WSOP today costs each entrant $10,000. However many players can avoid the entry fee by winning smaller satellite tournaments to get in. The 2003 and 2004 WSOP champions, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer, respectively, won their seats to the main event by winning online satellites. When Late Night Poker first appeared on Channel 4 in 1999, it revolutionized people's perception of poker. Poker in the 21st century has also moved into the E-domain as well with online game rooms filled with whales and newbie’s alike. Great media and internet coverage has invariably led to poker becoming a spectator sport with a huge following worldwide.

Online poker

Online poker is the game of poker played virtually over the internet. Online poker rooms have contributed greatly to the increasing popularity of the game all over the world. Traditional brick and mortar casinos generally hesitate to promote poker as they feel that other games of chance such as slot machines are far more profitable.

Even though the rake of a traditional casino is quite high the cost of running the poker room is even higher. Online casinos, on the contrary attract lower overhead costs. Players are allowed to play for low stakes and freeroll tournaments offered on most of the poker sites are a major attraction to beginners as it allows them to play and win at the game without paying any entry fee.

This, however, does not mean that online poker rooms run a loss. The rake is collected from most real money ring game pots, calculated as a percentage of the pot based on a sliding scale and capped at some maximum fee. Every online poker room has its own rake structure.

Multi-table and imprompt sit-and-go tournaments are charged an entry fee around five to ten percent of the tournament entry fee is added to the cost of the tournament.

Online poker sites sometimes offer games like blackjack or side bets on poker hands where players play against “the house” for real money, where the odds are usually in favor of the house.

Online poker sites invest the money that players deposit. This is a good source of revenue as the sites do not have to pay interest on players’ bankrolls.

Playing poker with players who write poker articles

Most poker players would think that it is a bad idea to play with a poker player who has more education than you do in the game of poker, I'm the direct opposite. I like and enjoy sitting and watching these players put their skills to work. You can learn many different tips and secrets that it would take you years to learn on your own, cut time off on your learning stages of poker game.

It is a great resource and a great way to improve your poker game in short period of time. Look at them as virtual mentors and they can teach you what to do and when. Learn from those who have been there and done that, why recreate the wheel?

If you don't have the money to sit with these particular players, you can sit and watch their poker table instead. Learn for free, there is no other better way to improve your game of poker.

Brushing up on your poker skills!

Experience is the key to success for it comes from doing and involves taking risks.  This is especially true in poker for you are playing with your own money; brushing up on your skills is of immediate importance.

Understanding the poker odds on each hand dealt, knowing how your opponent’s moves require hands - on involvement.  Listening to your own instincts and being able to exercise its own vision and creativity is a major joy of playing poker.  Don’t disagree as yet, because I would like to tell you one thing for the record: Instincts executed intelligently in a poker hand are the products of poker analysis, reviewing previous hands you played could make the difference of winning or losing in the long run.

These are just some of the skills one has to master when he is into poker and he can only transcend them through hands- on experiences. If you really wish to become a master of an art like “The Art of Playing Poker”, technical knowledge gained through reading poker books, watching poker tournaments & TV poker shows aren’t enough. Man, you have to put your time on the poker table, effort, and money on it. My point is kept on brushing up your poker plays for this is the blueprints for success.

Observing your opponent!

Watching the opponents, making quick adjustments and knowing when to give up poker hands and games. Opponents are often predictable. When you first sit down in a poker game most poker players do not scan the table and make notes.

The most important thing that you need to know about your opponents is whether they are capable of bluffing or not and taking down an unexpected pot. Make a mental note of each poker player you have played with previously in the past. Due to the success of poker on television a larger number of players seem be bluffing. This is due to seeing the players on television bluff. They do not realize that the most dramatic hands are for the viewing public and what is more dramatic then the bluff? 

When an opponent who you do not think can bluff check raises you. What do you think he has in his hand? It is close to the nuts. You just have to figure out how close compared to your hand. Second pair may be enough as they might of checked raised with a flush draw trying to get you to lay down your hand. Play the hand over in your head before releasing your hand.

