Posted on February 16th, 2010 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
Many poker players have adopted the habit of wearing sunglasses at the table. This is supposedly to hide one’s eyes and prevent any emotion showing through them. It can also add an element of intimidation to someone’s appearance. Some casino players like to listen to music at the table and put ear buds on to hear their favorite tunes and block out the sounds around them. Though sunglasses and ear buds may be ‘fashionable’ at the poker table, there is a distinct disadvantage to wearing these accessories. Poker is nothing if a not a social scene where lots of banter takes place. There is a lot to be learned about people from causal conversation, and poker players who block out the chat with music are literally ignoring information that is freely given and can help them gain insights into opponents. For instance, a player may say, “I always defend my blinds” or “I only raise with Aces.” This is invaluable information about your opponents. To shut it out and ignore it is folly at the poker table. Players listening to earbuds and not the other players are going to focus too much on their own hands rather than analyzing the thought processes of others. Wearing sunglasses may obscure your eyes, but they also diminish what you see. Most people are visually oriented and players often give subtle visual clues. Sunglasses decrease your sensitivity to the visual environment. You can probably gain more by using your eyes to give off misleading clues and manipulate your opponent’s thoughts.
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Posted on January 28th, 2010 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
The one mark of a sharp poker online player is knowing when to fold a hand. An observant player looks for signs that a casino hand is second best, which is the worse hand in poker because it can cost you lots of chips. Players who refuse to lay down a big pocket poker pair, but keep calling and contributing to the pot are simply deluded weak players whose mistakes savvy players know how to exploit. It is foolish and costly to keep adding chips to the pot because one is “pot committed” with a hand that may be good, but can still be beat. The board texture should inform your play along with your cards. For instance, if you are holding a medium pocket pair that completes to a set on the flop, the logical thing to do is make a big bet to get everyone to fold. However, a call is a danger sign. Study the board - is there an up-and-down straight materializing? Are there over-cards out there that may have completed a higher set for an opponent? Be on guard against the check-raise tactic because this often indicates a player is holding the nuts and trying to build a big a pot as possible. Understand that if your hand can be beat, and another player is coming on strong, your best choice is probably to fold and move on to the next hand.
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Posted on January 15th, 2010 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
Ace-king is one of the most interesting opening hands to be dealt in Texas hold em poker. Almost certainly, you will always play the hand, and it is a great starting hand. However, it is a hand that almost always needs help to become a winning hand.
Getting deal ace-king is great, but those times the flop comes out 7-2-9, it turns out not to look so hot. And yet, many poker players still play the hand like it is a monster. There is a reason that the most money in Texas hold em is lost on ace-king. If someone is playing, say, a suited-connector, and don’t flop anything to it, they will likely throw away the hand and not think twice about it.
But if someone has ace-king and doesn’t flop anything to it, they often still play the hand as if they have something huge, when all they actually have is ace high.
Conversely, some poker players play very cautiously with ace-king, and don’t raise with it and throw away the hand quickly if they flop nothing to it. This too is not always a great strategy. Many times, you can bet out with ace-king and win on a bluff or semi-bluff. As always, it depends on what you’ve learned about the player across from you and whether they will likely be susceptible to such a bluff.
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Posted on December 22nd, 2009 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
If the flop defines a poker hand, the turn usually turns the tide. After you’ve seen the turn, you are going to have a pretty good idea of how the poker online hand is going to turn out. If you haven’t made your hand after the turn comes out, then it’s not very likely that you’re going to. Draws don’t mean much after the turn, because your odds of making your card have been cut in half. If you’re still drawing after the turn, it’s likely that you’re drawing dead and you either need to make a monster bluff or get out of the online poker hand. On the other hand, if you’re going to win, don’t ever give an opponent a free card. If you don’t have the best hand possible, don’t give your opponent a chance to get that one card that he needs to take you down. It’s a general rule of poker that players who have the best hand on the turn don’t want to see the river, and anybody who’s ever lost a hand on the river will agree. If you’ve got the best hand on the turn but you stand a chance of being beaten on the river, place a nice big bet and make your opponent pay dearly to see it.
