How To Learn Poker

PokerStars Bought Full Tilt And Players Finally Get Their Money Back

tamas — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 06:35:20 +0000

It seems the nightmare is finally over for many thousands of players. PokerStars bought Full Tilt Poker and soon starts to pay back the funds of US players. Therefore PokerStars can use the name Full Tilt and all its assets.

PokerStars pays $537 million to settle US government charges. The poker site first has to pay back the funds of US players ($547 million). There will be an additional account from which they will pay back the non-US players ($184 million) with a 90-day deadline.

The reason why PokerStars bought Full Tilt is that they want to open on the US market and they hope that online poker will be legal soon.

On the PokerStars blog you can find the following statement:

“We plan to re-open the Full Tilt site and, most importantly, we will make available all funds for players outside the U.S. within 90 days of the formal close of the deal, which will occur in the next seven days. The money paid to the US Government will in part be used to reimburse former Full Tilt Poker customers in the United States, through a remission process to be administered by the Department of Justice.“

Full Tilt as a brand will go on with a different management but they will still function from Dublin, just like before. The acquisition is only finalized after the first payment of $225 million.

Thousands of players were waiting for this news for more than a year!

If you want to play poker after the great news, register with the best rakeback offers on the market!

Can The Online Poker Software Cheat?

chris — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 08:40:26 +0000

This article is not going to be highly analytical but is still interesting. A very common topic among online poker players is whether the software is cheating or not? The players who lose tend to say the program cheats because they want to keep the beginner players in the game. The professionals say it does not matter what the software does because poker is about reading skills and bluffs.

Until the recent months I also believed software do not influence anything. However, what is lately happening is getting “funny”. It is normal that when I have KK I either run into AA or lose bad time. Any preflop all-in against my KK wins. TT, 66, AJ, it does not really matter what they have. They just hit! But the last time was the best. I raised from late position with KK and the big blind reraised. I pushed all-in and he quickly called. He had 96 suited. Flop: 995, turn: 6… No comment. And the software helped such an idiot again. I mean there are bad streaks of course. Although sometime these streaks should end! Maybe in another lifetime I can win with KK.

The coinflips are the same. I lost at least 10-15 in a row. It does not matter if I had the AK or the pair. It always ended up the bad way. Even better when I go all-in with AK and get called with AQ. I would be surprised if once a K came on flop and not a Q. Or nothing (no K or Q) is also a nice option once in a while.

When someone says such things do not happen live the other side says: yeah, but in live poker there are a lot fewer hands in the same time period. While that is also true, just jokes have not happen to me in live games. KK vs. 96… I thought finally an all-in that I cannot lose. Well, I learned again: first wait what comes on the board and only then celebrate!

What can you learn from this article? Not much. I only advise you to take poker as a free time activity and do not make your life dependent on a revenue where the software decides a lot of money.

It might be the right time for me as well to play tournaments again, a bad beat there does not have such an effect on my bankroll.

In case you are not registered on poker sites, you can decide for yourself whether the software cheats or not. Either way, take great rakeback offers from the market.

Taking Advantage Of Different Promotions In Online Poker

katie — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:20:44 +0000

Nowadays there are so many poker sites on the market that new poker players have great promotion options to choose from. Many do not realize that players who do not want to change sites still have great promotion options without having to register new accounts.

First, let’s see the options for new players. If you start playing poker, your main consideration should be the rakeback when registering your new account. Even if you are losing, rakeback can turn everything upside down and change you into a winning player. It can be such a high revenue source that you should not underestimate it. You will get it forever from the site you register at. When you see that one site gives 30% rakeback while the other 33% you might think the difference is small. That is a false assumption. In the long run this 3% has a very significant meaning. So when you see on the sites that you can choose between a couple of hundred dollars sign-up bonus and lifetime rakeback offer, do not think much about it. Rakeback is definitely the right choice.

