Some Holdem Players are Always Winners.

It is strange indeed that some players are born winners. They play poker with aggression and risk. Yet, in the end, they win. How would you boost your performance in poker and be just like one of these winners?

The main point to note here is that the players are intuitive and think more on the moves rather than on the results. For instance, the players don’t play too many hands. They select the starting hand very prudently. Often, young players feel that the more they play the better they become in poker. Yes, that is indeed true. However, what’s even more real is the fact that playing more does not mean you win more.

On the contrary, playing more number of hands means you lose majority of the games. If you feel that you cannot really figure out what hands to take and what to abandon, take a look at the starting hand strategy. This would help you to analyse what is best in store for you.

The wise men in poker don’t get emotional at all. They are extremely focussed and play the game with logic rather than getting emotionally charged. While you are being logical in your stance, remember never to bluff “just to bluff”. This can be disastrous in some occasions.

A sensible player does not play with a very high stake. It is true that players graduate from low stakes to higher ones. However, it is important to know where you stand and how much you can afford to play a game. Surveys show that people who go beyond their means to play poker and bet with a high stake, do not win poker in the long run. These people are emotional and cannot focus on the game.

High stakes also have highly skilled players. You can end up being a novice players or a fish amid experts or sharks. Before you get thrown off in a high-staked game, you should play with low stakes aplenty to earn better profits.

Poker is a very systematic game that does not encourage emotions. So, if you happen to see your opponent’s final bet, don’t feel shy to make the best use of it. You are not cheating but using clues that are displayed by the opponents throughout the game. Once you know that what you are doing is not against the poker rules, do what you feel the best for the game.

If you are in a hand, it is always wise to fold if you are well and truly beaten. If the money in the pot is lost, it would not be yours even if you played the entire game.

Remember, you are not obliged to any player for your actions. Just play what you feel is the best move for you. You don’t have to keep someone honest just because you happen to judge what he is trying to do.

Pragmatism and aggressive skills can make wonder to you. Practice the tips and you would soon see results reaping just before your eyes.

Identifying True Poker Tells.

Poker tells are important features that help you in winning a poker game. As a lot of intuitive skills, strategies, and bluffs are used in poker, it is important that you be a fierce observer. This signifies that you pick up any type of poker tell of your opponent.

In fact, the importance of poker tells has taken a toll on this strategy as well. Some players give out false poker tells also so that they can confuse the team and trap the opponents. It is therefore up to you to identify the true tells and use them while you make your decisions.

Here’s one typical example to highlight this point. Steve is an expert player who plays multiple hands online with a very high stakes in each of them. Now, judging the “in turn” box you can imagine the type of action he is likely to take.

Steve gets a big blind and the pot is not raised. You can see the activated check box if the pot is unraised. It the pot is raised, you would not see the activated box. The check-box with fold option is then highlighted to show that the pot is raised.

By judging the type your opponent is and the check box that is activated, you can imagine the way the game is going. So, now-a-days there are options where players are asked whether to show the check box to the other viewers or not. Some players also use this tool to give false poker tells.

Many players complain that online poker games don’t reveal much poker tells of the opponents. If you say this statement, it means that you are not paying much attention to such actions as mentioned in the aforesaid paragraphs. Poker games reveal a lot of betting patterns and the type of person the player is – whether he is a weak-tight player, or a weak-loose player, or a calling station.

Hand histories are yet another factor that determines poker tells of various players. Through this history, you would be able to identify the type of player your playing with and the find out the way decisions were taken.

There are options where a player can choose to remain concealed and not reveal details about his moves. Steve had done just that and it ensured his privacy while playing the games.

Various players use methods to conceal their tells. Some dress weird while others wear goggles and hats to conceal their reactions. If you play poker seriously and with the intention of earning a livelihood from it, it is necessary that you take all pre-cautions to conceal your poker tells.

However, some people play for fun and socialising. They don’t bother to play like a diehard fanatic but wish to enjoy the game with other players. Often, these players are their fellow mates from office or friends. In such cases, poker tells are given off inadvertently. If you are in a group of such people, you are lucky to pick up tells. But, this is not the usual situation. The normal milieu would be a din of conversations and noise with numerous other distractions. So, amid this din you need to be keen observant to pick up poker tells of your opponents that are genuine and not misleading.

Poker Bonus Codes.

Another boring bonus code post, sorry guys! As you may well know, many poker rooms cease to accept players from the United States, thanks to the Safe Port Act. As such, most poker sites will now explicitly tell you which sites are US-friendly, and which aren’t. Both of these are!

PokerStars

The regular conditions of redemption apply:

• Players must play at the real money tables.
• Playing at the real money tables accumulates FPP (Frequent Player Points).
• Players must accumulate 10 * Deposit Bonus amount for the bonus to be released. (i.e. Deposit Bonus is 50$, player must accumulate 10*50=500FPP.)

More information on the PokerStars Marketing Code.

Full Tilt Poker.

Full Tilt Poker (FTP) has proven time and time again to be the top online poker site, world-wide. With a full slate of cashies and a wide array of tournaments, players can always find the time of game that they’re looking for. Utilizing the bonus code (ZZBONUS), players receive a 100% depoist bonus with a maximum bonus of 600$. In addition to the great bonus, you’ll get to go head-to-head with some of the biggest names in poker (real professionals) who also play online on FTP. Find out more about FTP and the Full Tilt Poker referral code.

