Jul 26 2011

Online Poker Strategy

Doyle Brunson favours raising all-in against someone if he has a good draw, even though he knows he will be behind when he gets called. The grounds for such behaviour is to put pressure to your opponent so he would fold, this leaves you the winner of an average pot. If you get called, you still have outs!

This is a quite tricky  move, but it will work against experiencedpoker players as they have the ability and the nerve to throw away decent hands  . Attempting this against weaker players might be bad because they will call you too oftenly so you can’t have profitability with this move. I saw one poker player at Noxwin online poker room who called all-in bets on the flop with AK without anything on the flop matching his cards  . He caught an ace on the turn in one hand and in other hands he won without improving! Only because the opposition tried to force him out of the pot with a draw or something similar.

For example, bluffing in order to „advertise“ yourself has no point against the weaker players because they “just don’t get it“! If you haven’t played a hand for a longer period and you push all-in pre-flop with AA and they have like JJ then they will never fold because they never notice that you haven’t played a hand for an hour or so . There is no point to throw money around trying to build a loose image with weak players at the table, it works against good players.

Just wait for the bigger hands and put your money in if you are sure that you’re the favourite . Weak players will most likely make a mistake and call your all-in when they are far behind.

Lets say you have joined a poker room with Rakeback, like Noxwin Rakeback, and you are playing at $3/$6 no limit holdem. Weak player raises to $20 pre-flop , you have pocket kings and re-raise to $60. Everyone folds besides the weak player . You presume you  have the weaker player beat as they would most definitely move all-in pre-flop with KK or AA. Here you already have earned decently with Rakeback.

Flop comes 2-6-6 and he checks. It would be smart  move all-in right there or at least make a very big bet. If they are holding  AK they will call a average bet on the flop even if they should not. Go all-in and make sure they get the point  . Even weak players are smart enough to fold AK if the flop is 2-6-6 and they have to put in everything they have at the table  . If they call then you will be a big favourite (you survive the turn and river 76% of hands). Do not ever bet small with your overpair – even with pocket aces. It’s best to move all-in and if they are so keen on calling you, they will anyway. Whether you bet $110 or $200 on the flop.

Make sure you get Rakeback when you join with an online poker room as it will help you ease the pain of losing to weaker players who „suck out“ on the turn or the river. That way you can easily say: „Hey, at least i’m getting Rakeback and my loss isn’t that big“.

Jul 21 2011

Omaha Online Poker

When playing Omaha or Holdem or any other poker version then it is crucial to sign up for rakeback when joining with an online poker room as it maximizes players profits. If you play a lot and rake close to $3,000 per month then getting 30% of your rake back is very good.

You need to be very aggressive in Omaha if you have the best poker hand  . You will most likely have to call someones bet if you are on a draw to see another card  . Tactical moves like bluffing or slowplay are quite useless in the smaller limits.

Bluffing only works when you are up against couple opponents and the pot is small which doesn’t happen very often in Omaha. Every player has six „poker hands“ preflop so they will most likely hit something .

In Holdem it is easy to bluff if you get to see the flop while being on the blind  and when the flop consists of three small cards which make a pair, like 2-2-9. Since there are no draws and only five cards out there which have a piece of this flop and mostly people do not play them, it is very likely that anyone has anything. Being on the blind is a very good opportunity to bluff with a small pot and a similar baord  . The blinds can have anything, why not even 9-2?

In a tight Omaha game bluffs also work. Maybe the best chance to do that is if the board has a flush like  Jc-6c-Kc and you have Ac. It is very likely that someone has the flush but since you have the ace it is possible to make others lay down their flush .

Mathematically it is the same situation with 9c-2c-Tc board and the opponent has Kc. Poker is a very psychological game. Some players need to see opponents cards when they have Kc, that could make them want to „check out“ their opponents cards. It is much easier to hold back your curiosity with a Jc.