The second group of promotion options applies to players with an existing account and also to new players. One is the rake races offered by several sites. This can also be a main revenue source if you play a lot. The different sites offer very different rake races. The top spots are worth thousands of dollars in cash each month. If you play many hours a day this extra source of revenue is for you! If you do not play much or you play on very small stakes then you do not have to consider this option.

Reload bonus is the most common way of promotions. Almost every (if not every) site sends emails on a regular basis about their reload bonuses. This is an option you have to take an advantage. It does not matter if you are a new or veteran player. Most of the times these 50% reload bonuses are a great chance to make some extra cash. There is only one fact you have to pay attention to: on certain sites you cannot make withdrawals until you have used all of your reload bonus. If you still make a withdrawal you lose the rest of your bonus. For this reason the best you can do is to always make withdrawals when you have money on your poker account that you do not need. When you get your email you can make a deposit right away and you do not have to make a withdrawal until you take advantage of your full bonus.

There are various other promotion options which are unique site by site. These include poker shops where you can buy different products, tournament tickets etc. Loyalty levels are also common promotion tools. Based on the amount of rake you made last month, you can take a seat on special freeroll tournaments where you do not have to pay an entry fee.

I hope the tips above helped you with the main issues you have to consider when you register your new poker account. To get the list of poker sites with rakeback and other promotions do not hesitate to ask us or simply check the best rakeback options.

Why It Does Not Make Sense To Play Poker With Play Money

tamas — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:57:19 +0000

Beginner poker players often start playing poker with play money instead of real money. I do not say you have to play with your salary because it is crazy and stupid, but playing with play money does not make any sense. Even if you do not know the poker rules it is ok to try poker and have fun for 1-2 hours with play money but then it gets boring.

The problem with play money is that you (and all others at the table) have no interest in winning while there is no money or price involved in the game. When play poker without money, you cannot lose any money either. This brings us to the conclusion that you do not risk anything and it does not matter if you play with a good strategy or you go all-in every hand. If you only play on a $0.01/$0.02 cash game table, there is something to win and there will not be 3-4 players pushing all-in preflop like they do it on play money tables. On a play money table you just cannot develop your skills as the conditions are not even close to real money tables. Therefore I suggest you play on $0.01/$0.02 tables and not with play money.

There might be one play money poker game you should try. On several poker sites there are freeroll tournaments. The beginning of these tournaments is not better than play money games but later on when you are getting close to the money you can really learn a lot as the remaining players want to win too. By playing tournaments you can learn many different situations: pot odds calculations, all-in spots, blind stealing etc. If you can invest a little money, you can play for $1+$0.10 or $2+$0.20 buy-in tournaments and learn a lot from playing with a minimum investment.

You cannot play sit&go’s for free but you can find them for $1+$0.10 and $2+$0.20 and get experience fast. Sit&go’s are similar to tournaments but they are single table tournaments so they are perfect for practicing final table situations.

In case you want to give yourself a chance in the online poker world, get the best poker beginner registration offers.

2012 WSOP Statistics After 31 Events

chris — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 05:35:42 +0000

The 2012 WSOP has reached its half time. I will analyze the statistical numbers from the WSOP website.

Timothy Adams won the most money with $790 879. He cashed in 3 times and won 1 gold bracelet (Event 28, $392 476).

Jesse Martin and Terrence Chan have the most cashes. They cashed in 7 times each. Martin earned $118 902 and Chan $58 271. As you see, both players reached the money 7 times but they have not yet finished on one of the top spots.

Phil Ivey has the first place with the most final table appearances. He finished 3 times at a final table but his 9^th bracelet is still not yet reached! Ivey finished 7^th on Event 15, 2^nd on Event 17 and 3^rd on Event 24. Nothing shows better what a great player Ivey is than the fact that he reached the 3 final table spots in 3 different types of poker: Stud High-Low, Pot-Limit Hold’em and Omaha High-Low.

