Reasons to Raise or Call...

Getting a good (and by 'good' I mean effective and comprehensible) advice on poker strategy is not such an easy goal to achieve. There are many strategy tips out there and all of them are boasting their high quality. However, soon enough you realize that the vast majority of these tips and recommendations are of no value at all. So, what an average poker player is to do in order to get some valid info on smart poker play?

Well, that's a tough question... So, I've decided to do some serious research on the issue. It took me some long time, but, finally, I found this poker guide with pretty useful tips (I actually tried some of them out and they worked for most of the time) on what to do at the tables.

The first set of tips gives you an idea when it's a good time to call. Here they go:

A. You should call when you're trying to see more cards. When you happen to hold a drawing hand, you can get the correct pot odds by calling and having some more cards exposed.

B. You should call when you're trying to avoid a re-raise. Only you calling would deny the original bettor his right to re-raise.

C. You should call when you're trying to conceal the real value of your hand. If you happen to hold a good hand, you might want to keep this fact to yourself in order to keep your opponents in the pot. Scaring other players out of the pot means lessening the potential pot size.

D. You should call when you are planning to bluff later on in the game. Such a move is sometimes called a long-ball bluff. Calling on an early round of betting can prepare the ground for a successful bluff on a later phase in the game.

The second set of tips presents you with situations when raising is the best move. Here they go:

A. You should raise when you are holding an unbeatable hand and you seek to get more money in the pot. This move is called 'drawing for value' and it enables you to win a more impressive pot.

B. You should raise when you have a killer hand and are trying to kick your opponents out of the pot. Such a move may help you protect your hand by driving your opponents out of the game and denying them the opportunity of improving their own hands.

C. You should raise when you are trying to get a free card. If you have a drawing hand, your opponent may check to you on the next round of betting, giving you a chance to get a free card to improve your hand.

D. Finally, you should raise when you are trying to get information on other players' hand strength. Say you have an uncertain hand and need some additional info on your opponents' hands, you would be granted this information if you are called.

I hope that you'll find these tips useful...

Man Against Machine, Any Bets?

An amazing thing is now taking place in Vancouver, Canada. Two poker professionals, Phil Laak and Ali Eslami, are locked in a Texas Hold 'em battle against a computer program, dubbed 'Polaris.' The two men are no poker beginners. Both Laak and Eslami are expert poker players with vast experience in the game. However, the computer is no fool either. The program was developed at the University of Alberta in Edmonton where the researches invested huge efforts to 'teach' the computer the secrets of poker.

The Texas Hold 'em competition between Polaris and the human poker pros is held at the annual global conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (IT). According to Onlinepokereport.com, there are are as many as 1,000 scientists attending the conference. I bet they are very curious about the outcome of the battle.

A researcher who helped develop Polaris said that there were already computers in the world capable of playing other games, such as checkers and backgammon. Amazingly enough, in 1997, an IBM computer Deep Blue succeeded in beating the legendary Russian world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

The event was a sensation extensively covered by media from all over the world. It was the first time a machine proved to be a more successful player than a man...Even though the idea is generally clear, there are still several things I, personally, don't get. First, poker has this emotional factor that is very difficult for any machine to figure out. I refer to bluffing. How can a computer guess when his human opponent is bluffing? As far as I know, no modern computer can read tells...

Although Polaris is very good when it comes to mathematical calculations, which I admit form an integral part of poker, the human aspect of the game is truly out of its reach.The way I see it, people should not compete against computers but use their help when battling against other human players. This gives a huge advantage to any poker player who's smart enough to follow my advice. The machine will monitor all players' movements and give its users educated advice regarding their play, much like an advanced poker tracker. Imagine how easy winning at poker would become. The downside of such practice is the fact that poker wouldl probably lose its appeal. If winning the game will require no effort on the part of the player, the game would become somewhat boring. Don't you think?

Is Poker More Important than Children?

Well, that certainly is a great question! This is because the answer is apparently unclear to some poker players. I just read a news article that said that a Florida resident left his two kids in a car so to be able to go and play poker in a local gambling establishment... What a horrible thing to do!

