Poker Game

Poker Strategy – Tips for online and offline poker

HOW LONG HAS YOUR OPPONENT BEEN PLAYING TODAY

Finding out how long a person has been playing that day can tell you many things about their luck, their experience, their ability to continue playing, and their table knowledge. Consider the following: (most of these tips are for offline poker but some of them can and should be applied for your online game as well)

POKER STRATEGY – Are they tired or alert?

There is nothing easier than playing against a tired poker player. The number one reason to go play late at night or very early in the morning is because you’ll get the person whom has been playing all night long. As you may know, when a person is tired they are off their game. It is difficult for them to even read the cards let alone read the player and the player’s cards. I have often seen players think they have a straight, a flush, or two pair when in fact they did not. Often a person will brag about how long they have been playing so do not hesitate to ask them.

POKER STRATEGY – What are your poker opponents drinking? Water, coffee, or alcohol?

It has to be one of the three or a combination thereof. Anyway, as you may have figured, the person drinking the alcohol is most likely to over bet their cards in an attempt to bluff. They will also usually play more hands in an attempt to catch cards as their primary goal is often shifted from winning to entertainment. It may all come down to luck for them at this point. The alcohol drinkers tend to watch the players and their reactions a little less as the waitresses start looking better and better and the drinks become more and more important them. However, some drink casually to just to ease the tensions. Watch what people are consuming and how much.

Sometimes a drunken player is very easy to read as they become less and less aware of themselves and their reactions. Example, I once saw the flop come up King of clubs, 8 of clubs, and 7 of clubs. The player in the #8 spot rose to his feet looked at the cards and yell out loud, “Finally”. It wasn’t too difficult for me to determine that he flopped the nut flush.

Top Ten Poker Tips

My top ten poker tips aim to help players with their poker strategy, approach and continued enjoyment of both online poker and live poker games. The poker tips are not listed in any particular order of importance except perhaps the first.

1. Bankroll level

Play at a buy-in level that suits your bankroll and attitude to risk. Never play with more than you can afford to lose. If paying the rent depends upon the result of a tournament or a single hand, you may find the pressure leads to poor decision making and a disproportionate reaction to the bad beats all poker players endure.

2. Do not chase your losses

If you lose a major portion of your table stake in one or several large pots, do not try to recoup your losses in a ‘do or die’ fashion. Stick to your sound, proven poker strategy; wait for your next playable hand and look to recover your losses over the longer term.

Similarly, if you take a big hit to your poker bankroll in one or several sessions, do not move up to a higher buy-in level thinking, ‘one good win and I’m back to where I started.’ Often you will play the higher buy-in level with a too loose or too tight attitude, neither of which is natural to your game.

No matter if you are playing $0.25/0.50 or $25/50; if you have lost 80% of your buy-in for any reason, do not throw the rest away. That remaining 20% (if you walk away with it) should be thought of as profit; because if you don’t, it is a loss.

If you take a big hit to a previously healthy tournament stack; re-evaluate your options for the amount of chips you have left and make the best use of them.

3. Do not play too many hands

Avoid playing too many hands especially the marginal ones unless you need to; more often, play the hands which have a better chance of winning.

Remember, when folding pre-flop, you are playing your cards. The reason to fold can be various including, too many players already in the hand, you are out of position, the price is too high or the cards dealt are just plain rubbish. The reason to enter the hand must be equally clear.

Online poker pocket cards are dealt to each computer simultaneously; effectively everyone sees their starting hand at the same time. Players can consider their options before it is their turn to act and may tolerantly follow through with their decision, regardless of the table action. Before you decide to play or fold; consider what has happened before you in the betting round and what may happen after your action.

4. Recognise trends

There are two trends to understand; table trends and player trends.

Table trends

Observe a cash table and make a reasoned assessment of its character before taking your seat or getting heavily involved in the action. Adapt your game to one that best suits allowing you to profit. The common thought of ‘if a table is loose, play tight and vice versa’ often applies. Do not be put off if a cash table is more passive or more aggressive than you would like, provided you can adapt your game to suit the condition. However at times, it may be prudent to find another table, sit out or even leave one where the action is far from that with which you are comfortable.

