Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
When you play poker online, you will find a lot of different kinds of tournaments. The more “turbo” a tournament is, the faster the blinds will change. If you happen to enter into a super turbo, you will likely be given very few chips and very short bind rounds. You can either lose a lot of money in this system or win a lot of it very quickly. It’s just a matter of how you play things out. Here are some tips to help you make money with super turbos on a fairly consistent basis.
Push All In
When you only have 300 chips to work with, there isn’t much room to play the standard way. More often than not, you will be in an all in situation. Try to be the aggressor as much as possible so you can collect the blinds if everyone folds. Don’t call someone’s all in if you have a marginal hand, but don’t be afraid to push with one. A8 suited is a good all in hand for a super turbo, even if it isn’t a good hand in most other situations.
Don’t Play Bad Hands
In this situation, you can’t just play a hand to play a hand. You have to play to double up. Thus you can’t waste blind after blind on hands that don’t equate to anything. Your chips will dwindle very quickly if you go down that route.
Ignore Pot Odds
When you don’t have many chips to work with, you can’t be concerned about being pot committed or getting into a pot for cheap to see the flop. It’s all about absolute survival. Conserve those chips until you get a good hand; then push. It’s as simple as that.
Tags: full tilt turbo poker, speed poker, super turbo
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Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
If you plan on playing a long tournament online, you might find yourself slipping really quickly out of shear boredom. To alleviate some of that, follow the tips below.
Play More than One Table
To fight off the monotony of playing with the same people over and over, you can always just play at a table while you play the tournament. If things get heated on the tournament, sit out of the table and focus on the tourney. If you’re getting frustrated in the tourney, go to the table to relieve some stress. You don’t even have to play for real money. Just mess around with some fake chips you don’t care about.
Wait People out
If you develop a high enough chip stack early on, you can usually wait those last people out right before you get into the money. The key to this is to never let yourself get on the bottom. This isn’t always possible, but if you maintain a good chip stack throughout the tournament, you’ll be less likely to be bubble boy when it comes time to get rid of the last few people.
Use Your Breaks
Tournaments have breaks in them for a reason. Use them. Those four or five minute without a hand give you time to use the restroom, have a smoke, grab a snack, and potentially scream in frustration. Don’t sit at the computer impatiently waiting for the time to go faster. Step away to clear your head or a second and you’ll be able to make better decisions when you return. With the introduction of synchronized breaks, taking a few minutes away from the computer screen just got a whole lot easier.
Never Give up
This may be a bit of a cliché, but your attitude will greatly determine your success. If you give up, you’ll start playing poorly out of frustration. Just remind yourself that everything will be okay and you should see a comparable set of profits coming your way.
Tags: poker tournament tips, synchronized breaks
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Sunday, May 30th, 2010
If you are going to play poker online, you might as well use your anonymity to your advantage. No one knows who’s actually playing behind the screen, so you can literally be anyone you want to be. Here are a few different characters you might portray to yield positive results on an internet table.
Be a Woman
On most sites, you can put up some sort of avatar of yourself that would indicate your gender. If you portray yourself as a woman, people will be more surprised when you play well. You can also use this to your advantage by flirting with other players on the table. If, for instance, you have a particularly chesty avatar, you can get a lot of guys to comment on that really quickly. If they are focused on your fake boobs, they won’t be focused on the game. That’s just a quick way to develop a tall chip stack.
If you can’t choose a female avatar, at least pick a name that will indicate your sex. Something like “sexypair” or “i_own_the_boys” would suggest that you’re a woman. Select a name accordingly.
Be a Donkey
If you portray yourself as an absolute idiot online, you will get a lot of people who think they can take advantage of you. Ask stupid questions in chats and make the occasional dumb call just so people think you’re stupid. Then wow them when you make amazing play after amazing play, defying their image of you in their mind. The element of surprise is often the key to poker success online.
Be an Ass
Indeed, acting like Hellmuth every once and awhile does pay off. If you can make yourself look like an absolute jerk, you can get a lot of people angry on your table. Angry people usually make bad calls and tilt pretty easily, so getting them hot under the collar can also get them to hand their chips over, in essence. As long as you don’t get genuinely angry along the way, you should be good to go.
Tags: poker donkeys, poker faces, poker ladies, poker tells
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Thursday, April 15th, 2010
No matter where you play poker online, you should have the option to chat with others at your table, or with people that are observing your table. A lot of times that simple box might seem like it’s in a foreign language though as people use chat speak in there to congratulate one another or, more commonly, to tell each other off. If you don’t know what’s going on with the chats at your table, think look at some of these terms for quick reference.
nh: Nice hand. A lot of people don’t use this enough. If you see someone on your tale with a great hand and a legitimate betting style, throw an “nh” their way. You may also see vnh, which just means very nice hand.
nb: Nice bet. This is usually used to tell someone that they played a hand well and made a bet that caused the opponent to really think about their own hand. This can also be used sarcastically though, so be careful and read the context.
np: Nice play. This again is used to congratulate someone on a well played hand, often the result of either a good bluff or a good trap.
gg: Good game. This is used to tell someone goodbye when they get knocked out of a tournament, assuming that the person actually did play a good game. If the person made stupid calls, stupid bets, or stupid raises, he or she will likely not receive any “gg’s”.
os: off suit. If a person says they have A10 os, that means that they have an Ace and a ten in their hand and the cards are not of the same suit. This could be any combination of cards.
donkey: This is a universal poker term for a really crappy player. Other versions of this include donk, fish, and some unpleasant words that are best left out of this article. If you are called a donkey or any derivative of that term, take it as an offense.
These chat terms may come in handy especially at rooms like UB.net and Absolutepoker.net where the players are more out there.