Poker is an investment game!

As you know online poker is a simple investment game. Yes you’re making a series of small investments, each with a profitable and or negative investment side. These are called equity. When you invest with a profitable equity you make money in the long run and when you invest with negative equity you lose money in the long run.

Poker players can start for free and play free roll poker tournaments right up to as much money as you would like to invest. My suggestion though is to start small. Invest $100 or Less and get your feet wet on the poker tables. If you have 100 dollars my suggestion is you play $.50 and 1 and learn. 

Keep working at the investment game (poker) till you become proficient. Then as you become good make bigger and bigger investments at the poker tables. Learn as you go along and try to improve your poker game. So register today for free and remember to have fun but invest wisely.

Finding the right poker game !

If you just started playing poker and you just found out the best style that’s fits you as a winning player on a consistent basis, should you start to wonder, is that the correct time to move up limits? Are you ready to step up and get out of the comfort zone you set for yourself. That is a question that crosses all winning poker players.

All poker players need to remember, most times when you move up, you’ll be playing against better players. So I believe you should move up when loses at one level to the next level mean the same mentally and the players you are up against are worse than you.

That means you’ll still enjoy the poker game the same way and how much you lose doesn’t start changing your way of playing (mindset). Playing in the correct mindset makes it joyful as well as profitable. Once finding the correct mindset, you can proceed to find the correct game for you.

Poker focus.

Players tend to put little focus on the non-winning aspects of the poker game. They focus on winning pots. They think about ways to get more money in their pockets by winning it from their opponents.

Obviously this is important, but internet poker income is made during an exchange of money. The different players shove money into pots. They take money out of pots. Money moves back and forth around the poker table, over and over. A single chip may be in the possession of a dozen different people within the same hour. Poker income is not made in a nice, regular, easy to see fashion. Money is made in literally dozens of small, innocuous, cumulative ways.

Money not lost spends the same as money won. But also, the nature of poker is that you must lose in order to win. You aren’t going to win 100% of your pots. Except when playing head-up, you will always lose most of the hands you are dealt in. You will usually lose most of the pots you play. The door to poker income swings both ways -- money has to go out for money to come in.

What is poker tells?

A “poker tell” is any clue, habit, behavior or physical reaction, that gives other players more information about your poker hand. The following are tips and you can apply against novice or advanced players. Remember, in poker game there are many contradictions and exceptions to the rule. Also, experienced pros will give out false tells to fool players.

Watch the Eyes
This is why many pros wear sunglasses or visors/caps when playing poker; they know that the eyes rarely lie.

Facial Expression
Again, many pros try to disguise their entire face by wearing a cap and looking downward. This is to avoid the classic stare-down that poker pros are famous for. They may try to study your face for nervousness (detecting a weak hand), or even look for repetitive characteristics like a body "tic". You may have obvious unhappiness in your face when your hand is weak, and conversely, you may show a contrasting show of confidence when your hand is strong.

Weak is Strong/Strong is Weak
In its most simplistic form, this usually applies to novice players but frequently applies to pros as well. Basically, poker players like to be actors, and when they have a monster hand they tend to look disinterested. Repetitive Betting Patterns.

Betting habits
Usually the most revealing poker tells are based on the way a player habitually bets during particular situations. For example, maybe the player always checks when he has made the nuts, or a player may regularly fold after being re-raised.

Online poker has arrived!

Due to the popularity of no limit hold'em on televised poker players who want to not only expand their ability to play; they also want to punish their opponents. Poker books are not the best selection on going to learn this type of poker game. Online poker you must read poker forums and study from players that are playing and giving instruction.

These type poker players play multi games and many play up to ten games at once on a few different poker sites. They can not only learn from each decision they learn at a higher pace then poker players that have played fifteen years in less then two years. They quickly build a poker strategy that works in order for them to make money. Is this not why we enter the game in the first place to win money!

