Texas Hold’em poker players almost dread getting dealt a middle pair because they are so tricky to play. Middle pair can get you in so much trouble and the purpose of this article is to help you make smart decisions when you have to play such hands. For all the examples used in this lesson, your middle pair will be two jacks.

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Some people play poker exclusively online, without going anywhere near a live game. Others like to mix it up and play poker live and on the internet. Despite the huge popularity of online poker, there are still some poker players who avoid online poker and instead prefer the green felt to the click of the mouse. These people are missing out on the huge opportunities offered by online poker. Here are some of the reasons why online poker is better than live poker:

Action 24/7

The number one reason why online poker is better live poker is because there’s always a game to be found. Sure, some times of day are busier than others- such as evenings and weekends. But it doesn’t matter what time of day, there’s people playing poker online 24/7. Possibly the most annoying aspect of live poker is waiting around for a game to start. Of course this is assuming they even have enough people wanting to play poker. While with online poker, you might not be able to always jump straight into the game of your choice, there’s never much waiting around.

Comfort of Home

Not only are there an abundance of poker games waiting for you, you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your own home. There are no travel costs, no worries about how you’re going to get home, or getting stuck in traffic. There’s no need to bother getting dressed up either. Heck, you can even play poker naked if you like. Doing this at a live poker game would get you locked up. Let’s not forget, you also save money on food and drink, as the fridge is never far away when you’re playing online poker.

Online Poker is Cheaper

Online poker doesn’t just save you money on travel, food and drink. The poker itself is also much cheaper, which is particularly beneficial if you’re just starting out learning how to play poker, and don’t want to spend too much. If you go to a casino or card room you might find many cash games below $1/$2. The rake at live poker venues is also much higher than at online poker sites. Plus if you win a hand playing poker online there’s no obligation to tip the dealer – you can’t anyway!

Play More Poker Hands

The most noticeable difference between online poker and live poker is the hands per hour ratio. When you play poker online there’s no waiting around for the dealer to shuffle the cards, potential miss-deals, working out the pot, and the players are generally much quicker to act – to name just a few things. You get to see so many more hands per hour playing online poker, which means more opportunities, more decisions, and less boredom.

Multi-Tabling

Many online poker players like to play on multiple tables at the same time. Just playing one table at a time means you get to see more hands per hour than in live poker, but if you’re playing on multiple tables then obviously this becomes an even bigger factor. Playing multiple tables also reduces the variance, and you can play at much lower limits – thereby spreading the risk. If you are playing poker in a live venue, let’s say a $1/$2 NL game, you’d probably want to sit down with about $200 – which is at risk on any given hand. You could spread this same $200 across multiple tables, at lower stakes, when you play online.

Tracking Your Game

It’s always nice to know if you’re winning, losing, or breaking even at poker. Sure, you can keep notes on how much you’re spending when you play live poker. I used to keep a spreadsheet to track my income and expenses from live poker games. But sometimes it’s easy to forget how much was spent, particularly with re-buy events. Of course, this is just basic tracking. When you play poker online you can get instant hand histories, and access to a huge wealth of data. It goes far beyond just saying if you’re a profitable player or not. You can find leaks in your game and plug the holes. By analysing your play you can improve your skills as a poker player.

Bonuses and Promotions

Online poker is a fiercely competitive industry, and with so many poker sites looking to attract customers, there are a multitude of bonuses and promotions on offer. Casinos like to offer promotions to their patrons, but when it comes to poker they care much less. Poker rooms don’t make much money for casinos, so they don’t really bother trying too hard. However online poker sites are only too eager to offer bonuses and promotions, be it 100% signup bonuses for new poker players, or re-load bonuses for existing players. They really want you to play poker at their site, which is something you can and should take advantage of.

Conclusion

I think the advantages of online poker that have been outlined so far, are fairly comprehensive. Of course playing poker in a live environment has its advantages too – such as the social interaction, and being able to see players’ reactions. The purpose of this article is not to knock live poker, but to give valid reasons for why online poker is superior in so many ways. It’s fair to say this has been achieved. Good luck at the tables!

What do you think about that statement?   Out of context, it’s blatant, and sounds like some old blow-hard who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.   The fact is, that’s the 2005 WSOP champion talking about a wave of ultra aggressive poker players who appear to be willing to gamble all their chips in every hand they’re involved in.  “I had quite a bit of respect but you know what? They know nothing about poker, these kids really know nothing. These kids are just … idiots,” Hachem said.

The World Series is underway, and already the players who are left are guaranteed at least $36,626, while the top prize of $8.55 million will be awarded at the final table in November.