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Posted on November 10th, 2009 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
When you first start playing online poker, you might find the prospect of playing more than one table at a time a bit intimidating. But fear not. It’s no where nearly as bad as you’re imagining it to be.
Here are some tips to help you get started.
First things first, try doing it with play money. Sure, the play on play money tables may be horrendous, but that doesn’t mean you’re not gaining something from it. You’re learning how to process information on different poker tables at the same time. This is the first thing you’ll have to learn how to do.
The next tip is really simple. Most sites give you the opportunity to either tile or cascade your tables. I prefer tiling mine so I can see everything going on at the different tables at the same time, but others prefer cascading them so that they can focus on one table at a time. It’s up to you to decide on which method to use, so I suggest experimenting to see which style suits you best.
Most casino online websites also have some sort of hand replayer function. You can use this to your advantage when multitabling by looking at the replay of big hands. Maybe you weren’t involved in that hand and weren’t giving it your undivided attention. Thus you use the replay feature and see how the players who were in the hand played it, and it will give you an idea of how they’ll play similar hands. And since it’s replayable for the session, you can go back and look at it when you need to.
The final word of advice is to not play too many tables at the same time. You hear of some people paying 8 or even 16 tables at a time. In the beginning this will be too much for your brain to handle. It’s best to stick to two, and work your way up as you get comfortable adding a table at a time until you find the number that’s optimal for you.
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Posted on August 25th, 2009 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
You get AA and you think, hmm, I better get some money out of this poker online hand. So you decide to slow play it and you end up getting them busted by a two pair connected set you let limp in. So let’s talk about isolating with high pocket poker online pairs like AA and KK. You’ll want to raise the max most of the time in your standard raising with AA or KK. If you normally bet 3 or 4 big blinds, bet 5 or 6 to keep from limpers calling. If you get into a raised pot. Skip the 3 betting then four betting, just go ahead and 5bet a stack. Again , this will keep the limpers from getting in and sucking out on your high pair. Since a hand like KQ suited is stronger on the flop when KQ10 hits than AA. So your goal is to isolate a player, one player, as these hands do better in a heads up pot than they do in a multiway pot. Hands you’d like to play in a multiway pot are suited connectors like KQ or JT suited, but with AA-QQ, you want isolation factor. If you do get a call after your reraise or initial raise, you’re going to be coming out betting hard on the flop. You want a weaker pair to fold. Yeah, you can extract value, but it’s much safer and +EV to take down the pot right there, and if he wants to call you down, then keep putting on the pressure. Do this with AA or KK and you’ll win a lot more than you’ll get busted by slowplaying them in poker online.
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Posted on July 6th, 2009 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
Look for poker players who frequently outdraw their opponents. Although it looks like they’ve got outstanding luck, you shouldn’t be intimidated-their luck is bound to run out sometime, and you need to be there to collect on it. I know that it’s infuriating to get beaten by the guy who called your pre-flop raise with a 2-9 unsuited, only to see a 2-2-8 flop, but you know that it won’t happen every time. In fact, if it makes you feel better, think of it as an investment, because every time you get burned by someone, the more confident they’ll get with marginal poker hands. Usually, you’ll find that people who suck out frequently play some pretty lousy starting hands, and it’s just a matter of time before your trip Kings hold up over their pair of 9’s. The key to overcoming a bad beat is to keep playing your game. A lot of players will experience a bad beat, go on tilt, and completely abandon their game plan. Don’t get all ragey and start playing loose poker. Keep playing smart, selective/aggressive poker and let you opponent play loose, sloppy poker, and the small hands you lose to him won’t add up to the monster hand that you’re bound to take later in the game.
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Posted on April 2nd, 2009 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
First off what is it? What is Game theory? Well, to put it simply, it is a branch of mathematics that takes into account the actions of one “factor” and how that “factor’s” actions will effect the action’s of other “factors.” In online poker terms, just substitute “factor” with player.