6-max no limit hold'em is exciting for the gamblers and the regular professional players alike due to the high variance in the game of this style of poker. But yes the basic strategy still holds true for most of the game. You will have to tweak this strategy to for you to gain most advantage.

Over all number one rule of Hold'em poker is that it's a position game. The player who is in late position has many more options than the poker player in early position. When the poker opponent checks in early position you have the choice of betting or checking. But the opponent has made the decision first and if he has not bet he is probably weak. So a bet with a marginal poker hand may pick up the pot without a fight. If he has a hand and bets, you may wish to fold with the same marginal hand.

You are most often in control of the hand and you will want to keep it that way. When he/she bets you can raise him if you have a big hand and gain extra bets. He can only gain a single bet is his downfall in this situation. But one of the most important parts is taking a free card that is the foundation of the game. He may react by checking and you have nothing you could take a free card or a cheap card. Saving and gaining extra bets will definately build your bankroll at a faster pace. Which means a higher rate of return hourly.

How to Be Patient Playing Texas Holdem Poker

Texas Holdem poker is a mental game. You can’t control the cards you get but you can control how you play them, how other people think you’re playing them, and so on. Here are some ways to maintain your patience in poker and increase your chances of winning.

Only play the best starting poker hands: If you play too many hands, generally when you’re not being patient, you will end up losing more. Pick the best starting hands and you’ll waste less poker chips and keep yourself out of trouble. Some people play tight and only play 1 of every 5 hands. Other people say playing tight is more like 1 of every 10 hands. Either way, it changes your mindset to what good hands really are and keeps your chips in your stack.

Let other people expose themselves first: Don’t let other players learn your style before you learn how they play. Start a game slowly and be patient playing online. See how they react to common moves and remember that for later.

Don’t play the hand right after a bad beat: Better yet, take a couple of hands off to give yourself a time to cool down. Texas Holdem poker has a lot of volatile swings, don’t let yourself get trapped in your emotions. If you lose badly you want to make it up right away, but that never works out.

Know when to fold your cards: Patience in poker also means getting rid of losing hands before it costs you too much. You can always cut your losses, even it means hurting your pride. But hurt pride is better than a diminished chip stack. Patience in poker means you have to lose sometimes and know when to cut your losses. Sticking out a bad hand hoping for a river card is not patient, and it will cost you big time!

There are lots of ways to maintain patience when playing Texas Holdem poker. The most important thing to remember is that patience in poker is vital to success! Impatient players will end up losing their chips. You don’t want to be the guy who’s on tilt and goes all in with nothing, only to see his chips disappear. Play smart and be patient, and you’ll start winning much more.

Good Poker Players Enjoy Luck that Opponents Give

We all appreciate luck in poker, and wish we could bottle it and save it for future days, but in many ways luck is the enemy of a good poker player. First let’s look at luck from the perspective of the bad player. At least half the time when a bad player wins a pot, he will have gotten lucky to do it. The bad player comes from behind, sucks out when not getting pot odds, makes miracle perfect-perfect catches, spears a kicker on the river poker card, fills up bottom two pair against an opponent with top two pair. The bad player has a million ways to get lucky.

On the other hand, good poker players are playing with the best of it. Sure, they still get “lucky” sometimes, like making a flush draw on the river card, but they will have been getting pot odds on that draw and will have built the pot correctly too. Good players habitually do the mathematically correct action in any given situation. It’s not “lucky” for AA to beat J9. The good player actually tries to avoid being lucky, except to the extent that it would be lucky if the flop came AJ9.

One way that I often get accused of being “lucky” is when an opponent says: “You are so lucky I threw away my poker hand.” Well, that’s why I raised, to get you out. My luck here was again the residue of design. This is the sort of luck that good players manufacture all the time. But it’s not at all the same kind of luck that happens to the bad player. The bad player makes his own luck happen to him; the good player often makes other players give him good luck.

The History of Roulette

Roulette is believed to have originated from French culture as the name is a French word which actually means "small wheel". There have been stories, however, that the game actually began in China, and was brought to Europe by communications between the Chinese and Dominican monks. Further stories have shown that the game may have also originated in Europe, as ancient Romans used to play games by spinning chariot wheels on their sides.

