State of Online Poker in the United States

Posted by Dave on May 2nd, 2011 filed in Online Gambling
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Now that we have had a couple of weeks to let the dust settle after the United States department of justice took down four of the top online poker sites. There sure has been a lot of clamoring going on. Here is where we currently stand:

Online poker sites have been getting their domain name seized by the government. Many of the former top poker sites now have an .eu or .ag next to their name instead of .com. This is to prevent the US government from taking their domain names.

Most online poker sites are not allowing US poker players anymore. Hopefully, there will be a law that changes this sometime in the future; just don’t hold your breath. The subject of online poker is going to be kind of dead for the next couple of months except for the random tournament or promotion offered by one of the smaller sites.

Questions and Answers

Are there laws against playing online poker in the United States?

This depends on the state that you live in currently. Take a look at this post which refers to laws against online poker players between the different states.

Why did PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker get shut down?

This is a long story, which you can read here but here is the summary. These poker sites were illegally accepting deposits and used payment processors to produce fake transactions.

Are there any US poker sites that are still up and running?

Shhhhh! It’s a secret. The one thing that is bound to be true is that this information will get outdated quickly. I saw advertisements for Carbon poker, who has since left the US market along with several dozen other small poker rooms including Play Aces, BetUS, Sportsbook.com, Players Only, etc.

The one problem that many of these places has was the complete influx of new players. In many cases, they couldn’t handle the overflow and didn’t want to draw the attention of the government.

However, you can still find a couple of places to play for the time being. Check out this article which is about a pretty popular website that I have played at before. Also, you may want to take a look at this article as I think that these are pretty much the only two good places left to play at.

Where did all of the poker players go?

In reality, most of the online poker players have stopped looking because they think online poker is totally illegal. It takes a little bit of persistence and initiative to deposit money with a lot of these sites. Most no longer accept credit/debit cards when you sign up.

A lot of the online poker players are scared to put their money into a poker site because they are afraid of losing money like they did when Full Tilt Poker went bankrupt. People may eventually get their money back if someone purchases the Full Tilt Poker name.

Eventually, the government will get a law through for playing online poker. Just don’t look for it to happen before the 2012 presidential election. There are too many other things that are on the table for online poker to get any support.

Texas Holdem Basics

Posted by Dave on April 10th, 2011 filed in Poker Tips
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Texas Hold’em is supposed to be the most complex, most exciting and the most rewarding form of poker. Of all the forms of poker, starting from the studs to Omaha, no variant of the game has such complexity and need for skill and strategy as Hold’em poker. As many as 10 players can play this game at a time. The rewards part comes only if you make the right decisions about choice of cards, bets and moves and make these decisions at the right times.

Texas Hold’em is commonly played in most of the major casinos and many online poker sites. In addition to this, being a card game, this can be easily played at home with friends, as well as making for a great party game. Online poker is very popular too, which almost all he major online casino websites, offering various versions of the game. These versions are identical in rules and game play but are different in the themes that they are based on.

Now that you know that is easy to find a place where poker is played, you should know the basic poker game betting rules to start playing it. As with other variants of poker, Hold’em poker is played on a poker table, around which all the players are seated. The wager limits of a game are mutually decided by the players on the table and the chips are accordingly bought by the players, as per their individual budgets.

The dealer starts game by dealing two cards to each player. The 2 players sitting to the immediate left to the dealer make the blinds. Blinds are of two kinds, the big blind and small blind. These blinds are the sums of money which make up the initial value of the pot. The pot is the reward which the players play and in some ways forces action.  If there were no blinds, many people would fold everything but their most premium hands.

After recieving their 2 cards, each player starting with the person directly left of the big blind decide if they want to play in the hand.   A player can either make a call and match the big blind, raise,  or fold.  After the first round of dealing of cards, the round of betting starts. The bets are made in clockwise direction, starting from the player sitting to the immediate left to the dealer. In a round of betting, a player can either make a call, raise, check or fold.

After the initial round of betting, the dealer flips 3 cards in the center of the table, often reffered to as the flop.  These 3 cards are community cards and are used by all players.  The remaining players that are still in the hand have another round of betting, checking, or folding.  This repeats 2 more times as another card is shown and added to the community cards called the turn.  players check, bet and raise again.  One final card is dealt called the river, making 5 cards total in the community cards.  The players make the best 5 card hand out of the 2 in their hand and the 5 in the middle and the winner gets the pot.

As you can see from the basic intro of the game, the premise is simple and easy to understand. However, this game is not as simple as it seems and one needs to know skills and strategies thoroughly to be a winner in the long term.

Playing Trash Hands in Texas Hold’em

Posted by Dave on March 4th, 2011 filed in Poker Strategy
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It often happens that you have take risks in poker. Of course, betting always involves risk, but the risk becomes much more when the cards you are betting on trash. Trash cards are the cards of very low value, which have meager chances of winning. But as you are on the table and have make the initials bets, taking the risks is often the right decision.

The important thing to keep in mind here is the right time when you should take this risk. You have to make up a strategy. As your odds of winning are less, you win will totally depend on luck. If luck does not favor you, you can keep on playing trash hands a hundred times and lose in row.

So, avoid such a thing from happening, what you need is an alert mind and a sound strategy. You don’t have to fold every time you get a trash hand. It’s not only the hand that wins. If you take the right risks at the right time, you may just end up being lucky.