Tags: all in chat, chat in poker, note taking, player notes
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Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
The $25,000 PokerStars.net Nohegan Sun High Roller Bounty Shootout ended with a bang for Jason Mercier. 35 players were entered into this event with such a huge buy-in in this $450,000 first place prize event. The Bounty hunter with the most bounties ends up with the $450,000 and of course owns the title.
In event with such importance on chip stacks, Luis Vazques came to the final table short handed against other players including Jason Mercier, Sam Stein, Matt Glanz, Shawn Buchanan, and Faraz Jaka. All player new what was at stake to take down the huge cash prize.
With 7 bounties on the Jason Mercier actually walked home with $450,000 for his efforts. Not a bad day if you ask me. The rest of the players had some nice payouts as well.
Tags: NAPT tournament results
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Monday, April 12th, 2010
Have you ever had a hand where you knew you had nothing but you already had enough chips out there to call? This is called being “pot committed”, and a lot of times if you follow through with that, it pays off. Below are a few different scenarios where it’s better just to call and see what happens.
Someone Goes All-In
If you already have a big blind in the pot and a low stack on your table goes all-in, you’re usually already pot committed. That means that no matter what two cards you have you have to call the guy’s all-in with the possibility of knocking him out. Bet thing to do is to see what you would be getting out of a possible win. If the amount of money that you have to put out is half or less than half of the pot that is already out there, you should probably call. The exception to that would be if you are a low stack yourself and would be risking your own tournament with stupid cards.
You Face a Small Bet
If a person bets a really small amount into a really huge pot, you usually have to call. Folding will just indicate that you were bluffing the whole time and didn’t have anything. If that’s true, then you have to determine if the other person was bluffing as well. Either way, you should probably put up the chips just to see what happens.
You Have a Ton of Chips Invested
If you’ve already invested a very large portion of your chip stack into a pot, then you probably have to follow through. You of course can fold to preserve your stack, but if you have put in half of your money into one pot, the other half will likely need to follow.
Things will always progress in Internet Poker, but sticking to odds may be your best bet sometimes.
Tags: pot committed, pot odds
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Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
No matter which poker room you play in there will be plenty of times when you find a Guaranteed tournament that is ripe for the taking. What this means is, on top of the buy-ins from all the players there will be cash the Poker room has to put up to meet the guarantee. In other words, there are not enough players in the tournament to meet the amount everyone is expecting. Especially in the smaller rooms, you will find these all the time. The amount of free money will vary of course, but when you do find one, it is such an advantage.
If you have a poker tournament that has a $10,000 cash prize pool GUARANTEE with the Buy-in set at $50, you will need at least 200 players to meet the guarantee. Say only 175 players make it in the tournament, by the time late registration is over. That leaves 25 players already eliminated from the tournament, before you even start. This adds $1250 to the prize pool. This is fantastic for players who play in a lot of tournaments. This gives you better odds of not only making it into the money, but actually winning a good percentage more cash.
Listed below are a couple of poker tournaments that were hosted at UB.com, in which there were some nice overlays. Obviously finding these games takes some research, but you will find them soon after you start playing on a daily basis.
Notice in the $15K tournament there are only 178 players enrolled. With a $60 buy-in you need 250 players to get to the $15,000. This tournament was 72 players short and $4,320 was added by UB to fill the Guarantee. What a great overlay this was for the players in this one.
In this $2.5K guarantee poker tournament you can see that there were only 78 entrants. With a $25 buy-in you need 100 players to meet the number. This put us ahead of 22 players in guaranteed cash which is $550 added by UB.com to meet the match.
Tags: added to the prize pool tournaments, poker overlays, tournament overlays
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Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Standard Bets for Poker Beginners
If you’re new to the poker world or just wanting to make your bets a little more consistent, there are some standard amounts that you can consider. Sure, bets change from hand to hand, but for the most part, you can learn some of these basic values and apply them to your game so you look a bit less like a donkey. Overbetting and underbetting are both signs of someone who doesn’t know the game. Follow the tips below so you don’t look like that person.
Pre-Flop Raises
If you are going to raise before the flop, three times big blind is the standard. That means that if the big blind is 20, you would raise it to 60. If someone has already raised, the standard is to raise it three times their raise, so the 60 would be raised to 180. This may lead to an all in eventually, but go through the raising first.
Value Bets
If you want to just make a bet to see what the other person has, you need to at least make it the same as the bet you had the previous round. For instance, if you didn’t catch the flop at all and you bet three times blind the round before, you would bet that same amount again just to see if the other person re-raises you or folds. If the person does re-raise you, then you can get out of the hand but still leave knowing you were the aggressor.
Half or Two Thirds Pot
Most of the time a bet in a hand will be half or two thirds the size of the pot, depending of course on the size of the pot and the circumstances of the hand. Nevertheless, you’ll look like a donkey if you bet a really small amount into a really huge pot, so at least bet one third of it. If not, then don’t bet at all. See what the other person says and then respond accordingly.
Tags: betting on streets, poker bets, value betting the pot
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Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
A satellite in poker is a tournament that gets you into another tournament. This allows you to get into a high dollar entry for a low dollar amount if you are able to play correctly. What a lot of people don’t know though is if you play satellite tournaments online, you don’t actually have to play the tournament you get into. Instead, you can unregister for the tournament and get the buy in amount back to you in tournament dollars. You can use that money for other tournaments, or you can convert it for a small fee and get real money from it. With the right strategies in mind, you can actually make a lot of money playing online poker this way.
The key to the satellite system is to go into satellites that have good odds. You can calculate that by dividing the entry fee that you would win by the entry fee you have to pay. If you pay $5 to get into a tournament and win a $25 entry from it, there is a one in five chance that you will make money. Most of the time you can find satellites in the 1:3 or 1:4 range, which are pretty good to get into. There are those that are 1:7 in beyond, but they aren’t worth the efforts at times. Sure the payouts are higher, but you have to beat out more people to get to them. If you want minimal risks, go for good odds.
