Playing Big Stack Poker

Having a big stack of chips at the beginning of the poker game is a great advantage. But sometimes if you don't know how to play the big stack it could be disastrous. If you are playing in a tournament you might find yourself quickly out of chips and out of the tournament. If you are playing at a regular table or online your chips may suddenly disappear without you realizing your stack has suddenly dwindled away. Big stack advantages You can be a bully. You can scare off other players with big bets and have a chance of stealing the blinds and really big pots. The other players won't have the chance to bet against you when you put up big bets that they can't afford. When you have the big stack at the table you are the boss. Watch Your Strategy When Playing Big Stack Poker Keep in mind that even if you have a big stack don't be tempted to gamble more or take more risks than if you had a small stack, your game could go down the tubes quickly so you need to be very careful. You start out with a feeling of security knowing that the other players can't beat your chips. And what happens, you become careless. You start out seeing more flops which you think you can afford because you have that big stack. Then when you play you forget to watch the cards and you play mediocre hands. You don't watch the other players bets and raises or how they respond to your big bets. You think you can afford all this and your stack goes down. Reckless playing because you have a big stack may lead to a small stack. Being aggressive and playing loosely will dwindle your precious chips. Remember you can run out of chips so you need to use good strategy whether you are a big chip stack or a small chip stack. Always remember when you have a middle pair and someone raises before the flop that you are most likely beat, so don't throw you chips away fold. If you raise and someone raises back beware you are most likely beat. Keep your cool and sit back and watch the other players so you are aware how they are playing. Don't get sucked in and play their game, play your own game. Play the game to win.

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How To Play Short Stack Poker

Playing the short stack is a common issue that all poker players face in almost every tournament at some point. Small stack poker requires a lot of discipline and patience to wait for the right moment and situation to make your move to try to get the double up to get you back in the game. The first thing that needs to be tracked at all times is how big your chip stack is compared to the players at your table, your chip stack relative to the blinds and your stack compared to the average chip stack in the tournament. All of these factors dictate how much leniency you have with making plays or attempting a variety of strategies and the smaller the stack the smaller the amount of moves you can make become. A very general guideline is that from 20x the big blind and up you can typically play your normal game, having enough chips to take a few risks and/or play your normal game. For example, the blinds are 100-200 and you have 4,500 chips. This is over 20x the big blind so you have a lot of flexibility in terms of your play. Once you get around 15x the big blind with your chips your moves become increasingly limited. At this point attempting an extravagant buff or calling raises with less-than-stellar hands is out of the question. A lot of players at this point enter a mode of play I like to call "jam-or-fold." Simply put, this means that you either go all-in with your hand or fold. The logic behind this is that each limp or call takes an increasing percentage of your chips and your move and all-in need to remain threatening enough so that when you make your all-in move that bet isn't too low for most of the table to call without much harm done to their stacks if they lose. I highly suggest jam-or-fold mode for your play once you are at 10x the big blind or lower. At this point, you can enter 10 pots and each pot you enter decreases your chip stack by 10%. Its not worth it to limp and try to catch when your chips need to enter the pot. So when you enter this danger zone sit back and wait for a good hand to make your move with. Choosing this hand isn't too difficult, of course you are looking for a high pair or a premium hand like A-K but pushing with J-10, Q-9, K-9 are also acceptable if there are a lot of folds before you. Another theory that is a bit more advanced is the theory of receiving first-in rights. This theory states that if you are on a small stack later in a tournament and action folds around to you that you can move all in with just about any two cards, leaving out only the worst possible hands. This is a risky theory and works best at a tighter table but is extremely helpful. I once made this move with 10-6 off suit to test this theory and ended up getting lucky and tripling up after both blinds called. If you get called, just hope you have live cards that hit.

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Poker Tips: Winning Online

Poker is the most popular card game in the world, meaning the traffic and opportunities available are almost limitless. If you utilise these online poker tips, you give yourself the advantage over casual players, allowing you to make a profit from poker. Find the best bonuses. To boost-start your bankroll, initial sign up bonuses should be used. Many poker websites offer fantastic one off deals for new players, giving up to thousands of pounds away as bonuses. Most online poker rooms often provide holiday bonuses throughout the year, so once you've signed up you're eligible for more bonuses. If you have no starting money, no deposit bonuses can be used to give you an initial bankroll. Choose the right tournament structure for you. Different poker games suit different people, Sit and Goes provide a steady, safe return on money, Multi Table Tournaments give massive winnings but with many runners for each tournament, and cash games provide the largest single hand return in profit. Play for Free. If, even after reading a review, you are unsure if a poker site is suited for you, you can use the 'free play' facilities on the majority of major poker websites. You can practise the online poker tips you have learnt in this environment risk free. Read terms and conditions of the website. It's worth spending the time going over some of the information on the poker site, before you deposit your investment. Some poker sites have a few days wait before you can withdraw winnings, other sites are instant. This is one of many variables found across poker websites, ensure you know what to expect when you have deposited. Choose your poker room. If you're going to invest (if you're playing seriously it is an investment, not just money to spend having fun) money in poker, you want to make sure that the platform (website) on which you do it is the best you can possibly get. The best way to ensure this happens it to find unique, independent poker reviews which you can trust, giving the pros and cons for each of the major poker sites. There are countless poker websites available to play, all having their pros and cons. To make a profit from these online poker websites, you must research which website you want to use (using independent, unique poker reviews) and use the best online poker tips available on the web.