If you have the nut flush in Holdem then slowplaying might be good if the board looks safe  . The board is always dangerous in Omaha  ! On the river there are 12 cards which could bring a pair to the board and give someone a full house. In Holdem one player gets a pair every second hand but in Omaha three or four players have at least one pair in their pocket cards.

This goes for small stakes Omaha only as mentioned before  . As the limit grows, Omaha changes its personality . Games get tighter, raises become more usual and tactical draws are more important. Mathematical poker turns into psychological and you need to focus on reading your opponent.

When you are starting with Omaha you should first look for rakeback. Look for Noxwin Rakeback or 888 Poker Rakeback as they are the best places where to start with Omaha. Lots of beginner players which makes it easier for you after you have read a bit of Omaha poker strategy!

Jun 14 2011

Starting with Poker

Beginners acquire a lot from  picking  the right poker-tips" title="Poker Tips, Techniques, and Strategy">poker room.  In order to gain  from poker bonuses the player has to register at  many  poker rooms. Inexperienced opponents , easy bonuses, amountof players and low limits are the essentials  for  novice poker players .

Firstly, a playershould find the online poker rooms  who  offer good bonuses and other  benefits  because they  can carry value if there is easy money on the table  . Secondly, a  novice poker player  has to look for  easy opposition  , because this benefits the player in the long run. In Online Poker Rooms where players are mostly tight/aggressive,  inexperienced players will most likely lose  . Rooms that have softer games areusually the ones who also offer casino and sportsbook. They attract  a bigger amount of  inexperienced players  and gamblers making   staying in profit  easier.

Online Poker Room software differs by speed, sound , graphics and by other  points  . In the end  we can say that some poker rooms have better playability which allows players to multi-table without problems . Some rooms  provide  the chance to play on up to 24 tables but some only 4.  For example   888 Poker  where you can multi-table without problems . Multi-tabling takes a lot of focus and it is not wise forbeginners to play over 4 tables at  the same time  . As you move on and gain  more experience then you should  maybe  increase the amount of tables.

Amount of low limit poker games and tournaments  could be very important  because a lot of players  want more beginners and  easier  games. Bigger poker game choicemeans that  beginners  try new poker games and who wouldn’t want to be the best at his tables if there is an opportunity for that? Most  beginners start  from Texas Hold’em No-Limit 0.05/0.10  because you only need about  $200 bankroll. Ofcourse,  many beginners begin at  a lower limit, like 0.02/0.04 blinds.  If you don’t know  what online poker  is about, then  you should  begin  from the lowest limits  in order to study  the basics or start reading about online poker strategy.

It is very hard to make assumptions about which room is best to start with. Firstly, look at the bonuses and try to see how others play. Ofcourse you should make sure that there are enough tables available in your limit, for example 0.05/0.10. Secondly, make sure you get rakeback as getting back 30-40% of your rake to the online poker room is a must for a starting player. It will increase your profit very largely even if you don’t play much. For example noxwin poker rakeback provides you with 30% of the rake you generate.

Jun 9 2011

Omaha Poker Strategy

Omaha hands are played out in a similar fashion as those in Texas Holdem . However, instead of two pocket cards, four are dealt , followed by a betting round. A three card flop follows, with another betting round. Then a turn card, with another betting round. Finally the fifth street, river card, and a final round of betting.

At the showdown, five card hands are created by using exactly two cards from a player’s hand, and exactly three cards from the board cards. All four of a player’s cards must be shown to qualify for winning a pot. If you only show two cards and discard the other two, your hand is dead and you forfeit claim to the pot.

Omaha games are often played High/low split, with and eight-or-better qualifier for low. You can use two cards from the your pocket cards to make a low  , and two different hand cards to make a high. Three different board cards to make a high hand and three different ones to make a low hand. You can use the same combinations to make both type of hands 

All the rules of Omaha High apply to Omaha HiLo split except the eight-or-better for low applies (unless a cardroom has non-standard rules about what wins for low, like a nine-or-better for low rule). If there is no low hand then the high hand will win everything  In some casinos, when a player wins an entire pot of a certain size, a kill must remain in the pot.