Strategy for Playing Garbage Hands

A garbage hand is anything that you see in green on the chart above. This is the standard chart used if you want to play your hand by the books. This doesn’t mean that you should always fold A-2 unsuited, you should just be wary of playing it as if it were a strong hand.

I wouldn’t call a lot of the unplayable hands in this chart “trash hands” exactly. This shouldn’t stop you from trying to bully other players into folding the blinds. Just make sure that you have a backup plan if you get re-raised.

The one time to bet aggressively is when the other players at the table seem timid to bet. This is the best way to try to pick up free blinds. Even if someone re-raises your raise, at least you will know that someone is lying about their hand initially.

And important thing to learn is to recognize hands are weak by their value but have the odds of winning. For instance, if you consider the card combination- Q-4. This hand is very weak, but in case you opponent happens to have a card with only a Q in it with something of value lesser than 4, you will win.

No matter how low the chances of this being the case may be, but they cannot be totally over-ruled. Your opponents may have a stronger hand that you. The more the number of opponents on the table, the more are the chances of your losing.

But as I said before, such risks should be taken at the right time. If you are alert, enough you will get a rough idea of the type hands in the possession of your opponents and you will be able to make the right moves accordingly.

Playing weaker starting hands

Some cards are trash individually but make good connecting cards. Cards that are suited usually are good options for such sets. However, you should mind the gap between such cards. If there just one card missing between the connecting cards, the chances of this gap being made up are good.

But in case the gap is two or more, then you should not think about trying to connect them, as the chances of having the right cards being dealt are extremely less. You can’t make it straight if you need 2 or more cards and so it is not advisable to keep waiting for something like that to happen.

You should prefer pairs which are smaller. Pairs are thought to be trash by some people but they are not all that useless. You can indeed make successful flops with such pairs, but the timing of such flops has to be right. If you have such a pair in your hand, don’t wait too much, because the more you wait, the lesser your winning chances shrink.

In Texas Hold’em poker you get to know if your trash hand is good enough or not, at the flop. To gain the most, you should observe the hands of your opponents after the flop. Look at the kinds of hands that they had and make a comparison of these hands with yours.

In case you find that your trash hand is better than your opponents are, take the opportunity to raise your bet. But, in case you see that your trash hand really deserves to be called trash, then stay tight and don’t hurry into making the bets.

The final and the most effective solution for avoiding losses due to trash hands is to fold. Don’t be egoistic and play on just for the sake of completing the game. If you don’t see yourself winning, fold. After all, poker is all about grabbing the chips and so there is no use of playing on if you don’t see yourself being able to do that.

Playing bad hands online

My favorite place to play currently is Full Tilt Poker. I like it because there are a lot of beginners that play their after watching the commercials. Some of these players are very easy to push around because they play strictly by the books. Here are Full Tilt Poker downloads so you can sign up with Full Tilt if you haven’t already.

You always have to be wary of playing bad hands online. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot of “calling machines” that will call any of your bluff bets. It is a lot different than playing people at a table.

You better get a feel for your opponent before you try pushing another player around without the cards to back it up. It only takes getting exposed one or two times before the other players start calling against you every time. If you have the option to muck the cards, make sure you do. If you don’t, you shouldn’t have been in the hand.

Here is a Full Tilt Poker review that I did a little while back. Have a look if you are interested.

How to Deal with Aggressive Steal Raisers

Posted by Dave on January 20th, 2011 filed in Poker Tips
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If you are playing a six handed no limit Texas Hold em game and it is getting frequently raised by the cut-off then you need to start three betting this player.

But with what range should you be doing this with? Well if the cut-off were raising almost every orbit then I would assume that they were open raising 90% or more of their range.

Dealing with Aggressive Players

Some players will do this initially to see how much they can get away with and to try and get ahead for the session. I would certainly three bet with all pocket pairs 77+ and big Broadway cards if the raiser were a standard player.

But aggressive players are different and I would play smaller pocket pairs and suited aces along with lower suited connectors. In these situations then you should not fear being four bet.

In my experience at the lower levels then unless you are three betting like a maniac then your opponents should respect your three betting range and will only call. Remember though that an opening raise in six max no-limit play needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Thoughts on Raising

It is for this reason why players are starting to respect three bets (3x the big blind) a lot less and four bets have become the norm now in tougher games. This in turn has led to five betting and five bet shoving as a combative tactic for this.

You are going to have to play fearless poker though and if my opponent were opening quite wide or I perceived that they were opening quite wide then I would certainly widen my three betting ranges to a lot less than previously stated.

Don’t Overdo It

However once again here you need to be careful because if you overdo the concept then your opponents are going to catch on and call your three bets and look to make a post flop play against your weak range or four bet you pre-flop.

So you need your opponents to believe your three bets just as much as you need them to believe every other type of bet or raise that you make without the required goods. Another factor that needs to be mentioned when it comes to your opponents believing you is c-betting.

It is often perceived that you should c-bet if checked to in a heads up situation if you were the pre-flop raiser. Once again this gets back to the topic of your opponents believing you.

Believability in Your Raise

If they don’t believe you then your bluffing success rate will drop through the floor. This is where you get most of your profit from in no-limit hold’em, winning small pots that no one wants or is prepared to fight for.

But once again in order to win these pots then you need to have your opponents believe you and this certainly applies when you are re-stealing when you go head to head against aggressive steal raisers.

You cannot three bet with every half decent hand that you get dealt because a three bet represents substantial strength and substantial strength is not that easy to find.

If you would like to learn some more about this kind of subject, take a look at my post on Understanding Positioning.