The goal, when using Game Theory in poker and casino games, is to develop an optimal strategy. In biology things tend to be balanced, in humans we call this homeostasis. Essentially, it’s the balance of the body. If something is lacking, our body tries to get back into balance by ingesting that which is missing. It naturally tries to return to homeostasis, or equilibrium. So when applying Game Theory to your poker online play, think of your game as a living and evolving organism that is trying to return to that perfect balance, that is trying to return to equilibrium.
And since natural is a good thing, this can help you immensely. In fact some people are such staunch supporters of Game Theory and using that strategy of balance in play, that even if you were to reveal to your opponent what your strategy was, he or she wouldn’t be able to exploit it and make profit off of it.
At this point, you’re probably asking, “well, what can this do for me; why would I want to use Game Theory poker as opposed to being a good hand reader or a tell-catcher or odd calculator?” And I’ll tell you. There are most likely better players out there than you are. Actually, there is always someone out there better than you, especially in a game like poker where skill can only take you as far as how much more skilled you are than the next guy.
Essentially this is where Game Theory comes in. It’s an advantage reducer. You won’t learn tricks on how to extract extra money with big hands, or how to outplay and bluff an opponent off a better hand. Instead, Game Theory can help you when you’re in a situation against much better players by taking away those advantages they have over you such as recognizing your betting patterns, or bluffs, or value bets. Now, you’re probably thinking, how in the hell do I use this in poker? And it’s a two-step processthe first one obviously being the hardest. If you’re a math man, then this is for you.
First, you come up with a mathematically profitable strategy. Then you use it, though you use it randomly. Thus it becomes impossible to exploit. We’ll pick up here in the next installment of Game Poker.
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Posted on January 20th, 2009 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
This is sure to be an interesting lawsuit. A Denver man is suing Sean S. Ahn of Superior, CO for 29000 USD for a debt he amassed on March 25th of this year in the man’s home over online poker. The fact that a debt is owed isn’t the issue, but the legal implications are huge for this poker player.
In Colorado, a state where gambling and poker is illegal unless several preconditions are met, will a man be able to sue for a debt accrued from illegal activities. It’s been long common knowledge that for other debts, credit cards for instance, can’t be enforceable if the contract was illegal. This was shown when a huge US banking firm tried to sue a 17 year old for a credit card debt he illegally accrued. But this presents even more of a legal problem. There was no legal contract, merely an oral agreement.
So is the Denver man out of luck? Not necessarily. Ahn passed several bad checks, and thus self-validated the debt. The Denver man is using the Colorado statutes governing the collection of bad checks to collect on this debt.
Currently the plaintiff is withholding how much in damages he is actually seeking, but is at minimum praying the cour to grant 28000 USD plus attorney fees and court costs. However, the court may deem the claim worth treble damages according the Colorado statutes entitling him to 87000 USD plus post judgment interest. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this turns out.
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Posted on December 18th, 2008 — in Fun + Enjoyment, Gaming Hall, Virtual Gambling
In no limit Texas hold ‘em poker, the squeeze play has become one of the more commonly referred to practices wherein a player who has absolutely nothing can put his read of his opponent’s weakness to work.
Here’s a common-ish scenario. There’s a decent poker pot on the table. A guy bets out on the flop after some cards that likely haven’t helped him come down. A player after him calls. The action comes to you.
In many cases, when a poker player who has taken the lead preflops sees into a board that hasn’t helped his hand, he is still going to make a continuation bet to try and take the pot. The second player just calling, rather than raising, knowing you are behind him, most likely doesn’t have much as if he had a made hand he’d likely raise (to protect you or the other player from drawing). So you can often assume than he has nothing.
The squeeze play, then, comes from these two assumptions put together, giving than even if you have nothing, it’s likely that a raise representing a big hand will make these two hands that most of the time will be not much, or at least not enough to call a big bet, will fold.
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