Low hands range from the worst possible low hand, 87654, to the best possible low, 54321. The simplest way to judge the best low hand possible in any given hand is the read the hands as a number, highest card to the left and lowest card to the right. Whichever number is lower wins: 76543 beats 84321.

The Cards Speak rule applies. If a player mistakenly verbally declares an incorrect value of a hand , it does not matter what the player says. Dealer should always check the value of the hand himself .

Do not understimate the power of best rakeback when signing up with a online poker room to play Omaha. There are three things you should always look for when joining an online poker room, best possible rakeback, lots of beginning players and the existence of limits that suit you. Most oftenly people choose Opoker Rakeback or Betfair Poker Rakeback. Opoker because of their big network of players and Betfair because they also offer a casino and sportsbook meaning there are a lot of gamblers who always want to try out new games.

Make your pick, pay attention to the small things and soon enough you will be making your living with poker.

Jun 8 2011

Pot Limit Strategy

When starting with online poker then 95% of the beginners are not aware of rakeback. It is something to maximize your profits. This will be explained later on. Texas Hold’em has three variations, no-limit, pot-limit and limit. Pot-limit Hold’em is one of the most difficult forms of poker, simply because it is big-bet poker. Bets at the start are small compared to their size on the river. Lets make an example where you have AK and the flop is Ac-2d-Th, you bet pot and someone calls, turn is a 3h, you bet and someone calls again. The river is a Qh, you check and he bets the pot. In limit poker it would be very easy to call because there is the possibility of you having a better hand. In Pot Limit you can not call just to see what he had and you will be beat from time to time.

Beginners usually sit into tables with short stacks and that is questionable . Should you take a full stack or a short stack? What are the benefits? It depends.

Playing with a small stack requires a patient state of mind  . Are you able to wait until you get a premium hand like KK while losing two or three rounds of blinds? Do you want to push all-in with the first big hand  ? If you are patient try playing with a short stack and waiting for a very good hand. If you are not then it’s best to bring a full stack and play your heart out .

If you bought in for $200 and have $40 left you should wait for a good hand before moving all in. If you can multiply your stack then you are back in the game. If you had $20 left then it would be wise to rebuy as it is difficult to win three or four hands in a row.

If the table is loose it might be best to rebuy and get a full stack . Big pots present themself more often at a loose table and you have a better chance of winning a bigger pot. It is good to play with a small stack if the table is tight  . You might be able to steal a few pots on the flop and rebuild bit by bit until you get a good chance to double up.

If you just lost a big pot because of a bad beat and you are left with crumbs then you should play tight and wait for a premium starting hand . It will give you some time to relax and to forget the bad beat. Rebuying right after a bad beat may cost you a lot of money very quickly.

Earlier we mentioned rakeback . This is something beginners leave out very oftenly and it is a mistake. Rakeback lets the player get back a big percentage of the poker room fees  . These fees are taken when you play at cash games or enter a tournament. The sums are small but if you play more then once then the fees only grow and it would be good to get a „tax refund“. Beginners should look for Noxwin Rakeback or even Opoker Rakeback. These poker rooms provide lots and lots of beginning players making it easy to get a nice profit and maximize that profit further you should register through an affiliate who offers rakeback.

Texas Hold’em always presents some new situations so the learning never stops  . Even if you start by playing the game then you should also read about strategy during that time. Best would be to start off by going through a lot of theory about the game and then using it on the table.

Jun 3 2011

Starting Poker

It is important for beginners to know how to start online poker. Most importantly, no matter how much money you have, it’s best to start from micro limits. How to beat them? What to look for before joining a poker room? Which one to choose?

