Poker

A Little Concentration Goes a Long Way in Poker

Are you trying to boost your poker averages and struggling to do so? Trust us; you are in very good company. A lot of people hope and dream to really change the outcome of their poker game, only to find that it’s a lot harder than they really make on television. You might want to win big pots, but you have to make sure that you’re concentrating.

Poker is a lot more multilayered than people think it is. You have to consider not only what you’re holding, but what your opponents are holding as well. It’s not just good enough to get a monster — you have to project that monster in order to chase out all of the people with garbage hands that end up getting lucky. That would really make things harder, wouldn’t it? It not really — you can beat players that play trash hands, but you have to adjust your image as well.

When you’re concentrating, the rest of the outside world just ceases to matter. This is a good thing. You want to make sure that you’re keeping your eye on the prize at all times. There’s no reason to believe that you have to just hope and pray that everything is going to work itself out. You owe it to yourself to play the type of poker that you’ve always wanted to play.

So you’re playing from home — which would be most of the players on casino networks in the first place — you’re going to want to make sure that you don’t have other things going on around you. Sure, it’s nice to have friends over, but when you’re deep in a serious cash tournament, you want to be able to concentrate. This goes the same for children — wait till they go to bed before you drown yourself in poker, unless you have a very forgiving and understanding spouse.

Everyone will implement these tips differently. Some people find that going to their favorite casino is relaxing enough that they don’t need to have the television on in the background. Other people will hate the silence and add in at least a little white noise. It’s completely up to you. We’ve found that when we have a lot of other distractions going on, nothing gets done the way it’s supposed to get done. What a bummer, right?

You need to focus on the fact that you’re playing for real money. It’s your hard earned money on the table. Why not make sure that it’s protected at all costs? Why not make sure that you’re really getting things under control? Why not make sure that you have everything you could want tended to in a proper manner. That’s going to really make it easier to get things handed in the proper way. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of time feeling frustrated and ultimately sick of playing poker.

Of course, if you do end up getting burnt out, it’s not a bad idea to step back and make sure that you’re getting enough rest. You might be playing a lot more poker than you think which can be enough to really stress you out. It’s up to you to get things done, so why not start today? Good luck!

Going Back to Aggressive Play in Poker

By Martin

Yes, we had to do it again: aggressive play rocks, and if you master aggressive play in the right way, you will get to see your career in poker take off quite a bit. This is because it’s always a good time to start thinking about how to get deeper in the game. You will benefit well from changing up your playing style. We decided to write about aggressive play again because so many people ask about it. Being aggressive doesn’t mean reckless, even though a lot of newcomers just assume that. It’s not the case at all. You will do a lot better thinking about pushing for aggressive play in terms of strategy. The aggressive player thinks about when and where to be aggressive, but also what type of intensity to honestly expect. You want to make sure that you’re thinking about your folds and your bluffs. Some people fold at the drop of a hat, while others think about staying in too long.

The first thing that you need to think about is how many people are playing. If you have a lot of players, there’s much greater chance of someone having something that can honestly beat you. On the other hand, if you have just a few players, then you might have better chances of actually landing on something good and being able to move around better.

You also want to look at how many chips you have. If you have the most chips out of everyone, then it’s time to put those chips to good use. Don’t let them just see the flop for free all of the time. If you do that, then they’re going to get used to that fine treatment and walk all over you. It makes a lot more sense to dig down deeper and start looking at the type of players you’re working with. A lot of players, when they don’t have any chips to speak of, will hunker down and the blinds will start eating them alive. This isn’t a good way to spend one’s time at all.

You are a lot better off in the long run to start thinking about how you interact with the other players and who is actually playing from pot to pot. Is there someone who always tends to raise? If so, then you know that they are playing a bit aggressive and you will want to study how they react. Poker is definitely a matter of psychology as well as strategy, and thinking about these things will truly make a difference for you in the long run.

Don’t forget to look at position. You need to look and see about whether or not you’re really in a good betting position, or if you’re just kidding yourself. Simply put, a good betting position means that you get to see how everyone else is playing before you make your own bet. This usually means being the small or big blind since they go last.

If you have the shortest stack on the table, you might think that aggressive play is going to carry you home. This isn’t the case at all. You would be better served thinking about when to push and when not to. Since you look desperate, everyone is going to assume that you have nothing to lose and take your chips along the way.

There’s also nothing wrong with taking things slowly to begin with. This gives you a time where you can adjust your image as you need to rather than getting caught up in the details. That’s going to give you the power to stay in the game for a long time. This is even more the case when it comes to tournaments where staying alive really is the top problem that you’re going to face.