“We’re playing for one of the biggest prizes in history and they’re getting … five hundred million blinds in there with second pair,” Hachem said. “To me, the reason I’m upset is because it’s disrespectful. We’re playing in the world series, we’re not just having fun at a local home game. These guys are pushing chips around like it’s nothing.”

Do these sentiments echo the feelings of most players or is this an outdated attitude in a game that is changing at a faster pace every day?  With online poker, players who are ultra aggressive are paid off, and if not they are able to load another table within seconds.  To these players its strictly about math and maximising their ability to make money.  It seems that older players are trying to hold on to the way it use to be, and are having difficulty adjusting their games to match the new age player.

To Hatchem’s credit he is one of only two former main event champions left in the tournament, along with last year’s winner Peter Eastgate, and so must at least be willing to adjust enough to stay competitive…

“Look, their style may be the way they play on the Internet and that’s what they’ve got to do because they can open up another tournament every 10 seconds,” Hachem said. “It’s fine, right, but you’re playing here, you got so much time, you got so much going for you and these guys just want to go to war every hand” he said.

With the WSOP currently running and tons of poker related news and blog posts, i figured i’d get back to basics.  I recently read an article about how Phil Hellmuth is changing his game up at the WSOP.  As a player with the most tournament wins at WSOP, is this really a wise move?  He says that he is no longer avoiding aggressive opponents who threaten to knock him out.  In the past he has avoided all in situations, opting instead to outplay opponents without letting them get lucky.  This translates to players pushing their stack when they no longer want to see cards, andHistorically Phil will fold.  This year he Says “All those amateurs making all those crazy moves on me that they got away with in the past, this year I’m calling.”

Changing up your game can be very difficult for most people.  If you’re a conservative person by nature, and you want to start playing loose and easy, that transition is not going to feel comfortable for you.  You’ll want to check the flop, even when in position (bad move anyways) or you’ll want to bet the minimum amount to get the player to fold (generally a good rule of thumb), but if you’re playing out of character this could easily backfire on you.

On the flip side, if you’re an ultra aggressive player who is trying to really pick their spots, you wont be able to help yourself in seeing opportunity when the table checks around and you folded preflop.  This could lead to you overplaying rag hands and getting money in when you’re behind (“i missed that opportunity last hand, I’m not going to let another one go by”).

My advice?  Choose a lower level than your use to playing in and really practice those skills.  Make it a low risk area, and make sure that the result  you’re looking forisn’t “making money” but improving your game.  If you’re goal is to only play premium hands, stick to it and see how your fare.  You may be surprised.  And if your goal is to become ultra aggressive, do that too, and track it.  Give yourself pro’s and con’s to playing that way, and see how you can incorporate it into your regular game.

Switching up during the WSOP?  Leave that to Phil Hellmuth.

Let’s-Play-Poker is hosting a UK Poker Championship between August 29th and September 3rd.  This is a £100 buy-in event with a cap of 750 players, yet it suggests a £100,000 first prize with a further 9 players making the money. Some quick math tells me that, if this is a straight tourney (no re-buy, no add on), they are only bringing in £75000.  First prize is more than all the money collected from the tourney.  A little strange? Also the website doesn’t use the word ‘guarantee’ at all with regards to the prize pool.

A number of major UK forums have been questioning the legitimacy event, most of which think that this could be a possible scam. I don’t want to say it is for sure a scam, as there are many reasons this could be happening.  Although, I’m hard pressed to think of any, maybe it’s a promotional event? Maybe it’s an intro into bigger events.  Maybe it’s just to get their names out there.  But before i plonked down my 100 quid, I’d make sure that i knew where the prize money was coming from and how they justified paying the top 10 players with more than they’re making from the tourney.

Some other concerning items have been raised such as the fact that you have to pay for the event with a credit/debit card after one of their Representatives calls you. You have to register an interest online and then await a phone call, rather than being able to ring them directly to register. A number of people have been contacted by the call centre (And when they are the phone number is blocked) and been told that over 1000 people have registered an interest, yet the call staff have rang several players multiple times to request payment for the event from them.

The website is very basic, contains no tournament structure information and does not include any terms & conditions. The listed phone number does not appear to work when called.

Overall it doesn’t appear that a lot of thought went into this tourney.  If i got a call from a rep asking for my credit card to pay for this tourney, i probably wouldn’t give it.  I’d much rather place my money into a reputable online poker room, or just go to a casino.  Much less risky, and probably much better pay off.