Ongame Rakeback

During Winter/Spring 2008, the Ongame network created a new rule for affiliates prohibiting them from including the word ‘rakeback’ in any URLs that had pokersites from the network on their website. Instead, affiliates of the Ongame network offer Ongame continuous bonuses. This is simply an alternative term for Ongame rakeback. The newest continuous bonuses are, in fact, more advantageous for the end-users, as the payout is typically larger.

The Ongame software was initially the only option for Mac & Linux users who were interested in playing online. The network offers players the opportunity to play its games within a browser (no-download) and also a client-based (downloaded) version. The actual GUI of the applications are not all that pretty, it’s a little difficult to play multi-tabled, but other than that, all regular features (and advanced features) are in place.  The network has quite a solid stream of traffic, with 4,000+ users being online during peak periods in ring games, and some 20,000 in tournaments. Most Ongame sites offer the following flavours of poker:

• Texas Holdem
• Omaha
• Omaha Hi/Lo
• 7 Card Stud
• 7 Card Stud Hi/lo
• 5 Card Draw.

All around, it’s a decent network, but you’ll have to contact the owners of their respective websites to find out about their rakeback (or ‘continuous bonus’) offers.

Online Poker in the United States.

Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide. Christiansen Capital Advisors stated online poker revenues grew from $82.7 million in 2001 to $2.4 billion in 2005. Traditional brick and mortar casinos with a poker room are few and far between - the reason being that they aren’t very profitable for the house; they only earn money through the rake, or the hourly charge. Often, they’d make much more money if they were to remove the poker room entirely and just put in more slot machines.

This isn’t the case with online poker in the United States. There’s minimal overhead charges, because of the following:

• Adding an extra table is virtually free. (No table costs, or space issues)
• There are no dealers. This means 100% of the rake is kicked back to the house.
• They can offer lower limits (as low as 2c), or even freerolls.

In 2006, Online Poker took a turn for the worse. Bush officially signed the Safe Port Act, which is specifically designed to regulate online gambling. Basically, it prohibits online gambling sites from performing any transactions at American financial institutions. Which has made it extraordinarily hard to find any US friendly poker sites.

BankRoll Boost Review.

There are many online poker sites that offer reviews of the best poker rooms around, and it’s hard to know which ones to trust and sign up through. Over at BankRoll Boost, they’ve taken the time to create a rating system for all the major poker rooms. The factors considered include:

• Traffic
• Promotions
• Bonuses
• Tournaments

Currently, the best US poker sites are as follows:

1. PokerStars
2. Bodog
3. FullTilt Poker
4. Carbon Poker
5. Ultimate Bet

On top of these casino reviews, the site also brings to you rakeback offers, bonus codes, where to play free money poker, poker babes (who doesn’t like them?) and poker gossip. They’ve also got an opt-in newsletter for you to sign up to, if you’re interested - so it’s definitely your one-stop-shop for everything poker-related.

Poker Bonus Codes.

Many people don’t realize that online poker rooms offer referral codes to use for your first time deposit, which’ll give you the opportunity to review/compare poker rooms. It’s best to read the terms and conditions of bonuses on the poker sites. Some bonuses take longer than others to release, and some are even combination casino and poker bonuses.

Click here for a full review of full tilt poker.
Click here for a full review of PokerStars

Poker RakeBack

Rake is how poker rooms earn their money. It’s the amount deducted (usually 10%) from the pot, which is then given to the house and is capped at a certain amount (usually 5$) in ring games. In tournament, the rake’s a minor portion of the player’s buy-in - obviously, the bulk heads towards the major prize pool. It’s not that uncommon for individual players to be contributing thousands of dollars in rake per month whilst playing poker online. Now think about that: a poker room with 5,000 very active players (in reality, the larger rooms are significantly larger!), all contributing a few thousand dollars per month, that’s incredible! Poker rakeback is a way for these players to get that money back; a refund, if you will.

Through rakeback, players get back a percentage of the rake that they’ve paid to the poker room. A regular rakeback offer is between 25% and 40%, but sometimes players can get even higher payouts. If you’re paying 1,000$ a month in rake, and you’ve got a 30% rakeback deal, you’re going to get back 300$. For serious poker players, this can become a large part of their income!

If you’ve already opened an account with a poker room without signing up through someone’s affiliate ( or ‘bonus offer’), then more than likely you won’t be eligible for rakeback bonuses. However, you should email around to find out if it’s possible.

Implied Poker Odds.

We’ve discussed pot odds before, which is important to understand, but something equally important to comprehend are: Implied Odds.

Implied Odds are basically calculating your current odds for calling, plus the potential earnings that you’re likely to make should you complete your hand. So, even if it’s not reasonable to call solely on pot odds, sometimes it’s good to call based on implied odds, because you know you’re going to clean house if you do make that draw!
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Poker - Starting Hands.

There are, quite literally, millions of starting hands in a game of poker, but only 169 different two-card starting combinations - assuming 7s,8c is the same as 7c, 8d. We assume this only because both hands have identical hand strength pre-flop. We can then categorize these starting hands into the following groups:

• Pair: 7,7; 2,2.
• Connected Cards: 3,4; 5,6.
• Suited Connectors: 3d,4d; 5h,6h
• Gapped Cards: 3,7; 5,10.
• Suited Gapped: 2d,8d; 6c,10c

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