Seeing how people respond to a raise is one of the key points of becoming a more aggressive player — just remember that aggressive really doesn’t mean reckless. That’s something that seems to be going around a lot, but it’s not where you want to be. Break out and profit today!

Full Tilt Poker Overview

By Martin

If you’ve never heard of full tilt poker then introduce yourself because it’s the latest trend in poker playing. This is for those who are more of an adrenalin and action junkie. This is a game that deals you into a new hand at a new table right after you fold your cards. There’s no down time when you choose to participate in this game because as soon as you think you’re done, you’re going to start playing again. There is a quick fold button that also gives you the opportunity to fold the hand that you get regardless of the position you are in at the table.

A New Opponent

One of the biggest changes in this game is the idea that each new hand is a new opponent at a new table. You won’t know whether or not he is a regular or a newbie at the game. Since you cannot develop the reads and determine the psychology behind one of the opponents it makes the game a little bit more challenging then it if you were to simply sit at the table with the same opponents the entire time.

If you are playing with a smaller stake the bulk of your money is going to come from the “fish.” In full tilt poker you may now always know who the fish is and who the regulars are until the hand is completely finished. By then it is usually too late to determine what types of strategies you should use against your competitor. You would even play tighter than normal because your opponents wouldn’t even notice or be able to tell. When you move on to a new table it is a clean slate and they will have no idea that you’re about to fold approximately twenty times in a row. All that your opponent can think about is his own cards.

Playing for the First Time

Playing this game of poker is going to be similar to the first time you played poker because that is the “mantra.” During these rounds you should wait for the big pairs and make the top pairs the better ones. The whole game is going to be changed by the fold and the quick fold options. The players will not wait around for a fantastic hand, because they will just leave, moving to a new table if they feel threatened by the weak cards that they have.

The average player range is going to be a little bit together and the fish is going to do what he always does, play a strange hand and it’s going to take him an oddly long time to flop his cards. The regulars are going to play a together hand with a tighter range.

Short Vs. Full Ring

Just like any other form of poker there is a significant different between the shorthanded and the full ring which is very real and in Rush this is a bigger deal than it would be normally. A six max rush game is not the same as the regular six-max game where few players are involved, everyone playing very quickly, and winning or losing depends on your ability to make decisions within seconds. More and more people are starting to come up with rush strategies and find the real value in this game due to the fact that it contradicts a lot of aspects in traditional poker with the same opponents throughout the whole game. If you can beat this game then you’re probably good at both regular poker and adrenalin sports. Rush poker is an extremely fun action packed game that is new to many who are used to the old and traditional, psychological way of playing it.

When you begin to play this game you may be caught off guard slightly, but the best way to deal with it is go with the flow. As a beginner the best way to go is “the tight way,” and don’t take too long to play your hand because someone else can easily fold his, which could be worse than yours. Rock the cards up and rake the cash in. After a few rounds of playing you may even get a nice little workout in!

Lean Into Online Poker Slowly – It’s For Your Own Good

By Martin

I’ve been playing poker for a long time online. I love it. There’s very few thrills in life that are more exciting than beating someone with a flush when they thought they had you with a straight, or when you get lucky with AA to the point that you end up with a nice full house thanks to the flop alone.

However, if you’re going to be a poker newbie, you can’t rush in. There’s a lot of “rushes” that newbies get themselves into, and I wanted to personally cover a few of them.

1. Too Much Limping

The process of limping is all about calling. You have a good hand, like JJ, but you just call rather than actually raising. If you have a high pocket pair, it’s best to raise pre flop, and then raise again once the flop comes down. This gives people the image that you’re really trying to portray — you mean business. There’s no other way to honestly say it. You mean business, and you’re going to claim that pot. If someone thinks that they’re going to beat you to that pot, they’re mistaken. That’s just the way it has to be honestly.

2. Projecting Insecurity

If you’re insecure in terms of how you play poker, it’s going to show eventually. Players are better off trying to hide when they don’t have the type of hand that they really want. It would be in your best interest to make sure that you aren’t trying to look tougher than what you really are, but you aren’t just running out of pots because you think that it’s going to make everyone feel more like you’re playing the right way. If you know that you have a good hand, go in with it. Bet well. Don’t bail out at the last minute. That will get you the image of someone that’s too insecure to really play poker. You just have to make sure that you start thinking about the type of poker that you’re ultimately trying to play.

