Tuesday, July 22, 2008

This great article contains great hold em tips as well as news items.

We do not promote gambling of any type. This blog information is to be used when playing hold em in its legal and non-gambling applications.

This Texas Hold Em Article Will Make You A Better Player

When playing poker, keep your attention at the table


By Johnny Kampis

If you?re playing poker the patient and correct way, folding most of your hands, you?ll be left with a lot of downtime where you?re not involved in the action. That doesn?t mean you should just rest on your laurels, or turn your attention to the baseball game on the television.

To become a better poker player, you should pay attention at all times when at the table, learning your opponents? tendencies. Who is aggressive? Who is timid? Who raises with only strong cards? Who bluffs a lot? All of these questions can be answered if you just pay attention.

Over the years, I?ve developed a couple of mental exercises to help me focus on the action while playing Texas hold?em. These exercises can also increase your decision making and problem solving abilities at the poker table.

The first one is to guess what each of your opponents is holding based on how he plays the hand. Say the flop comes J-10-2 with two spades. There is a bet, a call and a raise. What sorts of hands could these players have? Perhaps the better has something like J-K for top pair and the caller has a straight or flush draw and the raiser has two pair or a set. The more you study your opponents, the better you will be able to guess their holdings, and that ability will only help you in the long run.

During a recent friendly game, one player bet out on a board of A-A-10-2 and Steve called. A third player raised, the initial bettor called and Steve re-raised. Before Steve turned his cards over on the river, I called out ?Ace-Ten,? and that?s precisely what he had. How was I able to guess this? Steve had a monster hand and didn?t want to chase out the other players on the turn so he just called the initial bet, but after there was a raise behind him he could go ahead and re-raise and get more money in the pot. If Steve held three aces, without a full house, he most likely would have raised on the turn initially to try and eliminate any flush and straight draws. You can only learn these kinds of tendencies by paying attention.

A second exercise I like to employ while playing hold?em is to think up a hand and visualize how I would play it. Let?s pretend the flop is 8-J-3. Now, I may have folded a 5-2 or some other junk hand, but I?m going to now pretend I have a 9-10 in my hand and the action is to me. Do I bet, check, raise or fold? Or I could pretend I have flopped a set of threes. Now what do I do? This exercise allows you to continually think about how you would play certain hands, which will only help you when you actually hold those cards.

Source: http://www.wisehandpoker.com/articles/index.php?article=be-attentive.html

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Matthew Hilger is generally recognized as one of the best authors on the subject of internet poker. He and some of the most knowledgeable players and writers in the poker industry have joined to contribute columns on every aspect of poker. Contributors range from Tournament Pros like the Hendon Mob� to Internet Poker Pros from the Internet Texas Holdem community. Beyond Texas Holdem Strategy, this section covers Omaha, Backgammon, Sit 'n Go tournaments, multitable tournaments, cash games, poker psychology, mind sets and general revelry.

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Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Enough beating around the bush- time to start winning at Texas Hold Em.

This blog is for information and education only. It is meant to improve your Texas Hold Em game in its legal and non-gambling applications.

Todays Texas Hold Em Article

What I Like About Poker


GOAT - Where do I begin? What do I like about poker? Many things come to mind, first I enjoy winning money, as everyone probably does, but poker is more than that to me. I enjoy the competition, I enjoy the psychological aspect of the game.

It is almost primal in a sense.

I was watching the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel and they were interviewing Howard Lederer, an excellent player and he said that there is something primitively appealing about taking your opponents� chips. Your opponent has a stack of chips, and you would like to take ownership away from him. He wants to take your chips away from you and how you play your hand determines who ends up with the chips.

Poker is not a game of luck. Luck is certainly involved (ever lose to a runner runner flush? Ever win with it?). Poker is a game of skill, if you are counting on catching lucky cards to win, over the long run you will probably lose more money than you win.

Some friends and I just recently took a trip to Biloxi to play some poker. It was only my 2nd time playing poker in a casino, it was a great experience. I lost money overall, but I didn�t do horribly in my opinion. I believe that I improved my game. I know I made the wrong plays in certain situations, and I know that I made the right play in certain situations. I came back from Biloxi a much better Poker player than when I left.

My bankroll from my online game also reflects that fact. I was down to my last $30 the day I left, and today I�m currently up to nearly $200. Yeah, I can�t quit my day-job yet but it�s a step in the right direction. Don�t get me wrong, if I would have won I would have been happier, but I have no problem loosing as long as I teach myself, or get �taught� by others.

My worst hand was the very last one I was going to play. If I had won this hand I would have finished the trip with a slightly larger bankroll than I brought down. I had been playing from about 11pm on Saturday night until around 9am Sunday morning.

My buddy came down from the room and asked was I nearing a decent place to leave the game, and I agreed to leave when the blinds got back to me. Well, wouldn�t you know it, I�m Under the Gun and I get dealt QQ�

Like any good poker player I raise it up. A very loose and aggressive player 2 positions behind me raises it again and we have 2 callers. I probably should have re-raised right there, but I only called. Flop comes down K 10 x. I bet, the loose player raises and the other 2 callers fold. I re-raise and am called.

Turn comes Q� BAM, I figure I�m up against A/K and I just hit my set. I bet out again and am once again Raised. I�m still fairly confident that I�ve got the best hand so I re-raise and am called.