5. Observe, Observe, Observe

I’m going to modify this.  It’s difficulty to hyper focused on one table while multi-tabling online.  And i wouldn’t even really recommend it.  Paying attention to the way players play is obviously important.  And, you can for sure glean information regarding how a player plays by watching hands that you aren’t in.  But is it worth shutting down a multi-tabling session to only watch one table and get a little more information?  Not in my opinion.  Pay attention, and observe how people play, but make sure you’re maximizing your earning potential!

6. Know Your Opponents

Knowing your opponents is an important aspect of poker.  Online it is a little easier because you have a program built into the client that enables you to create notes on each player.  I highly recommend this because if you get a great read on someone WRITE IT DOWN! With the amount of players online it will be very difficulty to distinguish between players who are aggressive bluffers, and players who only play the nuts.  The only drawback is that it’s software based, and not kept in the cloud (ie/ it’s not married to your user-name)..So if you have to reinstall your poker software, you lose the notes you made.

7.  Just play a solid game against idiots

You will never bluff a bad player.  I have posted about this last week.   It’s just not possible.  Over the long run, that same bad player will dump a lot more money to you if you play ABC poker, than if you try to bluff them or try any fancy stuff. They’re just not playing the game at the level  you are, and they honestly don’t care what cards you’re holding.  They’ve fallen in love with their hand and they’re going to see the river…even if they have to go all in.

8.  Don’t play if the results don’t Matter

This should be self evident.  If you don’t care about the money you’re winning or losing, poker is a meaningless game, and you will not do well (but that doesn’t really matter does it?).  Also..i use to play a lot after getting home from the bar.  This is a really bad idea, not because I was drunk (see rule #1), or because i was tired.  It was a bad idea because at the end of the night i just didn’t care enough about losing a 5 dollar pot.  I would dump 50 or 60 bucks in 5 dollar increments because of all the bad decisions i was making, mainly because i didn’t care about the outcome.

I came across this list from Examiner.com, and while the person who came up with the list is going to go through them in the next few days, I figured I would expand on his list, and give reasons.

Here is the list:

1. Don’t drink and play
2. Be well rested
3. Stay Focused
4. Play within your bankroll
5. Observe, Observe, Observe
6. Know your opponents
7. Just play solid poker against idiots
8. Don’t play if the results don’t matter

1. Don’t Drink and Play

Sometimes the obvious stuff isin’t so obvious.  I play in a weekly game that is more of a social get together than a grinding it out, money making session.  In that game, this rule goes out the window.  Everyone who is participating in the game are solid players, and not everyone drinks.  But everyone who does partake in the drinking consistently do worse than those who don’t.  The drinking affects descision making skills, sometimes making you more bold (and leading to reckless bluffs, or stupid calls), always affecting your ability to accurately read a player (depending on how much you have to drink, reading a player may be very low on your list of priorities) and will often make you very easy to read.  You give away more tells than you realize when you’re drunk, and if your goal while playing poker is to make money, you should stay away from the booze and wait until some of the other participants have had a few.

2. Be Well Rested

Anything that takes prolonged mental disciplin and concentration requiers you to be well rested.  This will give you a huge advantage over the players who are on the other end of a 12 hour overnight session.  If your mind is clear, and you’re not concerned with being tired you will make better descision more consistently.  On the flip side, if you decide to embark on that 12 hour overnight session, and came to the game with that in mind, then you will be in a much better state at the end of it if you showed up well rested in the first place.

3. Stay Focused

There is nothing worse than playing poker while watching a sport you’re interested in.  Something that you believe only takes half of your attention away from the table is very dangerous indeed.  While you’re watching a replay of an amazing goal, you’re missing a tell, or a telling hand from an opponent.  You will not be as prepared for the upcoming hands if you’re concentration is on something other than the game at hand.

4. Play Within your Bankroll

I have seen a lot of people lose A LOT of money “taking a shot” at the bigger limits.  Every so often, playing in a higher limit is a great idea.  It teaches you how the game changes (or how it stays the same) at the bigger tables.  But typically, if you are considering taking your shot, you have built that into your bankroll, and you are not planning on using your entier bankroll to finance the 50/100 game you’ll be playing.  Any time your whole bankroll is up for grabs is generally a bad scene and you should drop a limit or 2 to build it up.  Stay away from risking it all at one game!

I will post the other 4 on Wednesday…..

You can find the original article here.  I’ll be interested to see how different out takes are when he comes out with his list!

Reasons Players Bluff

Players bluff for all sorts of reasons.  There are players who are masterful with their bluffs, playing the hand the whole way through with the intent of taking the pot.  They decided before they got their cards that this would be their pot.  They didn’t need to actually look at their hand to determine how they would play.  A person who is playing like this is very dangerous at the poker table.