Once you get down to the “bubble boy” in the satellite, or the person right before the money, just try to wait it out as best you can. With these tournaments, getting first isn’t important. As long as you make it into the paid places, you’ve won. Just keep looking for tournaments at the best online poker sites with good odds and then play your best. The rest is money in the virtual bank.
Tags: full tilt satellites, online poker satellites, Poker Satellites
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Thursday, April 1st, 2010
There is a ton of software out there nowadays that’s made just to help online poker players out. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t. the Hold ‘Em Indicator just happens to be a product that works, and by using it, you could make your internet poker playing experience a lot better. Let’s take a little look at what all this indicator might do for you…
The Hold ‘Em Indicator is a fantastic tool to use if you play internet poker because it will show you cast amounts of information about the players on your table and the hands you are playing. You can track people’s playing stats so you can learn their style of play, and you can actually start that while you are a normal observer on the table. You don’t have to spend a dime to gather information, and then when you get ready to play, you’ll already have the stats laid out in front of you.
Click Here to get your FREE Download of Hold’em Indicator
With the Hold ‘Em Indicator, you can see your odds for making certain moves with a hand, as well as the pot odds required for you to make a certain call. You can figure out what your chances are of winning a hand, and then you can make your decisions accordingly. This makes a good bluff feel a whole lot sweeter. You can also see other player’s mucked cards right after they muck them so you can figure out how opponent play certain hands. While you can do the same with the last hand history feature in a room, it’s sill convenient to have it instantly displayed.
The indicator will tell you your opponents’ betting styles so you can see where the good and bad players are on the table. The bad ones you can obviously take advantage of, and the good ones you can respect or avoid. The software assesses the players and categorizes them for you. This is the lazy man’s solution to playing online poker.
There are a few different interfaces for the indicator. You can use the mini mode for quick reference and then expand when you want full player details. Everything seems simple to navigate through, so you can use it without getting a headache afterward. Overall, the Hold ‘Em Indicator is a great poker software to utilize when you’re in a poker room, so you might want to look in getting this for yourself.
Tags: free holdem indicator, holde'em indicator, pot odds calculator, torunament indicator
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Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
What a great incentive FullTIlt is offering all its players for 9 days in April. The best part of this deal is you don’t have to do anything that you aren’t already doing. You just have to play your in your normal ring games to earn these specialized points. Starting April 3, 2010 through April 11, 2010 will be when this deal goes down.
What do you get during Take 2?
1. Double the Full Tilt Points
2. $25 in hard cash in your account.
What do you have to do to earn these special items?
1. Play in any Rush Poker game during the Take 2 event.
2. Play at two ring games tables at once during the Take 2 time period.
How do you ear the $25 Cash?
The more you play during the Take 2 hours the more FTP points you will earn which in turn puts you on your way to free cash. This deal requires you to earn 5 FTP points in 5 days, which is not that difficult to do. More information about this can be read at the FullTilt site.
At this point all you have to do is open an account at FullTilt and make a real money deposit. Then starting April 3rd you can start participating in this deal. You will then be on your way to earning those points that can then be used in the poker store.
Tags: full tilt points, Take 2 at FullTilt
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Monday, March 29th, 2010
Once in a while you have to say to yourself, am I really happy with the poker room I’m playing at right now. This will happen more often than not especially after you take a few bad beats. That leads me to our discussion today which is about the poker room provided by Sportsbook.com. Obviously you see the name and you think NCAA or NFL, but in reality they provide their customers with a great poker room with a lot of players.
The cool thing about joining up is the New depositor Freeroll offered to all new players. Right away you are in the mix and going after real money even though you really haven’t spent a dime yet.
You will also get your bonus of course, if you use the right promo code that gives you 100% up to $650. Once your account is setup you can watch how your bonus clears the more you play. It will take some time, but you should be able to clear it relatively soon if you play $1/2 or above. For every $10 of bonus money that you clear, this amount will be dropped in your cash account and ready for action.
Of course, the freeroll tournament is one of the greatest things that has happened to poker. This gives all players a chance at the prize with nothing to lose. This $500 freeroll runs every Wednesday at 10:30pm EST.
Now that you account is all setup you are well on your way to better poker playing and building that bankroll. Stay tuned for some more poker tips in the future.
Tags: bonus codes, new depositor freeroll, promo codes, sportsbook freeroll
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Friday, March 26th, 2010
Slide into the Sit-and-Go Money
There are a lot of people playing poker online who literally make a living by sliding into the money at basic, nine person sit-and-go tables. Their strategies vary from one person to the next, but if you follow the guide below, you should have a good chance of making it into the money most of the time.
Don’t Play at the Beginning
Wait until the third or fourth round of blinds before you even start playing. This allows you to weed out the initial donkeys in your room that might just be there for a quick all-in double up. If you decide to play a pot for some reason, only play excellent cards and go into the pot for three times blind or less. You want minimal investments, even in these early stages.
Play Only Good Hands
When you hit that third or fourth round of blinds, you can start playing tier one hands, which are 10s and above, and Ace/King. For those, raise three times blind pre-flop to get the computer in your favor. If you face an aggressive opponent, just fold and wait for a better opportunity later on. Only stay in the pot if you are entirely sure you will win. You don’t want to lose too much too soon. Do this for two more rounds of blinds.
Expand the Hands You Play
You can now play tier two hands, which include all of tier one, plus 7s or better and suited Aces (AQ, AJ, A10, etc). Play with only these hands and the aforementioned betting strategies until you get down to one player before money.
Fight for the Money
When you only have to get rid of one other player, determine if you are low enough in chips to go all in. This would be if you are down to half or less of your original chip stack. If not, continue playing low risks hands until you eliminate the low stack on the table. Once you have slid into the money, play as you would normally since the goal is just to make money.