The game of roulette as we know it dates back as far as the 17th century to a famous French scientist named Blaise Pascal. It is believed that the game is a product of Pascal's attempts to build a perpetual motion machine, but some say that this is actually just a story.

The year 1720 saw the first spinning ball and rotating horizontal wheel combination to be used as methods of gaming. This game was called "roly-poly". The gaming acts of 1739 banned this game in England. Beau Nash, the Master of Ceremonies at Bath England, ignored these laws, and began a new game called "Even-Odd" which was similar to roulette. This game too was banned in 1745.

The game carried on developing over the next fifty years, into the one that we all know today. Paris casinos featured the modern roulette wheel around 1796, which had similar elements to today's roulette wheels. Europeans visiting New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1800's introduced roulette to the United States. People began to stop playing roulette as gaming establishment proprietors became greedy. As proprietors become greedier, more and more gamblers became unhappy with the 5.26% house edge, and were even more outraged when some roulette operators made a 31-number wheel which had a staggering 12.9% house edge.

The single "0" roulette game was invented in 1842 by two French brothers named Francois and Louis Blanc. From then on the history of roulette began to drastically change. The house edge was reduced from 5.26% to 2.70%, and the game became a remarkable success. Gambling was illegal in France at the time, so it was piloted in Hamburg (Bavaria), Germany and was both profitable and well-liked.

Roulette became popular up until World War II when Americans began to lose less to the game of craps and they found interest in the fact that blackjack was a beatable game. At that point, roulette became less popular. Despite that, many people still play roulette, and it is the oldest existing game in casinos today.

History of Poker

There seem to be differences of opinion on the origin of poker. Moreover, there seems to be no clear or direct early ancestor of the game. It is more likely that poker derived its present day form from elements of many different games. The consensus is that because of it's basic principal, its birth is a very old one.

Jonathan H. Green makes one of the earliest written references to poker in 1834. In his writing, Green mentions rules to what he called the "cheating game," which was then being played on Mississippi riverboats. He soon realized that his was the first such reference to the game, and since it was not mentioned in the current American Hoyle, he chose to call the game poker.

The game he described was played with 20 cards, using only the aces, kings, queens, jacks and tens. Two to four people could play, and each was dealt five cards. By the time Green wrote about it, poker had become the number one cheating game on the Mississippi boats, receiving even more action than Three-Card Monte. Most people taken by Three-Card Monte thought the 20-card poker seemed more a legitimate game, and they came back time and time again. It would certainly appear, then, that poker was developed by the cardsharps.

The origin of the word poker is also well debated. Most of the dictionaries and game historians say that it comes from an eighteenth-century French game, poque. However, there are other references to pochspiel, which is a German game. In pochspiel, there is an element of bluffing, where players would indicate whether they wanted to pass or open by rapping on the table and saying, "Ich Poche!" Some say it may even have derived come the Hindu word, pukka.

Yet another possible explanation for the word poker, is that it came from a version of an underworld slang word, "poke," a term used by pickpockets. Cardsharps who used the 20-card cheating game to relieve a sucker from his poke may have used that word among themselves, adding an r to make it "poker." The thought was that if the sharps used the word "poker" in front of their victims, those wise to the underworld slang would not surmise the change.

The game of poker has evolved through the years, through many backroom games to the present day casinos around the world. Its history is rich with famous places and characters. For example, during the Wild West period of United States history, a saloon with a poker table could be found in just about every town from coast to coast.

Today, poker is carefully regulated by gambling laws, and saloons have given way to casinos and card rooms, but Poker is played more than any other card game in the world. It has grown into a sporting event, with competitions and tournaments all around the world. Tournaments take place almost every week of the year somewhere in the world.