When starting then the first thing is to look for rakeback. For beginning players it might be best to look for Opoker Rakeback or Noxwin Rakeback. Those rooms provide the exact mixture of available tables and amount of beginning players who do not know much. Best places to maximize your profit due to the high rakeback percentage. Most beginners do not read a lot before starting their play and those two places offer loads of that kind of beginners.

Mar 28 2011

Basics of Texas Hold’em Poker

title="texas hold'em poker" href="http://www.goldstrikepoker.com/3d-poker/poker-variants/texas-holdem.html" target="_blank">Texas Hold’em is genuinely quite easy to learn. This is perhaps why the game is becoming quite the rage in card rooms all over the world whether online or offline. In the Texas Hold’em poker, the dealer gives two faced-down cards, which is called the hole cards or the pocket cards in poker lingo. After which, the players are dealt with 5 faced-up cards, which is called community cards. At the final round of betting, players must make the best hand out of the seven cards that they are dealt with, the two cards given faced down and the five cards given faced-up.   

The process

For the first round of betting, two faced-down cards are given. Three are then supplied facing up at the middle of the table. These cards can be used by other players to make their hands strong. This is known as the flop. A round of betting is done after this. The fourth card is dealt with faced down and betting is again open. This is called the fourth street or the turn card. The fifth and final card is dealt again at the center of the table and the last round of betting will then occur. This final card is called the river card. Players have the option to bet, to check, to raise or to fold.

Players that are in immediate left of the dealer are called the small blind (referring to the nearest) and the big blind (referring to the farthest positions). Players that want to enter the hand should call the big blind so that they can stay in the game. Otherwise they will have to fold.

As mentioned before, players who have the best hand will win the pot. The best hand combinations will of course depend on the standard poker hands. In case of ties, which often happens with this variant of poker, players will split the pot money.

Types of Betting

There are three types of betting in Texas Hold’em Poker. In the Limit Hold’em betting structure, the amount that a player will bet or raise will be limited to amounts that are already specified at the start of the game. Small blind and big blinds will have specific amounts that they can bet on the first two rounds of betting. On the third and succeeding betting rounds, the bets will be raised in specified increments, for example, two-dollar increments. After turn and river betting will of course be more expensive.

Spread limit Hold’em Poker, on the other hand, is much the same as Limit Hold’em except for one thing, the raising of bets will not be according to a specified amount but instead according to a certain range or “spread,” the term used in poker games.

Another kind of betting structure is the Pot Limit Hold’em, which limits the player’s maximum bet. In this structure, a player’s bet cannot scale the total amount collected in the pot.

In the no limit hold’em betting structure, there is no limit on the amounts that players can bet or raise. This can be difficult for players who also depend on the size of the betting to guess the strength of the hand of their opponents. Because there are no limits and no ranges, they have no way of knowing if the player is confident with his hand or just a plain big casino spender.

Jul 4 2010

How To Play Pairs Pre-flop

In poker-tips" title="Poker Tips, Techniques, and Strategy">poker starting hands are important to almost all pros. However when playing a more conservative style of play, starting hands are a little over rated. In fact I recommend that you focus more on what your opponent doesn’t have, as opposed to what your starting hand looks like. Either way I am going to review various starting hands in this article and how to play them so you set yourself up to win 11.5 Poker Chips even before the flop comes.

Ok let’s talk about the easiest hands first, big pairs. Big pairs include aces, kings, queens and jacks. However jacks are more of a marginal pair. Now when you have aces or kings you better start throwing chips because these hands are worth risking it all pre-flop. There are some situations where kings can be folded pre-flop, but those odds are close to one and a million. Even if you do flip over your kings and see you are battling aces, you will win almost a fifth of the time. You should never get the thought that you are a bad player just because you got knocked out by sticking it all in pre-flop with kings.