If it was not for a passerby who spotted two little boys sitting in the car by themselves and called the police, who knows how many hours would have passed before the poker-playing father returned to the vehicle. The father, by the way, claimed that he had only been at the facility for 15 minutes...

Luckily, the boys are fine. None of them suffered any injury during the incident. Still, the father is very likely to be prosecuted because, according to Florida's, law a parent is not allowed to leave a child in a vehicle unattended.

Although I'm an ardent poker fan myself, I would never leave my children (well, the yet unborn ones) in a vehicle by themselves no matter how bad the craving for poker might be... But, who knows maybe it's just me. It's a crazy world out there!

2007 World Series of Poker Winner is Finally Here

After much anticipation and suspense the 2007 World Series of Poker finally has a winner. The lucky winner is Jerry Yang, a 39-year-old psychologist/ social worker from California. I bet he is pretty happy right now because the first place prize stood this year at $8.25 million! I sure would not mind switching places with him. Who would not want to become a millionaire almost over night?

What's even more amazing is the fact that Yang is no poker professional, but an average poker player like me. In fact, during an interview held after his win, he said that prior to his incredible win yesterday he had been playing poker for only two years. The 2007 WSOP Champion earned his entry into the Main Event through a satellite in a local casino gaming establishment in California.

In my opinion, the guy is just unbelievably lucky. It is not every day that a relatively new poker player (and I say that he is relatively new because there were other players in the competition who have been playing the game for over twenty years), beats veteran players to a multi-million prize. Besting a field of 6,358 players, who long for the first place prize as badly as you do, is certainly no joke.

Yang, however, probably deserves winning. According to onlinepokereport.com, right after his win, he said that he promised to donate 10% of his winnings to several charitable organizations. That's a worthy decision... I hope he goes through with it.

This somehow reminds me of Jamie Gold, last year's WSOP winner. Gold was a relative poker beginner as well and was lucky enough to win the championship. His first place prize stood at a record amount of $12 million. But, eventually, Gold got only half of the money. This is because he had this legal fight with some other guy named Bruce Crispin Leyser who said that Gold had promised to split his winnings with him. This was in exchange for help in recruiting celebs willing to sport the Bodog.com logo. Gold denied the whole thing. But the court ruled that he must give $6 million to Leyser anyway.

In any case, the WSOP is today's richest poker competition. Players from all over the world flock to Las Vegas in order to try their luck at winning a prestigious WSOP bracelet. By the way, top poker pro Phill Hellmuth is the world leader is WSOP bracelet ownership. He has 11 of them. Right behind him are Doyle Brunson and Johny Chan with 10 gold bracelets each.

Are You up to Some Russian Poker or Do you Want to Follow the Queen?

I just recently discovered this website featuring an incredible amount of exotic poker variations. On top of the popular and widely played variations, such as Texas Hold 'em, Omaha and 7-Card Stud, there are many more games that use traditional poker rules in some altered way. Some of them are played almost like poker, while others have almost nothing in common with it.

Personally, I was shocked to find out how many of them actually exist. Most of these games are played at home...

Here goes a partial list of the poker variations I found:

1. Best Flush. A maximum of ten players may take part in this game. Every player receives one hidden and one exposed card. All active players make their moves. Another up card is dealt. Another round of betting takes place. One up card followed by a round of betting continues until each player holds five cards. The final betting round occurs. Now comes the showdown. Only players holding flushes or straight flushes may win the game.

2. Cowboy, Cowgirl, and Cowpatty. The maximum number of 7 players may play this game with the minimum standing at 3. The game features one single round of betting. All the active players receive five cards face down. If a player does not happen to land at least half of the jackpot, he is obligated to match the entire pot. After the betting round, players have three options:

A. Cowboy- a player may discard three cards and receive three cards back.

B. Cowgirl- a player may discard one card and receive one card back.

C. Cowpatty- no card exchange takes place.

Then, players declare high or low or both typically by putting none, one or two chips in a closed fist and putting it on the table. Players who have no chips are trying to make the low hand,players holding one chip are trying to make the high hand, and players holding two chips are trying to make it both ways. Play continues until only two active players remain and they split the pot among them, or just one player stays in and wins the whole pot.

