Fortunate Contest

There will be situations in a game of poker where you find yourself in a tight spot. When all your hand knowledge, all your betting strategies, and all your mathematical logic fails you. Let’s say you’re faced with a tough opponent who is not giving you pot odds to draw to a straight. You have AKh. The board reads Jh-Qs-9h-2d. And you’re on the turn and it’s your move. The opponent in front of you has just moved all in.

You think back, and you realize that this is the first time he’s ever moved all-in in the two hours you’ve been playing this guy. He just limped preflop and only called a bet from someone in late position.

You think long and hard and you decide to make the call. With just your ace high, and the possible straight on the board, you get one more card to make your straight or flush or even top pair. And you decide to call.

“I think I have you,” you say, “with ace high.” And you shove your chips in the pot. The river comes another 2, this one spades. Another blank card and your opponent turns over 78 suited.

This is a different kind of poker strategy. This is what we call instinct. Going with that gut feeling. Some people call it intuition. Others call it subliminal perception, but whatever you call it, it exists in the game of poker online. And when you get in situations where all the standard strategy leaves you dumbfounded, sometimes you have to go with that intuition.

But remember, if you go with that gut feeling five times and it’s wrong, you will have to put some thought into it, figure out why you had that gut feeling to begin with, quantify it, and then adjust. Just because it feels like instinct doesn’t mean it can’t be calibrated.

online poker players have to consider many factors when deciding what to do with a online poker hand. Sometimes situations are tough to decide or a player gets caught up in excitement or goes on tilt, making it hard to reason things through. One good practice to pursue when making decisions is to ask yourself a few simple questions. First of all, how is your opponent(s) playing - tight, aggressively, tentatively? Which hands are your opponents likely to be playing and which will they fold? This will help you get a read on what you are up against. Then ask yourself, “what does my poker opponent think I have?” Once you gain a feel for what you think your opponent has and what you appear to be holding, then ask yourself, “Do I bet or raise in this situation?” If you believe you have the best hand, then you should bet or raise. If you can’t answer yes to bet or raise, then you need to ask yourself if checking or folding is the best option. Perhaps you have deduced that your hand is not necessarily the best. When you know your opponent is a strong player and is probably holding a strong hand, then checking or folding is the right choice. Once you have asked yourself these questions, and analyzed the situation, but still feel uncertain that a raise or a fold could be the wrong decision, then calling a bet or checking is the best option. Always consider “Should I raise?” first before checking or folding. This will let you help you take a selective but aggressive approach to the hand. +++++++++++++++++++++

Pokerstars is easily the biggest online poker site on earth, with more than a quarter million online players during the most active hours of the day. There are so many players that the tables are always busy.

Pokerstars Tournament Choices

Poker Stars has by far the largest selection of poker tournaments in the online poker industry. In fact, tournaments are starting every second of the day. That’s a lot of tournaments. Tournament players will also love the new Pokerstars bonus, which gets players $600 extra when they play for real money.

Pokerstars has more sit and go tournaments, the largest weekly guaranteed tournaments (up to $1.5 million), and satellite tournaments for all of the biggest live poker tournaments on the pro circuit. All serious online tournament players need an account at Pokerstars.com.

Anyone that would like to turn $1 into a seat in the EPT, WSOP, WPT, WSOP, LAPT, EPT, WPT, APPT, or any other major event, Pokerstars can help you get it. Pokerstars has satellite tournaments for the WSOP, WPT, EPT, and other huge events. There are more satellite tourneys for big, live events at Pokerstars than any other poker room online. Win a seat into any of the WSOP, WPT, EPT, or other huge tournaments by playing in qualifier tournaments at Pokerstars. They also have satellites & qualifiers for small, local tournament events like the Heartland Poker Tour.

Poker Stars has the best Sunday guaranteed tournament schedule of any online poker room, with the $1.5 million dollar Sunday Million at the top. No other poker site has a Sunday tournament schedule that can touch Pokerstars. The Pokerstars Sunday tournament schedule features more huge prize pools than any other poker site. Guaranteed tournaments at Pokerstars.net offers online poker players millions of dollars in prizes.

Poker Stars also runs a $750,000 tournament named the Sunday Warmup, and a $500K guaranteed tournament named the Sunday 500. Beyond all this, Poker Stars also offers various other Sunday tournament events with prize pools in the range of $100K to $300K.

For just $.50 or thirty Frequent Player Points, Pokerstars players can win seats into almost any of these Sunday tourneys by entering satellite & qualifier tournaments.

For ring games players, choose between thousands of tables that run all day and night. Whether you prefer Texas Holdem, Omaha, Stud, HORSE, or a variety of other games, you can find whatever you like. They have so many game choices for ring game players that nobody could be disappointed. Stakes start the micro levels, and go up to some very high stakes tables. If you’re looking to become a pro, this is a good site to find the action you’ll need.

For loyal players, you’ll earn Frequent Player Points which can be traded in for all sorts of cool stuff in the poker store. If you’d like a new computer or big screen tv set, you can get it in the store.

I’m not sure what this weak king thinks he is the king of. Ruling over a five, who also happens to be your neighbor, seems pretty boring and unkingly if you ask me. I would bring this kind of fake kingly unclassy trash to any event I’ve ever been invited toI don’t care what kind of suit he’s wearing. He’s no good for you, I say. Look the other way. Run if you have to. He’s only going to spend all of your money and make you wish you’d never met.

There are a few nicknames for this jerk in a can of a online poker hand. Knives, for how they can stab you right in the gut for messing around with something so pointedly idiotic. Other than that one, I’m not sure what else you’d call this hand besides Bad News, A Waste of Your Time and Chips, a Hand Not Worth Getting Caught Dead With, Two Hunks of Poker Plastic That Belong Only in the Muck.