There are players who hit the nut flush draw on the flop, attempt to draw other players in, because they believe they will get a big payday.  But on the river, no flush and no pair have materialized, they find themselves too deep in the pot to release, and often will throw money at the pot to buy it.  This type of player is usually found at your weekly game. We all know this player, and usually don’t respect a big raise on the river when it looks like they just missed their draw.  You want these players on the table. (mainly because they believe they are good players, can recognize a bluff and will fold sometimes.)

Then, there is the noob.  He’s the guy who just started playing and drinks a lot at the table.  He will bluff indiscriminately just to see if he can get away with it.  He doesn’t know how to use a bluff.  He doesn’t know when he’s being bluffed, and is typically a calling station.  I personally never bluff at players who don’t realize that by betting your saying to your opponent “my hand is better.”  Their game is such that they want to see their pair of 77’s take down the pot, even though there are 3 hearts, and 2 over cards on the flop..those 7’s are going to win the pot.  And if you’re bluffing at the guy, they likely will.

Why can’t you bluff a bad player?

I’ve thought long and hard about this.  A bad player isn’t interested in what your holding.  They’ve read the books. They know that some guy named Doyle wrote the supersystem, and that he’s a rich man, and that he says you play the player not the cards.  But look at that flop! Look at it! I’ve got a 9, and there’s a 9 on the board, and if another 9 hits, I’ll have 3 of them! I may as well call.  Oh, no…no 9 on the turn. hmm.. Well, I’ve gone this deep, i may as well see the river.  Well, i made 2 pair with that 2 on the river, maybe I’m good.

And you know what? they are good.  Because you were holding AK, and an ace hit on the flop.  But because he wasn’t thinking about what you were potentially holding, he was blinded by the excitement of pairing up.  It’s crazy, but it’s true.

The example above isn’t a bluff, it’s true, but it is the reason you can’t bluff a bad player.  If they hit any part of that board, they are going to be interested in seeing the river.  And if they see the river, they are typically “too deep” into the pot to let it go.  They will call with a crappy pair.  They will call with bottom pair.  The best thing you can do in a situation like this is recognize a bad player, and use it to your advantage.  Pray they hit their mid pair, and give them the opportunity to get all their money in.  But make sure you’ve got a strong hand on the river…cuz you never know what they could be holding.

Apparently there is, and it’s currently accepting nominations for the 2009 inductees.  This is a public forum, and you are able to not only choose which poker great you think should be inducted this year, but also you get to write 250 words as to WHY you think they deserve the honour.  This is the first time that the public will have a say in who gets inducted into the hall of fame.

The top ten nominees will be announced during the main event in July of this year.  (This begs the question, why are you writing 250 words as to why you think someone should be nominated but it’s vote volume that counts?)

Click to Vote (or you know…go to the website)

Also a Women in Poker Hall of Fame?

Yep! The Mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman has declared June 5th “Women in Poker Hall of Fame Day,” in support of this year’s inductees: June Field, Jan Fisher, and Cyndy Violette into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame.

The career accomplishments of June Field, Jan Fisher, and Cyndy Violette, will be celebrated by the poker industry at the second annual Women in Poker Hall of Fame (WiPHoF) dinner and dance gala presented by High Society Spirits, sponsored by Rockwell Time, and hosted by Golden Nugget Casino on Friday, June 5th at 6PM in Las Vegas.

The Seven Sisters of Greek mythology will be the theme for the glamorous white linen gala. Guests will enjoy no-host cocktails, music, dinner, and have a unique opportunity to mingle with poker industry celebrities and players.

If you have a spare $75-80 in advance and $90 at the door, and happen to be in Las Vegas, this is a public event (link and will take place inside the Golden Nugget Casino’s Augusta/Pebble Beach ballroom.

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Finding a good online poker site to play on can be very difficult as there are so many different sites, each with different things to offer. For example, some players may find the best site to be the one with the most traffic, while others may define the best as the one with the most bad players. No matter what you consider to be the best, our goal here is to find the best poker site for YOU, the player.

Below are 3 of very popular poker sites, especially in the UK. Each we consider to be the best for different reasons, which are briefly explained beside the site's logo and name.

Why should you trust us? That is a difficult question, but I can guarantee you will most likely have heard of any poker site listed here. This site is run by poker players that have been playing online for over 5 years. In this time we have been able to try out many sites and we will do our best to explain what we like and don't like about them in our reviews.

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