Tags: nl holdem SNG's, poker strategy, sit and go tournaments
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Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Only 64 days until the start of the 2010 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, NV. That is just great, how do I pay for that? Well, how about qualifying for your seat by playing in the many online qualifiers.
AbsolutePoker.com has setup a way to make your way into the 2010 WSOP for as little as 10 cents. Although it will be a tough road ahead there are other ways.
The Series 2010 Options for Qualifying
Steps – Play in tournaments for only a dime to get your ticket
Super Satellites – Every week there will be a tournament with a Buy-in of $500-$30
Towering 25 Seat Satellite – On June 6th is a huge event with 25 guaranteed seats being given away in the $500-$30 poker tournament.
Fantastic 50 Seat Satellite – Win one of 50 guaranteed WSOP prizes on June 20th at 4 pm in this $500-$30 event.
Daily Qualifiers – Of course instead of paying the your way into these $500 tournaments you can qualify in many of the daily events that you will find in the lobby.
As you can see there are several ways to make into the main event of the WSOP with not that much money. Of course this is only one of the many poker rooms offering this sweet deal. Sometimes you may find it easier to get your qualifier at a smaller room then say PokerStars.com or FullTiltPoker.com
Stay tuned for more information about other great rooms and there special events. Getting your ticket into the WSOP is our goal, so stick around.
Tags: win a wsop seat, wsop poker seat
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Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
Poker players have a tendency to pick on the newbies because they’re usually a quick source of money. If you’re looking to find that newbie on the table, there are a few things you can look for, many of which are listed below. Also take some time to look over this list if you are in fact a newcomer to the game. This may help you be less preyed upon when it comes playing time.
Quickly Looking at Cards
If you don’t know this already, you don’t have to look at your cards right when they’re dealt to you. Instead, you’re supposed to watch everyone else when they look at their cards so you can see if they have a positive or negative reaction. The hasty glance at the deal is a sign of a newbie.
Fumbling with Chips
Tossing your chips into a pot should look just like that – a toss. If you see someone just set their chips in the pot or practically throw them in, they likely don’t have much experience in poker. Also, if the person tries to casually play with his or her chips and is doing more fumbling than playing, he or she is most likely a newbie.
Confusion with the Blinds
If you have to repetitively tell someone at the table what the blinds are and when it’s their turn to put money in, chances are you’re dealing with a newbie. Same can be said for pot sizes and minimum betting amounts. Forgetting on occasion is normal, but consistent forgetting is a sign of a newbie.
Overbetting the Pots
If you have a person on a table betting more than pot all the time or who is going all in consistently for low pots, you probably have a newbie on your hands. A standard three times blind raise is expected pre-flop, so if you have someone raising double that or more,you should question his or her experience.
Tags: newbie poker, noobs
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Sunday, March 21st, 2010
Because of the popularity of Texas Hold’Em, a lot of people don’t even realize the array of poker games that exist out there. Some people do better with certain games than others, so to increase your chances of winning, you need to figure out your strong suit. Below are some different poker games for you to consider.
Texas Hold’Em: Players are dealt two cards face down and five cards total on the board. Rounds of betting occur before the board cards are placed, after the flop (the first three cards), after the turn (the next card), and after the river (the last card). Player with the best of five cards in between the ones on the board and the ones in his/her hand wins, unless betting causes a fold. This is a great beginner game to introduce someone into the concepts of poker, betting, etc.
Omaha: Players are dealt four cards instead of two and still have the same five on the board. Players must make their winning hand out of two cards in their hand and three on the board. This creates more possibilities for combination’s, but it also makes it more likely that an opponent has a better hands. The nut flush is often a bad hand because of the amount of full house possibilities in Omaha. This game is normally played with limit betting though, so it can provide great opportunities for conservative players.
Stud: Players are dealt two cards each face down and one face up. Three more cards are dealt to each face up and the final, seventh card is dealt face down. Rounds of betting happen after the first set of cards and each card after that. Stud is often difficult to play because you can practically see the other players’ hands. This evolves into a lot of bluffing, or a lot of easy defeats. This game is also played in limit most of the time, so you can usually see a lot of cards for little investment. With all the cards on the table, you can also determine the likelihood of you getting that one card you might need for a big hand, giving you a chance to get out when things aren’t looking good.
Razz: This game is dealt and played just like Stud, but the goal is to get the worst hand possible. Disconnected cards (those that don’t make pairs) are the best, but straights and flushes don’t count against you.”The Wheel” is the best hand in this game, or any low versions of the games above, and it is comprised of A, 2, 3, 4, 5. With Razz, you just have to like playing low hands. Some people do; some people don’t.
HORSE: If you can’t make up your mind, play HORSE. There you get a round of each of the games listed above, with the last round being Stud Hi/Low (Eight or better). It’s the perfect solution for the not-so-choosy among us.
Tags: HORSE poker, stud poker, Texas Hold'em, What’s Your Razz pokerPoker Game?
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Saturday, March 20th, 2010
Cake Poker Launches WSOP Satellites
With the slogan “What happens in Vegas is up to you”, Cake Poker launches its World Series of Poker satellites for another season.
The Cake Poker 2010 WSOP series satellites give players the opportunity to win a prize package valued at $12,500 featuring a free seat in the 2010 World Series of Poker in Vegas. Each prize package includes $2,500 cash to spend as you will, along with some other special treats.
This is where the “entirely up to you” part comes in. For example, now instead of staying at the site of the 2010 WSOP, you can choose to stay where you choose.
And instead of winning a seat into the event of Cake Poker’s choosing, you can choose which events you’d like to participate in with your satellite win. That’s why the site isn’t calling these 2010 WSOP Main Event satellites, just 2010 WSOP satellites. That means you can apply your $12,500 prize package to entry into the $10K No Limit Championship, two $5,000 buy-in events, or even a dozen $1,000 buy-in events.