3. Follow the Queen. This game is said to be among San Fransisco's most favorite poker games. Each participating player is dealt two cards face down and one exposed card. The betting structure is pretty much the same as in 7-Card Stud except that all queens and any other higher card on the board is treated as wild. Nevertheless, if the last card dealt on 6th street happens to be a queen, then only queens are wild. The highest hand nabs the pot!

4. Russian Poker. Up to 4 players are allowed to take part. All players build the pot by investing an equal amount of money (typically $1). Each active player receives 13 cards into his pocket and is required to make three hands, a low, a middle, and a high. The bottom hand contains 3 cards, and the other two hands contain 5 cards. Naturally, the middle hand must be stronger than the low hand and the high hand must be stronger than the middle hand.

At show down time all players first reveal their low hand (the highest one takes 25% of the jackpot), than the middle hand (the highest one takes 50% of the pot) and than the high hand (the highest one takes the remaining 25% of the jackpot). Does anyone know why the game is called Russian Poker?

Well, the above are only some of the poker variations I found... If you behave, I'd mention others sometime later...

A Poker Dictionary: The greatest invention ever!!!!!!

I just found the greatest poker dictionary ever. With so many terms gyrating among poker enthusiasts, how can an average poker player like me get familiar with them all? Being ignorant in this area could sometimes be such a drag...It can really ruin the game for you!

Imagine a friendly game of poker being held over the Internet. People are trying to develop their winning strategies as the game takes place. One of the greatest features today's online poker rooms offer is the chat. People are actually able to talk to each other as if they were seated in the same room as is the case in traditional gaming facilities.

What I hate most though, is when some hotshot joins the game and starts throwing all these rarely used poker terms to show off. So, to stop feeling like I'm the only one on the face of the earth who knows nothing about poker jargon, I started looking for a comprehensive poker dictionary. Imagine my happiness when I actually found one.

If you happen to look for one, here goes the link to onlinepokereport.com/poker-glossary/ace-ax. It contains terms not mentioned by any other poker dictionary available over the Internet.

Hope it helps to at least some of you...

Maverick is Nothing but Brilliant

I've just seen the movie "Maverick" for the twentieth time (well, maybe not exactly twenty times, but certainly more than ten). This poker flick is nothing but brilliant. The fictional story takes place in the American Old West and unfolds from Bret Maverick's point of view. Needless to say, Maverick, portrayed by Mel Gibson, is a poker aficionado who never misses a chance to make some easy money through the game of poker.

Maverick has an enormous ego. He wants to prove the world that he's the best poker ever. Such thinking leads him to multiple mishaps on his way to a celebrated five-card draw poker competition. And, of course, he does not my catching the first place prize. Especially knowing that it's going to be a hefty amount of cash. However, Maverick's journey towards the coveted pot is full of all kinds of complications and obstacles.

And, when a cunning, but gorgeous woman (Jodie Foster) suddenly appears in his life things get even more confusing. Maverick is $3,000 short of the required tournament entry fees. All sorts of people make their best effort to prevent Maverick from participating in the competition. However, luck is probably on the protagonist's side as Maverick does make it to the highly anticipated tournament.

Both Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson are very talented actors. They play their roles very realistically making the viewer actually believe the characters.

In addition, although this poker movie is classified as a Western, I would say it's more of a comedy. I laughed practically at everything Maverick's every word. Well, maybe it's just me!

Online Poker Room Selection, Important Criterion!

A friend of mine just recently bought a computer. Surprisingly, the first thing he asked me after the purchase was if I knew some good poker rooms to play at. Naturally, I answered that I did. I gave him onlinepokereport.com's list of online poker websites whereI typically play and wished him good luck. After a day or two, he called me back and said that he was really displeased with the poker rooms I gave him because he hadn't won a single dime. In short, he said that my poker room list was disappointing.

Well, the first thing I did in response was explain Brandon (yeah, yeah, like that guy from Beverly Hills 90210) my criterion for selecting a poker room. I tried to make him understand that besides the possibility of winning a generous jackpot the first time you play at any online poker room, there are other important factors that he must take into consideration when choosing a poker room.