In a tournament you take what you are given but remember, changes in the players seated and the blind/chip stack ratio, means the table character will fluctuate.

Playing any table should not necessitate you making drastic strategy changes; generally you should consider subtle adjustments to what is already your standard profitable game.

Player trends

Recognise the LAG, TAG, LP and TP players at your table and have a strategy in mind to compete with them.

You may find a player who will always raise from the button or in the small blind if the table folds to that seat, regardless of the cards they hold. Others may play any Ace they are dealt. While you cannot tell exactly what cards a player is holding, you may gain an advantage in a number of hands.

Do not look for trends that are not there when playing online. If a player takes a long time to come to a betting decision, it may be they are playing several tables at once, rather than hatching a cunning plan.

Making the Most of the Bovada Poker Bonus

The Bovada Poker Bonus is a really great one. For new players there is the opportunity to have your deposit matched up to $1000. This means that if you deposit $1000 you will get an additional $1000 to play with, if you deposit less, then you will not have so much free money to use.

It seems obvious that the best way of making full use of the bonus is to deposit the maximum amount so that you get the biggest possible bonus. This is common sense, but it is important to make sure that you make the best use of the bonus, once you have.

Even if you cannot afford to make a $1000 deposit, then you will still get some bonus as they will match 100% of any amount that you deposit which means that you will still get extra money to play with. So think carefully about how much you can afford, when you are making your deposit.

Once you have deposited the money in your account and you know how much you have to play with, then you need to make sure that you spend it wisely. You need to think about what sort of games you want to play and how much you want to spend in each game.

It can be wise to start off in a beginners game and spend just a little bit of money. This will allow you to get used to the way that the website works and what sort of players there are on there. You will also be able to get your online poker skills up to scratch if necessary, without wasting money.

More Experience for Better Odds

Anytime that you play a game you are probably interested in your odds of winning. For instance, your odds of winning at blackjack are never going to be the same as they are when it comes to slot machines. And the same thing holds true for poker. Not only are there many different types of poker you can play, but there are also many different factors that will contribute to your overall success. For this reason, it is nearly impossible for you to determine what your odds are of winning.

One thing is for sure when it comes to the game of poker. The more that you play the better chance you will have of winning. In other words, experience is king when it comes to any type of poker. This is true regardless of if you are playing table poker, or have decided to take up the online version. The fact of the matter is that as you become more experienced you will learn what it takes to move your game to the next level. Some players advance quickly, and some others have a hard time in the experience stages. But you should not become too concerned with this. Instead, just worry about what you can do as a player and you should be fine.

In order to become more experienced you will want to put in as much time as you can at the table. Even if you are only playing friendly games, you should still try to practice your craft as much as you can. And if this does not work out for you for one reason or the next, go online or buy a book to read about the game of poker. As you can imagine at this point, the key to tipping the odds in your favor is to increase your level of experience.

Starting Chip Stacks – How much money you need to play the game

A question burning in the minds of many poker enthusiasts: How much should I buy-in to a particular game with?

It’s a good question and I believe it deserves some contemplation and a deeper look. Typical No-Limit and Pot-Limit hold’em games have a minimum and maximum buy-in. While these are set by the cardroom, casino or online poker room they’re most often defined by the blinds. For example, it’s common for a 1-2$ NL to have a maximum buy-in of $200 (100 times the big blind) and a minimum of $40. Some online poker rooms even allow you to buy-in with less than 10 times the big blind.

Returning to the question at hand, I believe the answer is always, will always and should almost always be the absolute maximum. Holding the most chips gives you an edge over your opponents, and acquiring advantage over other players is the best way to maximize your profit.

When your stack is deep you can play any type of poker. You can play an aggressive or defensive style, you can bully or be bullied, you can be tight or even loose, it simply leaves you more options and allows for you to play a wider range of hands in different situations. Don’t have enough money for the full amount? Move down limits. There’s simply too many instances when you could be maximizing how much money you’ll make in a hand with a large stack. Imagine trying bluff on fourth street when you commit the remainder of your chips only to have it equate to a third of the pot size – it simply won’t put enough pressure on your opponents. Also, a larger chip stack is intimidating to other players which is never a bad thing.