Even more incredible, Cake Poker isn’t even requiring its satellite winners to wear Cake Poker gear during the tournament in order to receive their free tournament entry. Cake Poker isn’t asking you to advertise for them in order to win a WSOP seat. As they put it best “No strings attached”.
Satellites run daily for $3.30 and $5.50 with a thrice daily semifinal and a weekly final in which the $12,500 WSOP prize packages are awarded. There is also a 5-step Sit ‘n Go satellite structure with buy-ins starting at just $1 that you can climb in order to win free seats in any of the WSOP’s many $2,500 buy-in events.
Tags: bonus at cake poker, cake poker bonus code, cakepoker.com, cale poker
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Friday, March 19th, 2010
If you like Titan Poker already, then you’re going to love the new Titan Poker 9.6 software upgrade. And if you’re not yet a fan of the biggest iPoker Network site and one of Europe’s most popular online poker rooms, then maybe this will convince you to finally join the bandwagon.
TitanPoker 9.6 is totally Mac compatible, boasts advanced uses of Flash for a more visually striking online poker experience, new tables and tournaments in Razz poker, and five more languages added to its list of multilingual skin, those being for the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, and Romania.
They’ve also got a stylish brand new logo, but that’s not likely to draw any more player action. What will draw more player action, most assuredly, is TitanPoker’s newly launched online poker training site, Titan Poker Academy. Lessons at Titan Poker Academy will range from beginning poker concepts all the way up to advanced topics like bluffing, positioning, odds calculations, and so on. The Academy also includes a hardy poker strategy handbook that could potentially be as valuable to its readers as the Titan Poker Academy could be to TitanPoker’s overall player base.
Currently Titan Poker is giving away 5 prize packages into the 2010 WSOP Main Event with its World Challenge promotion. Since there’s still time win you way into the world’s biggest and most notorious live poker tournament (won many a time by a formerly unknown online poker qualifier), you could head to the Titan Poker Academy and bone on up on your skills, then put them to the test online in the 2010 World Challenge before you ultimately find yourself squaring off against the best poker players in the world in Las Vegas.
Tags: titan poker, titan poker bonus code, titanpoker.com bonus code
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Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Ultimate Bet Cancels One Big Live Event, Schedules Another
Ultimate Bet Poker, now going by the cuter and catchier moniker UB.com (or UB.net depending on where they’re advertising) has cancelled a major land-based poker tournament event that it had been scheduled to sponsor and for which it was running satellites to award free entries.
That now-cancelled event is…was the 2010 Aruba Poker Classic. A disappointment to some it may be, but UB did create the event, and as they say (whoever they are)—the hand that giveth can also be the hand that taketh away.
When explaining why they cancelled the event, UB representatives said they were trying to grow into a larger poker site and that the resources going toward this land-based event could maybe be put to better use bolstering the site’s online presence.
Ironically, in stark contrast to that statement, Ultimate Bet is now co-sponsoring with the newly launched Poker Pro Canada magazine the inaugural Four Aces Poker Pro Canada Classic, to be held April 15 – 18 in Montreal, Canada. Sounds like they’re trying to bolster their Canadian presence as well.
In the way of increased online poker offerings UB.com will also be running its popular UB Online Championship two times a year instead of just once. The site is also working on establishing a monthly $500,000 guaranteed tournament with the hopes of building it into a $1 million guaranteed.
Ultimate Bet currently boasts as one of its sponsored pros the recent winner of the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, Annie Duke. Phil Hellmuth, the other poker legend who represents the site, is also making quite a showing in 2010, making at least one major land-based tournament’s final table.
Tags: ub poker tournaments, ub.com, ub.net, ultimatebet.net
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Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Represent Your Country In The PokerStars 2010 Americas Cup
Ten countries from the Western hemisphere will be facing off for a $150,000 guaranteed prize pool in the PokerStars 2010 Americas Cup. The online poker series starts March 15 and runs through April 14. Players can go online now and fight to represent their country in the live final taking place in South America’s Iguazu Falls.
The ten countries participating in the PokerStars Americas Cup will be: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, the US, and a “Rest of LATAM” team composed of the players from the other Latin American countries not otherwise represented.
Here’s how the online part of the PokerStars 2010 Americas Cup contest will go. All ten teams from all ten countries will compete in 3 tiers of poker tournament—a freeroll tier, an 11-cent buy-in tier, and a $1.10 buy-in tier. The best 100 players from each of these will get points. Players points are then pooled according to country, and the country with the most points secures themselves a spot in the final. At the final, the top 4 players based on individual points earnings will be chosen to represent the rest of their team against the top 4 points-earners from each of the opposing teams.
At this stage, 2 teams will be eliminated, and 8 of the 10 teams will be heading to Iguazu Falls for the final. The first 6 of these teams will be automatically chosen based on the top 6 performing countries in the online poker portion of the event. Then the remaining 4 countries will compete in an online playoff the 2 remaining spots on April 16 – 18.
The first place winners at the 2010 Americas Cup final will share a $50,000 top prize, with $35,000 going to second and $20,000 to third.
PokerStars freeroll Sit ‘n Go satellites into the $0.11 buy-in qualifiers are running now.
Tags: americas cup, americas cup 2010, americas poker cup, Represent Your Country In The PokerStars 2010 Americas Cup
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Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
Party Poker Puts Out Schedule For Women’s World Open IV
The fourth annual Party Poker Women’s World Open is coming up soon—Tuesday, March 23rd and Wednesday, March 24th to be exact—and it features twenty-four of poker’s hottest ladies (and we don’t only mean by physical appearance) in a fierce ladies only fight to the finish for a share of approximately $72,000.