River is rags so I bet out again, and once again I am raised. Now I start to question the strength of my hand, but there was no way I�m folding. I call and say �Got the straight?� Sure enough, he flips over J/9 offsuit for a K high straight. I think most people would fold J/9 offsuit when I�m aggressively betting, I�d like to think that if I would have re-raised after the flop that I might have one it, but the way this guy was playing he wasn�t folding anything.

It really sucks to have your very last hand be one where you get totally owned. That one bothered me for a while. This guy was a �Jackal� and I didn�t think he would fold to anything, but I still probably should have raised him instead of just calling. Flopping the Set was actually worse for me in this situation, my Q�s would have held up if not for the 3rd Q on the board. Live and learn.

I like Poker because it really is a sport. It is a sport that you can play as long as you are mentally capable. As I�m sitting at the table in the casino an older gentleman sat down, my first instinct was that this guy is a farmer. I don�t know what that means in regards to his poker skills, but if I was to guess his profession, I would have picked farmer, either that or professional online poker player over at poker stars.net, but i knew that was unlikely.

Anyway, he was probably in his mid 60�s, and was by far the best player at the table. He completely confused me in hands and I lost a decent amount of chips to him. At the time I was pretty disgusted that I was outplayed by someone who on the outside looked like I should be able to beat no problem. The more I thought about it, the less disgusted I became.

First I know I�m a rookie, through and through. Second, it�s kind of cool to know that when I�m his age, I�ll be taking young punks money at the table. The more I thought about it, the more I respected him and his style of play. He was excellent at hiding his hands and I rarely see him enter pots that he did not win (or at least go down swinging). I liked his strategy, he didn�t get involved in pots where he didn�t have a decent chance to win, and he didn�t let you chase your cards cheaply. I mimicked his play (as best I could) online when I got home and have done pretty well.

So, for all you up and coming poker players out there, if you take any advice from a rookie like me is, always learn. Poker isn�t just about the cards that land in your hand, it�s about how you play. I'm mostly playing online poker now with a live tournament every now and then, but I can't wait to get back to the casino and try my hand, err hooves again.

Source: http://www.kickasspoker.com/poker-strategy/articles/what-I-like-about-poker.htm

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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Anyone from beginner to expert poker players can benefit from these Texas Hold Em strategies.

This blog is for entertainment purposes only. It is meant to provide information relating to the game of Texas Hold Em in its legal and non-gambling applications.

A Texas Hold Em Article For Your Reading Enjoyment

Focus on the Basics


I have had a lot of emails lately from people learning to play the game who get confused by terminology when playing with more experienced players. For this post lets get back to the basics and go over some common poker terms. This article comes from http://www.pokertips.org/.

Poker Jargon
This is a shortened glossary that explains the basic poker terms that are frequently used in the strategy articles at this site. It is assumed that you know the basic rules of Texas Hold'em. For a more complete glossary, visit our Full Glossary Page.

Blinds: The forced bets that take the place of an ante. The person to the left of the dealer must pay the small blind, and the person after him must pay the big blind.

Board Cards: The cards in the middle of the table that are shared by everyone.

Draw: Drawing means hoping to improve your hand with the cards that will come on the board. You are on a draw when you want other cards to come out on the board to complete your hand. If you have 10 9 and the flop is Q J 2, you are trying to draw an eight or a king on the turn or river.

Flop: The first three board cards in Hold'em.

Implied Odds: The same as pot odds, but taking into account making bets in the future. Thus, you may call a bet at the flop, but have implied odds of making bigger bets on later rounds if you hit your draw. So, if you have A K and the flop comes Q 7 6, your implied odds are what you have to call at the flop compared to how large the pot will be at the end of the hand.

Limit Poker: Poker with fixed-size bets. In a $2-4 limit game, all bets and raises are $2 in the first two rounds (preflop and flop), and all bets and raises are $4 in the last two rounds (turn and river).

Longhand: A poker game with seven or more people.

Outs: Cards that can improve your hand. If the flop is Q J 2 and you have 10 9, you want a king or an eight to complete your straight. There are four kings and four eights in the deck, so you have eight total outs.

Position: Where you sit at the poker table. The dealer has the best position because he bets last and therefore has a better understanding of what other people have in their hand. The small blind has the worst position because he acts first.

Pot Odds: The odds you are getting when you are drawing. For example, say you have A 2 and the board is K 7 6. You are sure that someone else has the king. There are nine more diamonds out there (thirteen total minus two from your hand and the two on the board), so you have a roughly 18% chance of hitting a flush on the next card. Thus, if the pot is $100, and the bet is $10, even though you are losing, you have odds with your flush draw. However, let's say the pot is $100 on the turn (there is one card left) and your opponent bets $300. The pot is $400 and you must put in $300 to see the river. You are getting pot odds of 4:3 which is not enough, because the odds are about 4:1 (12:3) against hitting your flush. Another way to look at it is that you have only a 1 in 5 chance of hitting your flush, but you have to put in 3 of 7 dollars in the total pot.

Preflop: The betting round after you are dealt your two hole cards and there are no cards on the board yet.

River: The fifth and final card that comes on the board in Hold'em, after the turn.Shorthand: A poker game with six or fewer people.

Turn: The fourth board card that comes out in Hold'em, the card after the flop.

Source: http://www.pokertips.org/strategy/jargon.php

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