If you’ve been around the tables long enough, or played poker online for any amount of time at all, then you’ve been witness to many a player buying in short. There are many reasons that he or she may be doing so. Maybe it’s their first time at this particular limit and they are uncomfortable with the amount of money in play.

Often, he or she is the kind of person who will sit down and try to win one pot and leave the table as quickly as possible. They’re simply not winning poker players. Another, more valid reason to buy in short is the belief that other players will play looser against a short stack. Often times players will ‘take a shot’ at knocking out an opponent – in a cash game!

Well people, time to experiment with $200. I know the mistakes I made the first time trying this out so here we go for try #2.

I figured I wanted to try out something different this time and see if I could find a good niche. (I played 9max Sit And Goes before and was really good at this format, but its a last resort, as I want to try different things). So here’s what I have done so far after re-depositing.

I started plying $5+50c Heads Up Sit And Goes. I have around 40 buy-ins for this level.

Day#1 was pretty crazy. I pretty much dominated this format and won 85$ playing all day. I found it pretty easy.

Day #2 was also really good. I decided to try a shot 10$+1$ Heads Up SNG. I also pretty much dominated again making 80$. I was a bit confused because this couldn’t be this easy could it.

Also I was pretty much playing my “A” game, taking a lot of notes on betting patterns and how they played draws, top pairs, middle pairs, everything.

Day #3 – Lol, here is where it all comes in with variance and not playing my “A” game. I decided to keep playing the 10$ level. I played this one guy who was a huge calling station and a aggressive bluffer. I found him as an easy opponent to read when he had it and when he didn’t.

I lost 4 buy-ins to him. First 3 to bad-beats and last one due to moving down to my “C” game from losing 3 buy-ins to this guy. (I could read this guy like a book, got it in ahead every time, but its poker and we cant always win). I took a break and went for a walk because this guy frustrated me a lot. I came back won my first match then “BOOM” lost 10 games in a row.

“WTF -I said to myself – I was crushing here before and now I am back down to my original $200 bankroll. ” Ya variance hit big and I wasn’t playing my “A” game. I decided to quit for the day and start again tomorrow at something else. I learned a lot from these HUSNGs which I will tell you about in a future blog.

Day#4 – Well I did about 4 hours re-searching and studying some different ways I could play today. I was almost thinking Pot Limit Omaha High because people are so bad at this game but I am probably just as bad. Plus I wanted to stick to No Limit Hold-em. I ended up coming up across a thread about short-stacking.

I knew what it was and how it worked and knew people just despised these players because they only played pre-flop and were really dependent on fold equity and hand ranges and didn’t let the big stacks get their implied odds. I ended up taking this approach and it is actually a pretty good strategy. I’ll also learn why people hate short-stackers so much and how it can be a winning strategy. Note: 80% of short-stackers are actually really bad and don’t fully understand the concept. Full stacking will make you more money and is more of a thinking poker game, and funnier.

Day#5 is today. I will be short-stacking again today and prob playing around 6k-10k hands today at 10c-25c. So we will see if this strategy is an actual winner.

The Bejeweled Game Turns into Bingo Inspiration

With over 500 million fans worldwide, Bejeweled is a fun game that’s a great way to pass the time. The game is simple and straightforward: make lines of three or more gems vertically or horizontally by swapping adjacent pieces. When you make a match, the gems will disappear and more will fall from the top to give you more ammo. The more matches you make, the higher your score. These easy steps outline what you have to do to play a game of Bejeweled.

1. Scroll over and click the Click here to play button.

2. All you do is point and click to adjacent gems to create a line of three or more gems of the same color.

3. There are multiple levels of difficulty. The easy level is not timed, but the advanced and expert levels are. If you can’t find a match after 30 seconds a set of compatible gems will light up.

Bejeweled Bingo

Bejeweled Bingo takes the best of Bingo and mixes it with the gem-matching fun of Bejeweled. While the standard version of this game is just for fun, but this Bingo version allows you to play for big Jackpots.

You can couple your combination skills with online bingo to win BIG cash prizes, an array of bonuses and even a progressive jackpot that keeps getting bigger until someone wins it.