“But he was suited! I couldn’t help it! I had to call your raise and that guy’s reraise! What if I flopped a flush draw! I could hardly stand to sit at the poker online table if I didn’t call those raises and then saw two more of the same suit come down! It would break my life!”

When playing a draw against a made hand, the question of whether or not the draw can proceed in the hand comes down to, on a numbers level, whether the odds of what you have to pay to stay in the hand are worth what the pay off will be if you do hit your outs. Beyond pot odds and implied odds, it is a question of what you are willing to risk versus what you stand to gain.

Some draws seem to almost demand raising in certain spots. Getting checked to or even bet at when holding the nut flush draw is very often a good spot for raising, unless you perceive that in order to win the poker hand you actually have to hit the flush. Against opponents who play only strong hands it might be better to call even with such a massive draw, and avoid getting reraised out of the ability to see your completion cards come through.

Against multiple poker players, and in position, some draws that might not be profitable heads up become more worth calling a bet and trying to hit. You don’t want to stick around too long or for a bad price, but often just calling and hitting that magic card can bring further dividends as poker online players begin to think you are a calling station, or better yet, a donkey.

When they’re done well, pre-flop raises put a online poker player at a distinct advantage. When you raise pre-flop, you put the rest of the online poker table on their heels, wondering what cards are making you feel so confident, and that’s just one of the benefits. While it does put you at a maneuvering advantage if your flop doesn’t hit, it also serves to fatten up the pot for when you do make it big.

Say you get pocket Kings and you’re at a online poker table of pretty loose players. If you raise pre-flop, the chances are that at least two or three other players are going to call you, depending on the size of the raise, that’ll build up a pretty hefty pot. This is good news when you have a high-percentage hand like pocket Kings. If another King (or two) happen to come out on the flop, you can set up any trap you like, be it a check raise of a mock-feeler bet to entice your opponents to think you’re scared of those kings on the table.

The big raise before the pot had the others close to being pot-committed, and once they’re too invested in the pot to back out, you can fleece them for all their chips.

Eccentric poker megastar Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak will be wearing his camouflage hoody when he makes his way to the casino in London next month for a Poker Boot Camp with BlackBelt Poker, a poker online company, according to UK Poker News. He will be holding a boot camp on May 16th and 17th at the Loose Cannon Club and Laak will be sharing his wisdom with the attendees.

The highly regarded cash player also has almost $1.5 million in tournament winnings including a WPT title. He will be joining Neil Channing, Nik Persaud and Nick Wealthall who are hosting the weekend. Tickets for the event are selling for £700 and includes food, drink and two nights’ accommodation. On top of all this the players will fight it out for a $5,000 Vegas Package which includes a $1,500 WSOP event seat. Often you see poker pros conducting events like this, where they give seminars or advice on how to better your game.

Now, I’m sure they want be giving all their trade secrets away, but this seems like a decent opportunity to glean some poker tidbits, and any reason to go to a casino or card club is a good reason in my book.

Appearances in online poker can be deceiving. Sometimes poker and casino savvy comes in the most unlikely of situations, as many would claim is the case with internationally known and legendarily hot young actress Shannon Elizabeth. Known first for her unforgettable nude scenes as a foreign exchange student in the American Pie movies, Shannon has made quite a second name for herself in her pursuit of a reputation as a poker player worth her sharp looks in skill.

For any that would question the actress’s talent, she’s already in the relatively short amount of time she’s been on the scene made it known that she’s not just another pretty face messing around. Her biggest poker accomplishment so far has been going to the semi-finals in NBC’s National Head Up poker championships where she moved on against a series of well known pros, showing she has chops even against the world’s best.

Shannon has also made strong appearances in the last few years of the World Series of Poker and other bracelet events. While she may still be early on in her poker career, and may still have a lot to prove, the credentials and reputation she has earned outside of her other pursuits are impressive in and of themselves.

With all the interest and television ratings that televised poker has garnered over the past five years or so, I wonder if major online poker tournaments will ever be televised.

Now before you start laughing, keep in mind that many things that are on television now would have once been considered not TV worthy, including poker. The first time I remember poker being televised was in the mid 1990’s, I believe it was the U.S. Championships from Atlantic City. It was on at 4 in the morning, basically as filler programming in the middle of the night. The idea that televised poker could one day be shown in primetime and attract huge audiences would have been absurd. So how would televised online poker work? Well, I suppose it could be like the current poker telecasts, showing everyone at the virtual table, with access to seeing their hole cards. Since that could get boring after a while, you would after all not have the interpersonal banterings that a live table has, perhaps camera crews could be in each of the players’ home locations to film their reactions to certain hands. Perhaps the poker game coverage could be interspersed with little featurettes about the players. Who knows if all that would work or not. But the fact is in an age where televised tournament poker can outdraw many sporting events, televising online poker is a feasible idea

In the beginning, if you wanted to play poker, you needed cards. The birth of poker meant that a deck was no longer needed if you had a PC. But what if the urge to play strikes when you are out on the town with friends? Well, if you have some U.S. dollars, you can play what is known as Liar’s Poker. If those are hard to come by, anything with at least an 8-digit unique barcode will do, so check your beer label at the bar or cans of veggies if you’re at the market. To begin, examine your dollar’s serial number. Let’s say it’s 33936537. Now, you want to try and guess the total number of times a particular digit appears in all hands combined. For instance you know that there are at least four 3’s, so you might bid eight 3’s if there are four of you playing. Your opponent might up the bid to, perhaps, eight 5’s or nine 3’s. Bidding continues until a bid is made that no one believes could be possible. If that bid indeed turns out wrong, the offending player gives everyone a dollar (or a can of peas), but if it’s right the player gets a dollar from all his opponents. Kind if like poker, but playable anywhere!