If you compare the prizes of major sporting events around the world, you will find that the monetary outcome of any given event in poker would (pardon the pun) stack up. Poker today is one of the fastest growing, but hardly recognized sporting events. The pinnacle of the poker world, The World Series of Poker, attracts players from all over the world every year to compete for money and titles as the world's top poker players.

Poker will always be around and will continue to grow and flourish like so many other past times. There will always be a game to play, money to be won, and crowns to be worn.

Quick Tips to Improve Your Poker Game

Many of us can’t get enough of poker. It is an exciting game that for once doesn’t rely only on luck – but also a bit of strategy. Unfortunately not all of us are great at it and we require a few good tips that can help us to improve our game.

We have provided several poker tips that will help to improve anyone’s poker game. While these tips are geared to amateurs they can also help to give a few players a refresher course if they have been away from the game for some time.

Don’t Be Afraid To Fold

Many amateurs believe that they have to play every hand. Part of playing poker and winning at poker is to know when to fold. Some people may try to talk you out of this during the game – but that is just their tactic. Ignore them and make sure that you play only what you know you can win with. Or play what you know you can bluff with. Just because you are playing most of the hands doesn’t mean you are winning.

Bluff Like You Know What You Are Doing

Bluffing is an important part of poker and should only be used if you know what you are doing. You can win big if you bluff right – but to bluff just for the fun of it can cause you to lose big also.

Don’t Feel Pressured To Stay In A Hand

One of the biggest mistakes that amateurs make is to think that once they have put a lot of money in the pot they are forced to play out the hand. Throwing away your money just because you ‘feel’ that you have to is not going to win you any money. You will find that you will lose it very quickly. The minute you think you have a losing poker hand you need to fold.

Pay Attention To The Cards

It is very important to pay attention and to know exactly what you have in your hand and how you can use it to your advantage. Now you need to make sure that you pay attention to the cards that are being laid out on the table. You need to see what would work well with the cards in your hand.

Pay Attention To The Players

Observing your opponents is very important. It is a chance for you to try to understand their body language and know when they are bluffing and when they have a winning hand. It is important to study them even when you are not playing the hand so don’t be distracted by anything. When you figure them out you can steal the pot from them.

Stay At Your Skill Level

Just because you won a big pot in the $2/4 does not mean you should switch you to the $5/10. The money is higher because the skill level is harder. You may find that you are not yet ready to upgrade. Before you move up try to be the best at your poker table.

Omaha Poker: A Form of Texas Holdem

Omaha poker is a community card poker game similar to Texas holdem, where each player is dealt four cards and must make his best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards. The exact origination of the game is unknown, but casino executive Robert Turner first brought Omaha into a casino setting when he introduced the game to Bill Boyd who offered it as a game at the Las Vegas Golden Nugget Casino.

Omaha is a nine-card hi-lo poker game that uses a dealer button, blinds and community cards.

Omaha poker is a form of Texas Holdem, except the players are dealt 4 hole cards (face down) as their initial starting hand prior to the flop and five board cards as community cards. The community cards are dealt face up in the center of the table in the same manner as in Texas Holdem with betting after each round.

Players play in turn clockwise. Two players to the left of the dealer button post blinds. There are 3 other betting rounds; the flop, the turn, and the river. The five community cards and their rankings are used by all active players.

After the final betting round, the players remaining in the hand will then show all their cards. To qualify for a winning low hand, a player must have five cards of 8 or lower with no pair using two from their hand and three from the board (community cards). Straights or flushes may be used for the low hand if all the cards are 8 or below.

How to Bluff in Texas Holdem

To those that have really mastered it, bluffing in poker is an art-form. Bluffing is also a key strategy that must be learned in order to become a big time player. It is a craft that takes a lot of studying, patience, and intuition to be great at.

We will mainly be focusing on the Texas Holdem style of play. First of all, if you are a bad liar, it's time to get better at it. Having a nice clay chip set and fancy table won't help you win the game. There is a reason many players wear sunglasses and don't show expression on their face. They are trying to be difficult to "read," or in other words, they want it to be difficult for their opponents to figure out what kind of poker cards they are holding. You don't want to show a lot, or any, emotion in this game. The other players will often learn how you operate very quickly if you make it obvious.