There are some crazy people who try to play on as many events as possible. George Lind has the most entries with 27! I am not sure how much George slept the last month if he entered 27 events out of 31 events! Phil Ivey has 26 entries and Daniel Negreanu 24. The question is what makes more sense: to play on as many events as possible to reach final tables or to rest some days between events and have full concentration while playing fewer events.

Jesse Martin leads another leader board. He has the top cash percentage with minimum 15 Events entered. Martin has 46.67% (7/15), Isaac Haxton follows him with 37.50% (6/16).

Although Hellmuth won his 12^th gold bracelet and finished in the money, Ivey has first place in the most prestigious ranking: the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year Standings. Ivey has 539.70 points, John Monette follows with 524.25, Andrew Frankenberger is 3^rd with 384.66 and Phil Hellmuth is 4^th with 638.70.

At the time of this writing, Ivey has his 4^th final table result by finishing 5^th on the $10 000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E (Event 32). Who finished on 4^th place? Phil Hellmuth, of course! At the same time Ivey finished 8^th on another final table, too (Event 35), the Mixed Hold’em. What a great battle between the titans! Although these last statistics will be taken into consideration, it will be only at the end of the WSOP season since they do not fall into the first 31 Events of the WSOP.

I hope the statistics were interesting for you to have a quick overview of the WSOP standings at half time.

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A Horrible Blocking Bet On The River In No-Limit Texas Hold’em

katie — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 05:54:27 +0000

The blocking bet is a good weapon in poker but only if you know how to use it. There are certain situations when a blocking bet shows weakness and you can take down the pot with a reraise or bluff.

As always, I show you an example from a hand when my opponent used the blocking bet really bad. The table is full ring $0.5/$1 and I sit in 6th position with ♣Q♣K. Everyone folds before me and I decide to bet $3. The players behind me fold, just like the small blind, but the big blind makes the call. The pot is $6.5 and the two of us will see the flop.

♥A♠7♣2 hits the board and my opponent checks. I go on with a continuation bet and lead out with $3.5. My opponent thinks for a while and after all, he makes the call. At this time I can put him on a weak ace, on a seven or some kind of a low pocket pair. I do not suppose he would call me with high cards only, without an ace. With a higher ace in his hand he would have probably reraised me preflop. The same is true if he had a high pocket pair. The board is also very dry (there are no draws out there) so he has to have something. His call does not show much value but I do not have anything besides high card king so I will slow down if the turn does not help me. The pot is $13.5.

The turn is the ♦6. This card did not change anything (except if he has pocket sixes). My opponent checks. Since the turn card did not change anything it seems my opponent is still ahead. If it was a higher blind level No-Limit Hold’em game I would go ahead and shoot a 2nd barrel to take the pot. The situation is totally different in a low limit game. I do not like overcomplicate things. In low limit poker most of the players think quite simple: if they have something they call, if they have nothing they fold. Therefore I do not see any reason to bluff because my opponent would call me and I would lose more money. I can basically finish the hand now. Although if a king or a queen comes on the river I can think whether it makes sense to lead out. I check and the pot remains $13.5.

The river card is ♦J and my opponent bets $2.5. Now this is an interesting bet. If he checked I would probably check behind him and most likely lose the pot. But what kind of hand does it take to bet so small? My check on the turn shows weakness. So he definitely could lead out with a bit larger bet if he had an ace. Or he could check with a low ace and intend to call with it. If he has jack he can also go for a check-call. This $2.5 just does not make any sense to me. It is as if he wanted to tell me: “I have a pair but it is so small that I would like to have a showdown without investing much money.” I put him now on a seven or a small pocket pair. I think a bit about the hand and reraise to $13. He thinks a couple of seconds and folds his hand. I take down the $18.5 pot.

My play was nothing special and a better player on a higher level would have called it about 50% of the time. If my opponent did not make this small blocking bet on the river I would not have got the extra information about how weak his hand is and would not have won the pot. His wrong decision won the hand for me along with an additional $2.5. As you see, you have to find the right spot and make the right play. In this case a bluff was enough to win with a king high.

