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.

Limit, No-Limit and Pot-Limit Holdem

Most online casinos offer holdem in at least two versions: limit and no limit. In limit, the exact size of every bet or raise you make is determined in advance. In the later betting rounds, it’s always twice as much as it is on the early betting rounds. In no-limit, you can bet in an almost unlimited range, starting with a minimum bet that’s equal to the size of the big blind, which is a required bet that the player two seats to the left of the dealer position makes, to as many poker chips as you have on the table.

Another method of betting is called pot limit. This is kind of an intermediate battleground bridging limit and no limit games. In pot-limit games, you can’t always bet all the chips you have in front of you; you’re limited by the size of the pot. But the pot can grow quickly as bets, raises, and calls occur, and huge money can change hands on a single showdown.

The maximum number of opponents who sit in a holdem game is usually limited to ten, but more commonly only nine chairs are put at a poker table.

Heads Up Challenges

If you like to played heads-up, Internet poker room are beginning to provide previously unavailable opportunities. Have you ever wondered why there are so few heads-up matches in real-world casinos? Surely, heads-up can’t be that unpopular, because just the thought of a high-intensity one-on-one game can make pulses race. And isn’t it the final heads-up hands in a poker tournament that are the most exciting to watch on television? Let me tell you, having enjoyed a lot of experience in this situation, those final heads-up hands are not just the most exciting to watch---they’re also the most exciting to play!

So why aren’t heads-up games available in poker rooms and casinos? It’s because those games are not economical for them. Each game takes up valuable real estate---a full table. Worse, each game require a dealer---who is hired to provide service to up to 10 players at a table---just to service two customers.

But these all change online. It costs nothing to set up a new table for two players, because the tables are purely imaginary, just tiny sots forming the image on your computer monitor. And online casinos don’t worry about you using up their tables, because they can provide as many as they want at no cost. No tables to purchase. No poker room floor space limitations. But, bigger than that is the fact that online poker doesn’t worry about paying dealers. The cards are all shuffled and distributed by the software. There’s no cost involved in dealing more cards or adding more games…