Tips to Win Online

Written by Nigel

Beginners are always enthusiastic when it comes to playing, especially when they experience beginner’s luck.  However, it does not always mean that they are doing the right things at the right time.  Here are some tips on how to win at online poker.

Pay particular attention to your table position and starting hands.  This should be a given for any poker player but more often than not, beginners at online poker tend to overlook the obvious.  If you want to stand out among the countless online poker players, then you should choose your battles.  Do not play marginal hands or weak hands if you can avoid it.  Study the different hands in poker and learn which hands are strong enough to play.

Don’t play loose too much.  Playing loose means that you play too many hands, see too many pots.  There is no rule that you have to play each hand.  There are way too many loose players online already.  Do not make the mistake of being one of them.  Instead, tighten up a bit and then see how much you win against all those looser players.

Learn to read the flop fast.  Online poker is much faster than its offline counterpart.  That is actually part of its allure to many people.  Yet it can be a disadvantage if you do not learn how to determine the best cards to match the flop.  If you want to have the edge at an online poker table, you have to learn how to do this and fast.

(to be continued)

Absolute Poker Beats the Bad Beat

Written by Nigel

Every poker player knows how it is like to have a bad beat.  As much as any poker player would do almost anything to avoid one, it is also a known fact that there are just times when you do get a bad beat – there is no escaping it, at least once.  So how do you behave and react when you get a bad beat?  Some just ride the tide and let it blow over.  Others get sucked in and lose even more.

Absolute Poker has come up with something new for players who get a bad beat – something to turn the tables around somehow for them.  The new Bad Beat Jackpot from Absolute Poker adds a very interesting twist to their already popular Texas Hold ‘em version.  With the Bad Beat Jackpot, players who are losing immensely just might feel Lady Luck blowing her kisses upon them.  “We’re taking away the pain delivered by bad beats by throwing money at the victims,” stated David Clainer, senior vice president for Absolute Poker.  So how does it work?

Remember, if you are having a bad beat, your hand is supposedly favored to win but you still lose.  At the Bad Beat Jackpot table, if this happens to you, you can take home a piece of the Jackpot.  To start things off for the Bad Beat Jackpot, Absolute Poker is putting $100,000 into the jackpot.  If someone hits a qualifying bad beat (four twos or better), he gets a large part of the jackpot together with the other players at the table.  Interesting, I must say.

Poker DIY

Written by Nigel

I can’t remember exactly when the idea of DIY became popular but there is no doubt that all over the world, people are relishing the idea of doing things themselves.  It is thus no surprise that even Poker would have its own DIY.  What is this about really?

Ok imagine you setting up your own poker league.  You and your friends thought that it would be a great way to meet people and have nights full of poker fun.  Maybe there is some money involved and that makes your league all the more exciting.  In the beginning, it is just small and you have no problems monitoring everything.  Yet as time passes by, it seems that more and more people are getting into poker and your league just seems to expand at such a rapid pace.  You are now finding it hard to manage your league.  What do you do?

Get Poker DIY, a poker league management software.  According to Rodney Joyce, the founder of Poker DIY, “PokerDIY solves the problem by offering a complete online poker league management solution with poker game scheduling, league scoreboards and all the ingredients you would expect from a social network dedicated to poker players. Today we upped the ante by allowing poker league hosts to publish their tourney results directly from the well-known desktop poker game management software, The Tournament Director”.

If you are already using the Tournament Director, then chances are you have a clear idea of what I am talking about – this is merely taking things one step further.  For those who are still unclear, go to PokerDIY and see for yourselves.

Biggest Mistakes Tournament Newbies Make

Written by Nigel

Alright, we all make mistakes. We are but human after all. Yet if you are aware of certain mistakes that you just might commit, wouldn’t it be better for you? That way, you can take measures to avoid making those mistakes. These statements could actually apply both in real life and at the poker table. Read on to know which mistakes to avoid when you are a beginner.

Not Understanding When Someone Else is Pot-Committed
So what does this mean? Andrew Glazer says it best: “If you have a hand with which your raise commits you to the pot, you might as well go ahead and move all in with it. If you’re winning, you’ll win more, and if you’re losing, there’s a bigger chance that your opponent will fold.”

Underbetting the Pot
This is pretty simple, if you are trying to win the pot even though your hand isn’t that good (or in other words you have a bad hand) then do it with a bang. Don’t bet cheap – others will just call your bet to find out what you had. That way they will gain information on you. Make it expensive enough so that they won’t gain anything.

Calling with Draws
I have to admit, I did this a lot when I first started playing. Hoping that the next card would complete my hand was just irresistible. However, statistically speaking, the chances of completing, say, a flush draw is very nil. You don’t bet big on such situations. More often than not, you will just lose this way.

Back to the basics - Getting Started

Written by Nigel

We’ve been through quite a lot in these past few months and I thought it would be nice to go back to the basics. There are so many new poker players out there, thanks to the publicity it gets from the different celebrity tours. These people need a solid foundation on poker. For the oldies, it is always a good thing to be reminded of the bare essentials. So how do we get started in a poker game?

The first thing that has to be determined is how much everyone around the table is willing to pay. This is what we call the stakes. Three things to be considered when setting the stakes are:

What is the standard ante going to be?
What is the minimum bet?
What is the maximum bet?

How low or how high the stakes is depends on the minimum and maximum bet, respectively. They are the outer limits and any player can bet any amount within those limits.

Once these figures have been determined by the players around the table, they are ready to move on to the next step which is determining who will get the first hand. This is really variable depending on the players. One way we do it is to have someone deal cards one at a time and the first one to get an Ace gets the first hand. Others wait for the Jack instead of the Ace – it does not really matter how you do it as long as you determine who gets first hand.