I wish you great hand analysis and a lot of success with blocking bets.

If you have interest in online poker, register with the best rakeback offers.

Related articles:

The Semi-Bluff In Poker
The importance of position in poker
My best Royal Flush in poker
Bluffing as a Powerful Weapon
Percentages Referring to Different AK Holdings
Typical Easy Win vs. Low Stakes Player

Andy Bloch Wins His First Gold Bracelet In Seven Card Stud

tamas — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:37:24 +0000

Andy Bloch started his poker career more than 20 years ago and he won his first ever gold bracelet in the WSOP 2012, Event#7. The event had a $1 500 buy-in, 367 players and a $126 363 first price (besides the bracelet).

The final table had three well known players and Bloch had to play his best game to get the bracelet. David Williams started the final table as first with 493 500 chips. Williams finished second on the Main Event in 2004 and it seemed this stud event would end with his victory. In the end he finished 4^th and won $36 470.

The other world star at the final table was the great cash game player, Barry Greenstein. Greenstein is not only a great player but he gives an amount of his winnings to non-profit organizations and for this reason he is also known as the “modern Robin Hood”. Greenstein qualified to the heads up match as a 1:4 underdog against Bloch.

Bloch even extended his lead and the final hand looked like this:

Bloch held: ♠Q♣Q♥J♥T♣T♣A♠K and Greenstein had: ♠7♦6♣5♦4♦8♠2♥A. Bloch took the title and Greenstein got $78 038 for second place. On the last street Bloch reached a higher straight than Greenstein and therefore won the tournament.

Before Bloch won his gold bracelet, he reached the final table 9 times and finished as a runner up twice in his poker career. After winning the title he said: “Now nobody is going to talk about me”. Bloch was sometimes criticized why he has such an important role in online poker and videos when he does not even have a single gold bracelet. Now he gave an answer to the critics and does not have to bother himself anymore.

If you cannot travel to Las Vegas and play at the WSOP, register for the best online poker rakeback offers.

Playing Different Poker Games Online At The Same Time

chris — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 07:03:31 +0000

I do not know what you like but I am an action type of poker player. For this reason I like to play at many tables at the same time. Although many tables can provide a lot of action it is still not enough for me. I like to play many different types of poker. And sometimes the high quantity of tables definitely decreases the quality of my play.

It is an important topic to discuss. If you love the game and play it for fun, it is okay to play at many tables and be always in action. However if you play poker for a living then you have to find the optimal number of tables first. Too few tables are not good because you are losing revenue. Too many tables either because you are missing out on some of the important action and you cannot concentrate on your best game.

Lately I have discovered another, maybe not so common mistake in my play. I tend to play many different types of poker at the same time. The variety includes NLH full ring, PLO full ring and short-handed, Stud full ring, PLO 8 or better and tournaments. If I play 5 NLH tables and 5 PLO tables it is ok and one game does not influence the other.

The problem comes when I play PLO and PLO 8 or better at the same time. The games look similar but the strengths of the hands are completely different. And when the action is fast because of the many tables, it is easy to make mistakes. For example an Ah7s8h9s is a very nice hand in PLO but a complete trash in PLO 8 or better. Or As2h3c4d looks great in PLO 8 or better but you would never play it in PLO. I have lost several times because of the windows changing so fast I misclicked and made a call with a mediocre hand. Of course you can separate your display, two sides/two games but you will be still confused a couple of times.

The same is true for tournaments vs. cash games. Here you will see a different kind of problem. Although the game is the same your strategy is totally different for a tournament and a cash game. In a cash game you can risk more, on a tournament you risk the whole event in every hand. Still, in a cash game you can wait for a long time to have great hands, but on a tournament you do not have hours to wait for monsters because you will lose your stack over time. Both problems have happened to me, because of the high amount of tables I had and I could not concentrate on the current action.