Cosponsored by top online sports betting site Matchroom Sport, the PartyPoker Women’s World Open of Poker IV takes place in London, England and some of Britain’s best female players will certainly be in attendance, most notably last year’s big winner, the Women’s World Open III champion Aisling Collins. Her runner-up Wooka Kim from Japan will also be there too, hoping this time to go all the way (and not just almost). Other headliners planned to be present will be the winner of the Women’s World Open II, Soraya Homan; Annette Obrestad, representing Betfair Poker; and Team PartyPoker member Kara Scott.
The prize pool is estimated to be $72,000, based on the expected sum of all the $3,000 buy-ins paid by the contestants—like Shelley Rubenstein, Stefanie Bergener, and Pippa Flanders—for entry.
Competitors—like Christine Kleez, Laurence Grondin, and Maria Demetriou—will be divided into 3 groups doing battle in 8-handed deep-stacked tournaments that will seed the top 2 players from each into a 6-handed final table.
With Annie Duke having just won the NBC National Heads-Up Championship of Poker, the year has already got one leading lady of poker. And now, with the Matchroom Sport and Party Poker Women’s World Open IV, it’s time for another of the world’s finest female poker players to join her in the spotlight.
Tags: girls that play poker, poker babes, poker chicks, poker girls, poker hotties
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Monday, March 15th, 2010
Everyone wants to get in on the action around March Madness. What better way to get access to not one, but three different pools without spending a dime and a chance to win $1000’s. I was thinking the same thing. This is too good to be true. It only takes you a few minutes to sign up and get in on the action.
SportsBook.com
Your first stop is at SportsBook.com. They are offering you $13,000,000 if you get a perfect bracket, but seriously who ever gets that. You have a better chance at winning the lottery. The cool thing is with Sportsbook.com, is that you will have access to a sweet poker room and you’ll be able to place some bets on the tournaments games.
Bodog.com
Your second stop is at Bodog.com. Bodog is offering $5000 for first place, which isn’t bad considering it is free to enter. You can even create a private league with your friends. The Bodog Bracket Buster Public league will be locked at 9:00am on March 18th.
Round 1 = 1 Point
Round 2 = 2 Points
Sweet Sixteen = 4 Points
Elite Eight = 8 Points
Final Four = 16 Points
National Championship = 32 Points
Betus.com
Once you complete your brackets at both Sportsbook.com and Bodog.com, you are off to BetUs.com where you can win $5,000,000 if you get the perfect bracket. Worth as shot I guess. The cool thing about BetUs is, you can enter in the full bracket, the round of 16 and the round of 8. There are multiple options for you to go after with big fist place prizes. The coolest feature is the the first round busted bracket contest. In this case you go after as many wrong as possible. The more you have wrong in the first round the better your chances of winning become.
Get out there and get busy filling out those brackets. You have nothing to lose at this point and only a short while to get your picks in.
Good Luck.
Tags: basketball brackets, march madness, ncaa brackets, ncaa tournament brackets
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Monday, March 15th, 2010
For an online gambling operation (and even for online poker rooms) player deposits and withdrawals constitute one of the most delicate issues. After all, how can an online gambling entity expect to attract high numbers of depositing players if they fail to provide everyone with the handiest method to upload funds? People are generally not too keen to get any of their money online for any reason, so in order to make the sale, the casino has to provide a wide array of deposit and withdrawal methods, which are certain to satisfy the needs of all potential customers. No casino can afford to lose a single real money player on account of the limited funds-transfer options offered.
Anyway, let’s see some of the deposit and withdrawal methods casinos offer and the advantages or disadvantages they carry.
Credit cards represent one of the most common solutions to depositing money into an online casino account. Credit cards are generally accepted by all online casinos (at least VISA and MasterCard are) and payments are fast and commission free. The only problem paying through credit cards poses is that you’ll have to give out sensitive personal information in order to complete the transaction. Nowadays, when personal privacy is more and more encroached upon, keeping sensitive information away from those you transfer money to for whatever reason, is an increasingly popular demand. If you’re trying to withhold sensitive data from your online casino, credit card deposits do not represent a viable option for you. This doesn’t mean you can toss the plastic aside though. You can still use them for deposits, only you need to insert a buffer entity between your credit card and your online casino.
Such buffer entities are called e-wallets. Neteller and Moneybookers are such ewallet solutions, but since Neteller has pretty much withdrawn from online gambling I’ll take Moneybookers as an example. Creating a Moneybookers account will only take a few minutes of your time. Before you know it, you’ll have a fully operational e-wallet, to which you’ll be able to upload funds through a variety of ways. You can use the good old fashioned bank transfer if you wish, but you can also use your credit card to upload funds. It is true that there’s a small commission on credit card uploads, but once you get the money into your e-wallet account, you’ve pretty much created a stealthy, instant and 100% reliable solution to transfer money online to any e-shop, online poker room, online casino or online gaming facility. Lately, e-wallets are accepted by online auction sites too, which turns them into a one-package solution for all your online financial needs.
Most of these e-wallets feature limits on the amount of money you can transfer (in order to prevent money laundering and fraud) but those limits can be expanded relatively easily.
The great thing about them is that you can use them for funds withdrawal as well, which means stealth works both ways and an e-wallet cash-out won’t carry the fingerprints of the casino where you win your money.
Checks can also be used for withdrawals together with a whole bunch of other options, but none of them beats e-wallets. E-wallet withdrawals usually charge people a very small flat fee.
Remember, if you’re an online poker player, always sign up for a rakeback deal before you begin playing.
Deals like the Entraction rakeback or the Full Tilt rakeback will make certain you always have money to withdraw at the end of the month (provided you’re at least a break-even player).