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Early History of Poker and Gambling

Playing Cards have had a major role in the livelihood of professional gamblers and card sharks from the Mississippi to the mining towns of California. They have comprised a list of some of the most colorful and skillful individuals in the past few hundred years. The riverboat on the mighty Mississippi became a haven for card games of every variety. Poker was the king on the riverboats and in wild west towns. But other games of luck like Three-Card-Monte, Faro, and Roulette were played by gamblers and dealers determined to make fast money. There were the famous card players like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson. And there were those who made a very good living as card sharks (or sharps). One of the greatest card sharks in history was a riverboat and railroad gambler names William "Canada Bill" Jones. Canada Bill mastered a game called Three-Card-Monte. Similar to the shell game Monte was played with three cards, the first of which the dealer showed the "mark". He then turned it face down with the other two, rearranged them, and asks the "mark" to find his card. Well, of course, Canada Bill would palm the first card and replace it with another card. The "mark" would select what he thought was his card, lose, and be none the wiser. Canada Bill was a card shark at poker, too, but he died in 1880 penniless and was buried by the City of Reading, Pennsylvania at the city's expense. Unlike the top best poker players of today who play the game like a science, the gamblers of old sat in the saloons with their backs to the wall and guns at their sides while watching the dealers very carefully. The dealers were very good at sleight-of-hand moves that came after long hours of practice, patience, and discipline. Of course, it never hurt to have food, liquor and painted ladies close at hand. Many professional gamblers and card sharks would hang around mining towns and waterfronts. They preyed on unsuspecting travelers and pioneers who had their life savings in their pockets. These con artists would station themselves where local magistrates and police avoided, and a person who was lucky enough to win any kind of money stood a pretty good chance of being "greeted" by thieves when he left the saloon. Gambling migrated and spread from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to the West in covered wagons and railroads. One early author, Jonathan Greer in 1834 referred to the activity as the "cheating game". Dishonest card sharks ran confidence games, and companies cropped up specializing in the manufacture and sales of card cheating devices. The professional gamblers had a very high opinion of themselves and took advantage of the growing obsession for card games in America. To be successful, they maintained a very fancy wardrobe and had an irresistible gift for conversation. These attributes often provided the introduction to the unwary card player. One story occurred in 1832 on a Mississippi steamboat. Three professional gamblers had lured a traveler from Natchez into a poker game. The young naïve man lost all of his money in the rigged game and planned to throw himself into the river. An Observer stopped him from committing suicide and, upon hearing the man's plight, decided to join the poker game still in progress. When the stranger caught one of the gamblers cheating he pulled out his knife yelling, "Show me your hand". When he twisted the cheater's wrist six cards fell to the floor. The stranger took the $70,000 pot, returned the $50,000 to the Natchez man, and kept $20,000 for his trouble. When the Natchez man ask his name the stranger replied, "James Bowie". Unfortunately, these unscrupulous gamblers and card sharks multiplied quickly and continued to thrive. After the Civil War, America spread West as did the gamblers infiltrating every mining camp and frontier prairie town. And the miners, cowboys, railroad workers, soldiers and outlaws continued to chance an opportunity for making their fortune.

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Maximizing Your Bankroll With Poker Rakeback and Referrals