At the end you have to decide what is important for you: quantity or quality. Either way, you get the option to register for the best online poker deals.

Beginners Guide to Online Poker

katie — Tue, 29 May 2012 18:48:02 +0000

There are few more exciting card games than poker, which is played in clubs, bars and casinos throughout the world. Since the early 1990s, attempts have been made to develop the game for internet-based players, but it is only in the last decade that online poker has exploded in popularity. Provided below is a guide for those new to the online version of the game.

Program

Online casino and bingo players might expect poker to be played via a web browser, but all of the leading sites provide software for their members. This helps to ensure the security and privacy of players. New members are typically invited to register on a website before downloading and installing the necessary software.

Practice

Beginners ought to resist the temptation to dive in at the deep end before they learn the basics. Most online poker sites are teeming with sharks, so minnows can do themselves a huge favour by practising on free-to-play tables.

Usually playing with free chips or credits that are replenished at the end of each day (if free money were unlimited, beginners would never learn how to control their stacks), beginners can use free-to-play tables to get a feel for a particular poker site (or program). They can also use this time wisely to learn the basics of the game.

Basics

All players should know the basics before they compete for real-cash pots. Beginners will soon discover through practice that Texas No Limit Hold`em, the most popular version of poker, features several rounds of betting: pre-flop, flop, turn and river.

Players are dealt two hole cards at the start of each game (before the flop). These cards are not exposed to other players at this stage. A round of betting (players can fold, check, call, bet or raise) is completed before the flop, which occurs when three community cards are drawn for all to see. Another betting round passes before the turn, when a single community card is dealt. The process is repeated on the river, at which point all final bets are taken. The player with the strongest hand wins the pot (the sum of all bets made in the game less any portion reserved for the house).

Hands

Poker is primarily a game of chance, but strategy and mathematics are important ingredients for success. Without understanding the concept of implied odds (also called pot odds), beginners will struggle against professionals on high-stakes, real-cash tables. Implied odds can be researched online.

Understanding odds requires knowledge of the relative strength of hands. In poker, the strongest hand is the royal flush, which consists of A-K-Q-J-10 of the same suit. The second strongest hand is the straight flush, which is different from the royal flush in so far as it features any five-card sequence of the same suit other than A-K-Q-J-10; thus, K-Q-J-10-9 of hearts would be a straight flush because it does not include the ace.

In descending order of strength or rank, the other hands include: four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, pair and high card (where ace is the highest and deuce is the lowest). Once these hands are understood, beginners can play for huge cash pots on PokerStars and other award-winning sites.

To play on other sites and check rakeback offers you can check our rakeback section.

Tom Dawn Won An Almost $4 Million Pot

tamas — Tue, 22 May 2012 07:38:55 +0000

As we have already written, nowadays the largest high stakes poker games can be found in Macau. Gus Hansen already tried his luck some weeks ago, and now the news are about Tom Dwan (“durrr”) who won a $3.8 million pot.

Since Black Friday and the bankruptcy of FullTiltPoker, Tom Dwan has been playing high stakes poker live. This time he appeared in Macau. The Chinese city has changed so much in the last years that many call Macau the capital of gambling and Las Vegas is only on second place. The pot “durrrr” won must be one of the largest in poker history. This example shows as well that professional poker players with much capital earn their money mostly in Macau.

In the historical hand Dwan went all-in with a Chinese Businessman on an A-T-2 flop. Dwan held AT and the other player A2. Dwan’s two pairs remained the best hand and he collected the huge pot.

Which high stakes player shows up next in Macau? Is he going to have success as well or suffer a loss? We do not know yet but you can follow the action on our site.

If you stay with online poker, we give you the best rakeback possibilities for a new poker account registration.

Here is a video preview of a 2011 Macau High Stakes Poker where players met before the Aussie Millions.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1BTuMbeYIQ