Tags: deposit bonus, ewallet for US, moneybookers, us deposit rooms, us poker deposits
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Sunday, March 14th, 2010
Win Crazy Money In Full Tilt Poker Sit & Go Madness
This weekend, Full Tilt Poker will be reprising its fast-paced, high-adrenaline Sit & Go Madness promotion, an opportunity for players to win a share of a $125K guaranteed prize purse.
Full Tilt Poker Sit and Go Madness runs from Friday, March 5 at 4 pm ET to Sunday, March 7 at 4 pm ET. It’s a 48-hour period that will be broken up into 24 two-hour segments. At the close of every two-hour segment, prize money will be awarded to the highest 7 finishers as determined by a leader board keeping track of players performance throughout the event.
In addition to being divided up into chronological segments, the participants in the Full Tilt Poker Sit and Go Madness event will also be divided up according to the stakes at which they’re playing. There are 4 different Sit and Go Madness stakes ranges, and all of a player’s leaderboard points must come from the same stakes range in order to qualify them for a cash prize.
Also, besides giving away prize money every two-hours, Full Tilt Poker will also be giving out major bonuses at the end of the entire 48-hour period to the player who scored the most leaderboard points in any given two-hour segment.
What’s more, there will be a $5,000 freeroll and a $50K Sit and Go Madness freeroll for players who performed well but not well enough to win them top awards to have a chance at still winning big. And lastly, there’s the Full Tilt Poker Sit & Go Madness Raffle.
Tags: FTP promotions, fulltilt tournaments, sit and go poker, sit and go tournaments, sitngo
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Friday, March 12th, 2010
NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship Contestants Announced: Series March 5-7
On February 23, 2010, and following several weeks of buzz, the complete list of poker pros and other celebrities participating in the upcoming NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship was announced.
The list includes several expected names, many from NBC Heads-Up Poker Championships of years past, like
That’s not to mention the champions of this event from years past: Huck Seed, Chris Ferguson, Paul Wasicka, Ted Forrest, and Phil Hellmuth, and the previous two runner-ups Vannessa Rousso and Andy Bloch, who qualified automatically.
Also on the list by virtue of automatic qualification were: 2010 WSOP Main Event champ Joe Cada, his runner-up Darvin Moon, the 2009 WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate, and the inimitable Phil Ivey, as well as Eric Baldwin, Sam Farha, Peiter de Korver, Jason Mercier, Greg Mueller, Brock Parker, Leo Wolpert and Jerry Yang.
There were the self-evident invitees: rivals Patrik Antonius and Tom Dwan, Godfather of Poker Doyle Brunson, the first online qualifier to nab a WSOP Main Event title Chirs Moneymaker, and PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge star Daniel Negreanu, along with Annie Duke, Antonio Esfandiari, Gus Hansen, Mike Matusow, Scotty Nguyen, and Mike Sexton.
And the usual suspects of actor cum poker stars were also on the list, namely: Don Cheadle, Orel Hershiser, Gabe Kaplan, and Jennifer Tilly.
But there are also a bevy of new faces scheduled to sit in at one of broadcast television’s biggest and most popular televised poker tournament , such as obscure WSOP bracelet winners Jesper Hougaard (2008) and John Paul Kelly (2009).
The NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship will take place from March 4 to 7, 2010 and the total list of players includes 68 names.
Notably absent from the list were 2010 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) main event winner Barry Shulman and multiple 2010 WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro.
Tags: heads up poker, nbc poker, poker on tv, tv poker
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Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Earn A Fast $50 or More At Full Tilt Poker’s New Rush Poker Tables
Recently Full Tilt Poker introduced a brand new innovation in online poker, designed to heighten the pace of an already fast paced game. They aptly named it Rush Poker.
In Rush Poker, there is no waiting around after you fold from a hand until the other players are finished playing it out. Instead Full Tilt Poker jettisons you to an open seat at another table of the same table stakes where a new hand is just being dealt out. This way, you actually play a lot more hands per hour, and you’re always in the action at the table. You also stand to win (or lose) a lot more money in any given session of online poker at Rush Poker than at standard online poker cash tables.
To help encourage people to play at their new and already amazingly popular Rush Poker tables (in fact a playing field which, from the looks of it, needs no encouraging) Full Tilt Poker is running a promotion involving free money—a Fast $50, to be precise—for speedily clearing outstanding bonuses.
Clearing a bonus means you earn enough Full Tilt Points (FTPs) by playing in enough real money games at Full Tilt Poker to access your bonus. Accessing your bonus means earning the ability to withdraw your entire bonus, if you wish, from your Full Tilt Poker real money account.
With the Fast $50 bonus you have until March 10 to make your first deposit and clear your welcome bonus. That’s where Rush Poker comes in, since that’s not a lot of time to earn FTPs, but in Rush Poker, you not only play faster, you earn FTPs faster too.
Tags: fast 50 at rush poker, free money rush poker, fulltiltpoker rush, rush poker, rushpoker.com
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Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Last week PokerStars released the schedule for its 2010 SCOOP, or the Spring Championship of Online Poker. If you missed it, don’t worry, it’s since changed.
After releasing the schedule, PokerStars did an interesting thing. They asked their loyal players on the PokerStars user forums what they thought of the schedule and actually implemented some of the feedback. So the new revised PokerStars schedule has 5 more tournaments and $9 million more in guaranteed prize money.
The 2010 PokerStars SCOOP starts on Sunday, May 2nd and is made up of 38 events for a total guaranteed prize purse of $45 million.
The PokerStars.net Spring Championship of Online Poker always has something for every type of wallet, with each event offered in a low stakes, medium stakes, and high stakes level, with buy-ins and cash prize amounts to match.
And the 2010 SCOOP is more than just a Holdem event. On the contrary, the schedule includes games of 7-Card Stud, 5-Card Draw, Razz, HORSE, Omaha, and Badugi. In addition there are heads-up events and six-max events too.