Like most players, when I first started playing online poker several years ago I knew nothing about rakeback. I saw an ad for a poker room, clicked the link, liked what I saw and signed up. Several months later I stumble across an article on rakeback and found out that I was missing out on hundreds of dollars each month. As you can imagine, I wasn't too happy. So why didn't my poker room tell me about rakeback? The simple reason is profit. Paying rakeback reduces the profit margin of the house. With that being the case, you might ask why they bother offering rakeback at all, especially if they aren't going to be upfront about it? It's because rakeback is a marketing tool. You see, poker rooms get their members from two main sources. The first is direct referrals. These members find the site by word of mouth, through merchandising material or via marketing campaigns created by the poker room itself. This is how the majority of people first find a poker site, the unfortunate masses who eventually learn about rakeback the hard way after many months of playing. Alternatively, members can be generated by affiliates of the poker room. Affiliates are people the site has enlisted to send internet traffic to them. Affiliates for their part, come in two flavours. There are affiliates who simply send traffic to the site without offering any out-of-pocket incentives to get people to join. They simply promote whatever the room itself may offer. Then there are affiliates who provide prospective members with extra benefits for signing up through their account. These benefits can include free tournaments, merchandise, free bankrolls and/or rakeback. All of these incentive are paid for directly by the affiliate. Poker rooms in turn compensate affiliates by paying them a commission for each new player they send. This commission is either a straight money value payment for the each new member joining the site or an ongoing percentage of the rake generated by the player. This of course reduces the profit margin of the room and as such they would greatly prefer it if every player came directly to their site. So basically, rakeback is a marketing tool that the more generous affiliates employ to generate players for the poker room. These affiliates make less as paying rakeback reduces their profit significantly, the same way that paying an affiliate reduces the poker room's profit. But it does make for happy poker players and the smarter affiliates know that people who receive rakeback generally play more often and are more profitable, which in turn benefits the affiliate in the long run. But even among rakeback providers, there are things you need to look for to ensure you are receiving the best possible deal. Yes, most affiliates will offer you the maximum level of rakeback allowed by the poker room but there are other areas that can further increase your bankroll, one of these being referrals. For those who don't know, a referral is a friend or associate who signs up to a poker room under your account. As such, you are basically performing the same service as the affiliate does for the poker room - you are finding new players and directing them to the site. Except, in this case, you are sending them to the affiliates site rather than directly to the poker room. If used wisely, referrals can generate more money for you than rakeback. A lot more money. Imagine you know just 5 people who are playing online poker without rakeback and you get them to sign up under your rakeback account. On average, all these friends play poker as much as you do. Or, alternatively, you could know just one or two players who play a greater volume of games than you or at a higher limit. Now put a 4% commission, paid to you, against each of those players. That's 4% of the rake they generate in your pocket, for life. Then add a further.5% commission, paid to you, for every player that those second tier players refer. Then a further.2% of the rake for players that the third tier players refer. As you can see, there is the potential for a lot of extra money to be made using this system. Most affiliates offer referral payments in the range of 2-4% in the top tier,.5% in the second tier and.2% for the third tier of referrals. Their are however rakeback sites that offer significantly more than these commission rates. You should also be wary of sites that offer a flat payment for each player referred - eg. send us a friend, get $125. NEVER use a rakeback provider who is offering you flat payment referrals. It may seem attractive to get a lump sum all at once, but in the long run you will lose out on significant commissions - perhaps thousands of dollars. You should also note that some poker affiliates use underhanded tactics or tricky wording to sound like they are giving you a great deal - like offering you 10% of your friend's "rakeback" rather than his actual "rake". Remember that a player's rakeback will only be around 27-40% of his actual rake, so these sites are only offering you the same 2-4% as their competition. Another trick rakeback providers use is their offer of "exclusive" monthly promotions. 99% of the time this is false advertising - the promotion is usually exclusive to the poker room, NOT the rakeback provider. For example, a rakeback site might offer $600,000 in promotions per month. Out of this total, they run $500 worth of exclusive freerolls themselves. The other $599,500 consists of the rake races, rake chases and freerolls that the poker rooms run themselves - you would be enrolled in these regardless of whether you signed up through the rakeback provider. Alternatively, a smaller rakeback provider could offer only $200,000 in promotions because they offer less poker rooms, but they could have several thousand dollars worth truly exclusive promotions on offer. If you are interested in joining a site that offers more value, the more true exclusive promotions on offer, the better. So it is definitely a good idea to shop around when looking for your rakeback provider. Don't just jump onto the first sites you find in a search result. Yes, these are generally the larger sites but they only rely on their search engine position for new members - i.e. they generally don't offer much added value as they don't need to compete as much.