The first thing, I said to Brandon, you should look for an online card room that has proved its reliability. This means that it's operators are honest when it comes to payouts. Actually, this is the most important factor of all. What can be worse than finding out that you're not going to get the money that is rightfully yours because the poker room you've been playing at is crooked. This is what I call disappointment! Generally speaking, however, most of the reputed online poker rooms now available over the Internet are pretty aware of the importance of being reliable.

Another factor you need to consider is the game range at the poker room. If it only offers two types of games, Texas Hold 'em and 7-Card Stud, for example, Omaha lovers should look elsewhere. After all, you're looking for entertainment when you're visiting any poker room, so, if your favorite game is not on hand, than it's definitely not the place for you.

Lastly, check out their promotional offers. Most of today's online poker rooms have very rich bonuses and generous promotions. A good poker room would feature satellite tournaments promising to send players to prestigious live events, a Bad Beat bonus intended to cheer up losing players and a Refer-a-Friend bonus making with worth to recruit your friends. Other perks to look for are freerolls and attractive Sign up bonuses.

After a long argument with Brandon, I finally succeeded to convince him to give my list another shot. And, know what? It actually worked...He even won some money!

How Fast are You?

I was playing a friendly game of poker at my house the other day. I had nine friends over so there was ten of us to play. I must admit that I'm a very average player and my friends' play is roughly the same. Although it may sound corny, a somewhat ridiculous method to employ while playing with friends, I trust tells.

Since I've been playing the game with the same people for years now and I'm quite good at reading them. For instance, I know that when my friend Dov is sweating heavily, even though the air conditioner is on, he certainly has a good pocket. He will never admit that but the reason why he's sweating is that he's getting ready to nab the pot. I guess that the sweat is his body's physical response to him being anxious.

Another friend of mine, Alex, has his hands trembling when he has things going on his way. He takes our games very seriously and when he feels that victory is near he gets stressed. Once I asked him if the game meant that much to him, he just answered 'yeah.'

There is only one tell that still has me confused: the speed of betting. Should I assume that when my opponent is starting to make very quick moves that his hand has strength and he's about to nab the jackpot? Or, maybe, it's the other way around, and the increased speed of betting means that my opponent is weak?

Do You Believe in Superstitions?

The way I see it, superstitions are the product of uneducated beliefs which originated at a time when people were highly fearful of everything that was considered extraordinary and unexplainable (see 'Salem witch hunt' in any vocabulary). One such extraordinary thing was the deck of cards. In the past, playing cards were largely associated with fortune telling and gambling. Both of these practices were rendered as sins by the Christian religion and, thus, were feared of and even abhorred.

Although the vast majority of playing cards related superstitions have a negative aspect to them (meaning, if you do this... or that..., you'd get back luck), some of them have positive sides as well. For instance, one superstition claims that if you happen to touch your favorite card before game begins, you'd sure have Lady Luck on your side that night. Another positive superstition says that blowing upon the deck while shuffling brings good fortune as well. Personally, I haven't tried neither of the aforementioned superstitions so it's hard for me to judge their credibility.

Not surprisingly at all, the negative superstitions related to cards are indeed quite vicious. For example, it's highly unrecommended to have a dog in the same room where a game of poker takes place. This superstition originates in a popular belief of past times that dogs were loyal servants of the dark forces. Personally, I believe that demonizing harmless creatures, such as dogs, to the extent of avoiding their presence when playing poker is not only ridiculous but completely absurd. I wonder what C.M. Coolidge, the artist who painted the 'Dogs Playing Poker' series, would have thought about this superstition?

Another superstition of the negative kind says that picking up a card with the left hand is sure to bring the player his share of bad fortune. Apparently, the left hand has long since been considered having an evil aspect. After combing the web for quite a while, I found a website saying that the word 'sinister' originated from a Latin word that had two interpretations: 'on the left side' and 'harmful.' Thus, it's no wonder that some people believe that using their left hand during an activity delicate in terms of luck is totally unrecommended.

Finally, the most popular superstition having to do with playing cards is the one saying 'unlucky at cards, lucky at love.' But, why do I have to choose? I want to be lucky at both...