There are certain times and situations that must be learned and followed as to when bluffing is the right call to make. Learning these strategies will not only help you in your bluffing, but also help you to figure out when someone else is!

First and foremost, you want to be close to, and preferably on, the button when you bluff. This way, everyone else has called, checked and bet before it's you're turn to act. If everyone is checking, then you have the opportunity to throw in a poker chip or two and see how many opponents you can get to fold.

You also have to take into consideration, if you opponent keeps betting, what they could possible hold in their hand. Even if you are on the button and everyone else is checking, you aren't going to necessarily win the hand. You don't want to push all your poker chips in just to lose the pot in the end. You need to learn when it is time to stop throwing in more chips, and when you have been defeated for that hand.

As you continue to practice and improve your strategies, you will last longer and longer in the game until you're wrangling up the chip sets at each game you go to. Be sure to be as inconspicuous as possible, and never reveal to your friends how you do it! You don't want them to use your own strategies against you…

Keys to Sharpen Your Poker Skills

Poker is the perfect combination of both skill and luck. However, you can play for years and find that you still have a lot to learn...

Know the ranking and probabilities of possible poker hands. The best hand is a straight flush, comprised of five consecutive cards of the same suit.

Make sure you know the basic rules and terms. After the cards are dealt, the poker player to the left of the dealer has the option to fold, check or bet. To fold is to retire your hand because you do not think you are capable of winning. Folding results in the loss of any money you have so far put into the pot but prevents you from losing more. To check is to stay in the game but to decline to bet. Betting means that you put additional money in the pot, and anyone wishing to stay in the game must do the same.

Prepare for the draw by deciding which cards you want to keep. Experienced players try to avoid drawing more than two cards, because doing so signals that you have a weak hand and limits your ability to bluff.

Understand that the game changes as the stakes increase. For example, in a nickel-ante game, bluffing is not likely because no one is likely to be scared away at such low stakes. As bets increase, bluffing becomes a more effective technique.

Poker is primarily a game of psychology, not chance. You are playing against other people, not against the cards. Study your opponents for "tells”, revealing traits that convey information about their hands. Does a player whistle when bluffing? Tap their feet when agitated? Look for these signals and remember them, while being conscious of any tells that you may be sending.

Keep your game competitive by avoiding patterns. Patterns in your play are signals that your opponents will pick up. If, for example, you follow the same betting pattern every time you bluff, opponents will figure this out. Poker is infinitely variable and every hand is unique.

Aggression in Pot-Limit Omaha

Pot-limit Omaha is the second most common form of poker in the world today. One thing that all the top Pot-Limit Omaha players have in common is aggression. When it’s checked to them, they need a reason to check rather than a reason to bet. Why? Put simply, by betting poker players are more likely to win bigger pots and more of them. They might get caught bluffing from time to time, but they’ll usually have outs.

Betting or raising gives you two ways to win – by having the better poker hand or making your opponent fold. Of course, if you’re too aggressive you’ll find opponents snapping off your bluffs more often, so the poker strategy requires balance and refinement. Getting the right balance is tough but the rewards are huge.

So how do you know when to bet and when to check? It is easy. With big draws, you want to take the pot straight away. If you get called, you will win a bigger pot if you hit. When you’ve got a good made hand you should bet to charge your opponents to outdraw you. When your opponent has shown a tendency to fold too easily you should bet almost always, regardless of your hand, until he catches on. Against a calling station that can’t fold an overpair, you bet everything that beats it and pretty much nothing else. If your opponent likes to chase draws, you should sometimes bet with just top pair or an overpair. You should tend to bet more often in position than out, with the caveat that aggressive opponents will sometimes raise you off your draw, so balance your bets with checks when you can’t stand a raise. It’s a pretty simple strategy that will reap rewards. Add in some hand reading, game selection, tilt control and a bankroll, and you’re well on your way to being a massive winner.