The series finishes off with a $10,300 Main Event taking place Sunday, May 16 with a guaranteed prize purse of $5 Million Guaranteed tournament, $1 million of which goes to the winner. The medium stakes main event guaranteed prize purse is $3 million and the low stakes main event guaranteed prize purse is $1 million.
Including the main event, the 2010 SCOOP schedule includes 4 events with guaranteed prize purses of $1 million and not just 1 but 2 high-rollers two-day event with guaranteed prize purses for both the high stakes level and the medium stakes level players of $2 million, one on May 2 and one on May 9.
The PokerStars 2010 SCOOP may not be starting for a couple months yet, but the early notice is so that you can take your best shots at getting your seats in the action free (or for lower buy-ins) by way of PokerStars satellites running daily between now and then.
Tags: Poker Stars Revised 2010 SCOOP Schedule, poker tournaments at pokerstars, pokerstars torunaments
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Monday, March 8th, 2010
We’re getting closer to the best time of the year for watching sports. In this case, we are talking real deal NCAA basketball. Division one plays their individual conference tournaments this week and then we have selection Sunday. Will Syracuse take down a National Championship or will a Cinderella bite some heads off this year like George Mason did a few years back.
No matter if you watch basketball or not, the NCAA tournament bracket competition is one of the most well known events that everyone can bet on fairly. Office pools, school pools, friends, it doesn’t matter, you will find some action as long as you know a couple of people.
If by chance you don’t know anyone running a tournament pool, then a great place to look is at Bodog.com. This year they are offering all there members a free buy-in into the March Bracket madness. The winner of the Free Bracket Buster contest at Bodog will take home $5000 in cash and prizes while the top 250 people will also win some kind of prize. The cool thing is, you don’t need an entrance fee. It is free to enter. You have nothing to lose at this point.
Figuring out who to pick is the fun part and most likely you will not get every pick right, but if you can find that one diamond in the rough, you may be able to make the run into the top 250. To sign up today all you have to do is head over to Bodog.com. Remember don’t be afraid to pick some good upsets. Every years there is a good nail bitter, so hang on.
Tags: bracetology, bracket manager, free ncaa bracket games, ncaa tournament brackets
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Sunday, March 7th, 2010
I’ve been a follower of several online coaching sites for quite some time. The one I’ve followed the most is Stoxpoker.com. This site has tons of coaches sharing their plays on videos, blogs and in a classroom environment. There was always one player that stuck out from the pact. This was largely due to his bankroll and amount of hands he plays. His name is Dusty Schmidt.
Recently Dusty came out with his own book called Treat Your Poker Like a Business. This story is about where Dusty has been in the past and how he got to where his is today. Besides the last couple of chapters, most of the book is really about treating poker like your own business. He gets down to the nitty gritty and truths about the online poker lifestyle. He also points out a lot of his mistakes which will help you progress faster over time.
The cool part about the book, is the personal story being told by him. He shares his life with everyone, which includes some really tough times and how he overcame a lot of crap. This will touch a lot of poker players that have issues in their life.
The section on psychology was decent, but nothing that blew me out of the water. We all know by know that bad beats will occur. It is a matter of how we deal with them. His psychology expert included in the book provides some decent knowledge, but it will most likely not change your game that night. A lot of the stuff written could take a long time to really digest.
The strategy section caries some of his strong moves when he’s grinding at eight or even 16 tables on PokerStars. He covers position and out of position. Some of these poker tips are really good. The question is, after this book circulates for a while, I wonder how many other players will be doing the same moves. For now the strategies included will help your game and could plug up some of your leaks. You may need to reread this section several times for it to sink in.
Overall, this was a quick read and really easy to follow. It gives the average to above average poker player an idea what Dusty did to accumulate SuperNova on PokerStars.net and rake in over $2 million dollars. I would recommend you add this one to your poker library more for the story than the strategies. 3.5 stars out of 5
Click here to get your copy of Treat Your Poker Like a Business
Tags: books on poker, no limit poker books, online poker books, poker books
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Saturday, March 6th, 2010
It’s the second Wednesday of the month. What does it mean? It means it’s poker night with the fellas. Here is a look at how I play my home game every month. It may help you with yours in the future. We usually have around 8-10 guys for a little 1-2 No Limit Texas Hold-em. The Cash buy-in is $100 and you can reload up to $100 at anytime.
What usually happens with most of these games is we have more or less the same crew. Seven guys out of the ten are pretty tight players, which makes it somewhat difficult to build a pot. At the same time it makes it easy to take down the small pots. This is critical however in a small game with tight players. Usually I will play pretty tight knowing that the rest of the table is tight except, when I’m in position. No matter what the hand just about I will loosen up a whole lot. This allows me to attack the bettor or checker. This will easily take down 8 out of 10 pots. It could be a small raised pot, but a pot is a pot. This is how I manage to stay on the plus side almost every poker night.
When I do get monsters or strong draws I will play strong as well. This will tell me if the other tight players are holding something as well. I do know several of the guys live for the flush draw, so if one hits on the river I will be less inclined to throw down some big bets with pocket QQ-AA. Most guys at my table will only call a big bet when the better option is to re-raise, so I’m always on the look out for the calling stations with draws on the board.
Should you hit a set on the flop with a tight player, you will want to slow it down and let them try to make a bet first. Only do this with a pretty empty flop. This will mean they hit something, but at the same time they are not looking for a big draw. They may have top pair, or two pair. This puts you in a great position against a tight player. You let them lead into you. This is how you take another man’s stack when they are tight. You become the calling station, when the board is favorable. These hands won’t come often, but when they do, you need to take full advantage.
In a home game it is critical to take mental notes of how the players play. Of course you will run into bad situations, but over time playing tight and strong in position will be your best bet against an overwhelmingly tight table.
Tags: home poker, poker games at home, poker night, poker tournaments at home
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