Now with queens and jacks the same is not true. In fact because of the style of play that I usually employ, I will most times even call a raise instead of re-raising. With these hands, in most cases you are only ahead by a tiny margin. If you’re not ahead though, you’re behind by a mile. This is why it is smart to play these hands more cautiously then the average player. As well this will add another mask to your game, and will let everyone at the table know that you can have anything.

When you look down to middle pair pre-flop, please do not over value these hands. Pairs like tens, nines, eights and sevens are not premium hands, so please do not play them as they are. Do not get me wrong these are good hands to have, but this is not because of their pre-flop strength it is because of their value later on. I would recommend making a small two and a half to three times the big blind raise if you are the first one into the pot. Your evil plan with hands such as these should be to flop trips and then milk your opponents. Again, that plan does not include playing this hand without a set when your opponent is bringing the heat.

On to the smaller pairs, I suggest playing these pairs very similar to the way you are supposed to play middle pairs. Again with these pairs your overall plan should be to flop a set. On the other hand you should not be three betting your opponents before the flop with hands like these. Some professionals will re-raise with these hands, but too often you will be in a coin flip situation for way too many chips. Again as a more conservative player, this is not your goal.

Ok, so we have gone over how to play pairs when you see them pre-flop. You should know not to under-value big pairs, but more importantly do not over-value middle and low pairs. All too often players in tournaments get knocked out or run into a large set back because they over-valued their hand. Don’t let that rookie mistake into your repertoire of poker knowledge. So now it is time to go get a Poker Chip Set and win some money!

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May 27 2008

Texas Holdem Poker Online Strategy Guide – Best Free Winning Poker Strategies Tips

Poker is a simple game to learn with the objective to win money, by winning pots.

Each poker-tips" title="Poker Tips, Techniques, and Strategy">poker hand starts with the blind bets. In case blind bets (antes) are used, then each player must post this token amount of money in order to receive cards. If blinds are employed, one or two players are required to post a bet or portion of a bet before the hand is dealt. This requirement rotates around the table.

Each time a round of cards is dealt, players have an opportunity to check, bet, fold, call or raise. There are different rules for each specific version of poker, but basically poker is simple.

style="background-color: #ffff00">Nevertheless, poker is about strategy. Strategy gives you more control over your destiny at the table.

Poker objective is to win money. not to win pots! This is important to understand, because by playing every hand until the bitter end – you can win every pot you possibly could. But will lose plently of money along the way. This means that sometimes you need to lose your shirt, in other words, you need to be selective about the hands you decide to play. There’s no need to play every hand. But when you enter a pot – do everything possible to maximize the amount to win.

So, one of the secrets of poker is – anyone can win in the short run, but in the long run the better players win more money with good hands and lose less with weak hands.

Now let’s talk about Texas Hold’em strategical issues.

You need to know what the best possible hand is and count from it. For example, to have four-of-a-kind or a full house, a pair must reside among the community cards. Or there is no flush without at least three common cards of the same suit.

These combinations help a lot to be ready for all possible situations and choose the most affordable.

With the communal cards Q-J-T-8-A – it is very likely that one of opponents made a straight, but with K-6-5-3-A on board the chances for it are weaker, because in the first example anyone with a nine or a king would have a straight, and in the second – a straight requires a four and a deuce, or a four and a seven.

Moreover, most players are not going to stick around with hands like that as hands like 7-4 or 4-2 are very weak starting hands. At the same moment nines and kings are right up to stay and not fold. This is the example of gamers’ psychology.

When you are holding the nuts – the best possible hand – your job and tactics is to get as much money as you can into the pot by betting and raising at every opportunity. This is when you are squeezing the most from the lady luck. Professional players will do everything to raise as much as possible from this chance.

Also do not forget that Texas hold em is a positional game, as the betting order is fixed for each round. This means that when you act last before the flop, you are getting a serious advantage of deciding what to do after all of your opponents have acted.

More tips in other posts of this blog or in this Free Online Poker School (quick registration and you are reading top selected poker game tips)

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