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Detecting and Setting Traps

One of the less understood poker strategies is that of trapping. When playing poker, how many times have you been trapped by a more experienced or tricky player? We all fall into these traps from time to time... but why? How can we detect traps and avoid them? This article delves into poker strategy keys for setting traps, and detecting them. First, what is a trap? A trap play is where an opponent with a strong hand represents weakness, luring their opponent into overplaying their hand. For example, I hit a nut flush (Ace-high flush) on the flop. I have the best hand at the table now, unless the board pairs (such that someone could pull a boat or four of a kind - not likely). So, instead of betting it big, I might throw out a smaller bet or even check it (slowplay). Another player holding big slick (A-K) pairs up with an Ace on the flop, thinking he's got the best hand so far. Another player has a small pair (e.g., 4's) and picks up a set on the flop (assuming flop was something like 4-A-J). Now, had I bet really big or raised back too early, the player holding the Ace would realize he's trouble and the small pair would've likely folded pre-flop. Since I just checked it down, no reason to be afraid of me, since I'm obviously on some kind of a draw... The person with the three of a kind (the 4's) tosses out a bet of 4 times the blind. The guy with Aces calls it. After delaying slightly, I go ahead and also call it (why not, I'm getting decent enough pot odds). So, I'm trapping them both at this point, letting them bet into me and just calling their bets. The same thing happens again on the turn, except the player with Aces drops out. Now it's just me and the set of 4's. They bet big again, this time the size of the pot. Again, after a slight pause, I just call them "reluctantly". Then comes the river, and they go all-in. I immediately call them...oops! They're sunk! What happened here? These players never asked themselves two simple questions: 1) Why is he calling that raised pot (on the flop and turn)? 2) What hands might he be holding? What could he be up to by calling my bets like that? Trapping? On a draw? It's crucially important to THINK before you ACT by understanding what the other players are actually doing. It's also very important not to underestimate your competition, as there are some very wily players out there... There's a potential flush showing on this flop, and since I'm kind of "lurking" in this hand, it's very suspicious behavior, and unlikely I'm on a draw calling those kind of big bets. Unless you're playing against a beginner or a drunk, there's no reason to believe someone will likely call a raise that's 4 times the big blind on a draw. That's the first mistake - assuming another player has no hand and not realizing why they're behaving as they are. Second, the board is showing a possible flush - and both of these players aren't holding it! Just because I didn't bet on the flop does not mean I don't have it! Had either of these players slowed down and considered my betting (calling) behavior, and asked themselves these questions, they'd probably have realized what was going on. Whether the player with the set of 4's could fold them is another story :) Aside from a trap, what else could have kept me in this hand? Traps aren't easy to detect. When a good player calls a big bet, there's a better than average chance they are trapping! You'll also often see them delay for an unusually long time, as if they're struggling to make a decision about calling your hand, then either call you, raise or go all-in. If this is indeed a good player, you now know almost for certain you're being trapped (call) or warned (raise/all-in). If you don't have the top hand at this point, you're probably beaten. This lengthy delay can be a great "tell" for traps and detecting strong hands, and is one you should learn to recognize. The delay is an attempt to make you believe they're "struggling" to make their decision - do the opposite of what your opponents want you to do when there's an obvious tell like this one. Good players don't usually call bets - they usually raise/re-raise with strength or fold. They don't often waste their money on draws, so if they're lurking in there with you, it almost certian it's not out of curiosity... If you aren't spending twice as much time thinking about what your opponent's hand might be, based upon their betting (calling) pattern and position and play history, you should be. Your own hand strength is quickly and easily determined. Spend more time on your opponents, learning to read their normal betting patterns and skill level, then when they do something that doesn't match their normal pattern, slow down and ask yourself why.

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Balance Your Fixed Limit Poker Strategy

There are a lot of different ideas about how to play or fold hands when you are playing fixed limit poker. There are also even more different ideas about low limit betting. Many players believe that you should rarely fold any of your cards, when playing fixed limit, based on the idea that the odds are in your favor to stay in the hand and see the flop in most cases. There are other people on the other hand that say fixed limit poker should be played with only the premium hands, except in case where your position allows for the playing of medium strength hands. With people giving different strategies on the subject it can be difficult to know the right strategies to use. When it comes to position, it should always play a role in the hands that you decide to play. Even in the cases where it does not change the final outcome of the hand, it is a good habit to get into and will help your overall fixed limit strategy. It may seem weird at first, but both of the strategies written about are right. It is often true that the pot odds in a hand make it a good idea to call to see the flop. At the same time playing premium hands in the right position will help increase your overall odds of winning the pot. It is a good idea to use both of these strategies. By playing premium hands it will increase your odds of winning, but playing more hands can at times also increase your profit. This will all depend on the table that you are playing on and the players you are playing against. Finding the right balance is what makes players profitable in the long run. Including these to basic strategies there are other more advanced ideas as well about position and pot odds. Learning the basics and practice playing different hands in different positions always keep in mind who you are playing and the pot odds that are given to you. You will learn what style of play works at different tables. In the long run it is a good idea to understand percentages of hands, and the odds of winning based on different flops. Finding a good fixed limit strategy can be difficult, but with practice you will be able to find the right balance of these different strategies.

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