3. Not Knowing Your Hand Strength

Hand strength is everything within the world of poker. Quick quiz: which hand is better, the Q-10 or the K-J? Well, in this case, the KJ is better. But what about when you’re dealing with a 10-7 suited (hearts) against a 2-3 unsuited? You would still want to keep the 10-7 in case of a flush draw. Be very careful to watch to see who is actually betting rather than just jumping in. That would be absolutely ridiculous.

4. Giving Too Much Away To See Turn and River

Don’t feed the pot when you don’t have anything to really show for yourself. Sure, you might hope for that last card to make a straight or that last card to make a flush…but is it worth it? If you’re a poker newbie, you need to study up on pot odds, implied odds, and reverse implied odds. Yes, that can be a lot of theory to remember going into a poker game, but it can also save you a lot of chips in the long run. We want to make money in poker perpetually, and that means that we need to be aware of the long term game. That’s all there is to it, really.

5. Not Folding Enough

There’s nothing wrong with folding when you know that you have no way of actually making a successful hand with what you have to work with. The mistake that newbies make is that they think that a magical card on the river is going to turn their crap hand into a great hand. That’s a good way to lose a lot of money in poker. What you must do from here is try to rise above that type of thing and really make sure that you’re going to be able to get the type of service that you really need. It’s going to be up to you to figure this type of thing out rather than just thinking that you don’t have anything else that needs to be done. It’s really going to be up to you when you really think about it. Why stay in a hand that doesn’t help you make money? Making money is the name of the game in poker. And if you can’t make money, then you are better off not flushing chips away just because you’re waiting on the river. Do you know what seasoned poker people call newbies that chase the last card on the board? [Read more…] about Lean Into Online Poker Slowly – It’s For Your Own Good

Strategy Against Passive Players

By Martin

Over the past few articles we introduced the basics of poker, including the rules, the hands, the terms, and the no-nos. In the following article we want to give some basic poker strategy advice. This will focus on No-limit Texas Hold’em. No limit hold’em is an intense game of psychology that includes basic tactical skills, which carry into many other forms and variations of poker.

The most important points that should be observed when playing a no-limit game are the types of players that are your opponents and how many hands go to face-off in a showdown. This is how to deal with different types of opponents:

Tight-passive: The tight or loose describes the amount of hands played and the aggressiveness characterizes the amount of betting.

1. Bluff at the flop as much as possible. Raise before the flop and try to steal the pot at the flop.

2. Fold when they back up their hand. When their bets are small, they have a bad hand. You should play more hands in this case then you normally would and if you hold a decent hand you should win. If they bet large that is a very good indicator that they have the best hand at the table and you should back out.

3. Take advantage when you have control of the game to stay ahead and you can squeeze a good amount of money out of these people.

The basics to deal with a loose passive and their varying degrees of extremities:

This is a great type of opponent to play against in no limit games. They will call when having the second or third best hand and hope that others bluff into them. These types of players do not like to play no limit but if they do play with you just milk money from them by betting mid-sized on any good hands.

When playing a strong loose – aggressive person, it often comes down to taking the person out of the game in one pot. They will try to scare you away from forcing them all in and you can not back down because they often have only the second best hand. It is essential to take these people out because they are very dangerous when they win big and take an enormous lead at the table. If the person is a maniac of playing hands, they will both lose major hands as well as win big pots. Maniacs are easier to deal with because they have no discipline and will end up loosing their chips as fast as they gained them.

Top 5 Advantages of Playing Poker Online

By Martin

Poker buffs are often quick to cast online poker aside, labelling it a poor substitute for the real thing. Among their complaints is the fact that, by virtue of its simulated nature, the game offers no personal interaction nor opportunity to read all-important poker tells. At the same time, they lament the fact that outside of the casino players cannot concentrate to the extent they should. What these traditional poker fans often forget to mention, however, are the many advantages that the online world can offer players who are open to making the transition.

1. More games for less

Financially speaking, converting to online poker can be extremely profitable, particularly for newcomers to the game. The majority of online poker rooms, take PokerMira for example, offer punters excellent sign-up and reload discounts, which enable you to play more tables for less money. For amateurs, this is an excellent way of learning without compromising your cash flow – something that cannot be said of the real-life equivalent.

2. A distraction-free environment

Contrary to the complaints of poker experts, the distractions you are subject to while playing online poker online can usually be avoided or controlled. By turning off the television, switching off your phone and deactivating chat software on your computer, you should be able to cut out distractions almost completely. Not so in a real-life casino where scrutiny from other players, noise and crowds can often compromise the concentration of amateurs and seasoned players alike. [Read more…] about Top 5 Advantages of Playing Poker Online

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