This does not mean that Bejeweled Bingo is hard to play, quite the opposite. The first part of the game will be second nature to anyone who has played online bingo before. Numbers are called, and then they are crossed off each player’s card. Prizes are won when someone gets the first one-line bingo, the first two-line bingo, and the first person to get a full house.

People who purchase six or more tickets get to play the Bejeweled Challenge at the end of the bingo game. In this colorful bonus game, players match gemstones to complete lines and get points. Each player will win free tickets based on the amounts of points won during the bonus round.

This is a significant advantage. Normally each player is limited to 36 tickets per game. However, when you play the Bejeweled Challenge, you can exceed this amount. This means that get more chances to win on your next bingo game since you have more cards. 3

That’s not all though. Bejeweled Bingo at Jackpotjoy also has a progressive jackpot that can be won by any participant. This Jackpot keeps getting bigger and bigger until someone wins it. It even rolls over to the next game. You can watch the Jackpot grow as it is always visible in the corner of your screen.

Whether you love Bingo, Bejeweled, or both, you will have a blast while playing Jackpotjoy’s Bejeweled Bing. You can win big while using your bejeweled skills to win bonus games. Start playing today and become a Bejeweled Bingo master.

How to Play Big Pots

Unlike Limit Hold’em, in NL Texas Hold’em sometimes you can find the pots getting quite big. Hence, it is essential as a poker player to know when to build a pot up, when to play in a big pot and when to fold.

Building a Big Pot

The major advantage of playing in a big pot is that you can make large bets and actually have them called. For example if you were to bet $300 into a $10 pot it is very unlikely to be a profitable or wise move. Where as if you were to bet $300 into a $300 pot it makes a hell of a lot more sense.

When Large Pots Can Help You

A large pot is great when you have a very strong hand and wish to win as much as you possibly can, milking the hand for all it is worth. It can also be handy when you are trying to bluff the other players or when you’re trying to stop people from calling on a draw.

Top Hands

When you have a hand that you are sure is a winning hand then a large pot will allow you to bet big on the river.

Big Draws

It’s a lot easier to make someone call a draw and have bad odds with a large pot. For example if there is $80 in the pot and you raise it another $80 it is highly unlikely that anybody would call on a flush or straight draw. However if that same pot was $600 and you raised it $300 with one card left on the board it puts them in a much more difficult position making it very hard for them to fold.

Big Bluffs

It’s a lot better and easier to make a big bluff on a large pot, for example bluffing $300 into a $40 pot is just stupid and worse may not scare anyone away. However if there is $300 in the pot already than you may be able to scare away someone with another $300 bet and win a large sum.

Choosing the Best Online Casino

There are so many different online casinos, that it can be difficult to know which one to choose. Some people may be simply so daunted by them all that they choose none and others decide to use one that they know and trust. However, there are some big differences between different casinos and so it is a good idea to take a look and see which ones might be the best to play at.

Jackpots

Some casinos have really great jackpot prizes on some games. If you would like a chance of winning a really great prize, then these will be the ones that you need to choose. However, you may find that those games with higher prizes, have a lower chance of you winning and therefore you will be less likely to win a small prize. You will need to decide whether you would rather try to win a big prize or have a better chance of winning a small prize.

Bonuses

Some casinos will have a bonus, where they match a deposit that you make in your account. This means that if you pay in a sum of money, they may double it. These change between casinos and they are worth looking at when you are considering which one to choose.

Chat

Some casinos have a great atmosphere for chatting to other players. For those people who like a more social atmosphere when they are playing, these can be ideal.

Choice of Games

Some casinos have a better choice of live casino games than others . It is worth having a look at the selection because you may find that one has a really great game that the others do not have. If you like traditional casino games, then these may not differ that much. However, if you like a nice choice of different games or specific games such as slots, then you may find that some casinos are better than others for this.

You may find that it is easier to make a choice if you look at some reviews of different casinos as then you can find out more about them without actually having to visit the website. It can make things quicker and help you to build up a trust first. You may also find that many sites offer free gaming and so you can try it out before you actually deposit any money, which can be a great way to learn more about the site.

Chilled Poker