Author: horse-racing-free-tips

While many players spend hour perfecting their bluffing skills and learning to look for tells in other players, the art of folding is often overlooked. Believe it or not, it is possible to fold every hand and end up in the top 50% in any given online poker tournament! Human nature makes many of us believe that the other players at the table are bluffing and that your Ace/King draw is enough to win you the big pot but the art of folding is based on smart, conservative play. Folding with cards you don’t have full confidence in will help minimize your losses, which funny enough, increase your profits made on your strong hands.

Developing a consistent strategy is crucial in winning at online poker. Whether it be Texas Holdem, Seven Card Stud or any other form of poker it is always best to condition yourself to play only the hands you have a strong chance of winning and decreasing your chance of losses with weaker hands.

If you have established a solid bluffing skill and are able to quickly spot the tells of other players, the art of folding is the third tool in making you a better player. Establishing yourself as a player who will fold on first site of a weak hand can be beneficial in later play when you decide it is time to use your well rehearsed bluffing skills. Players will think twice before continuing to raise the pot when they know of your high fold rate. The longer the game goes the less likely they are to challenge you when you are aggressively raising, which translates into more wins coming your way by simly mastering the art of folding!

Another benefit to the art of folding is it gives you more opportunity to study the behavior of the other players at the table. You can make notes on who is a “maniac”, who uses the bluff too often and who is playing the same strategy as yours. Knowing the behavior patterns of the others at your table will help you determine how far you can take your strong plays and when it is best to execute your bluff.

This is the art of folding and how it improves your overall chances at a successful round of online poker. As with any part of your strategy, use the fold smartly and play smart to win big!

More and more people are playing online poker, despite its legal issues. Whether you are a pro veteran, a newbie who just starts playing, or somewhere in between, you want to improve your poker game continuously so that you can win more than you lose. Without the correct strategies, you can make sure that you will be outplayed by other players who also eager to take your money. Your game strategy, combined with the right tools such as pot odd calculators, lots of practice, and luck will make you a better poker player. Here are some helpful tips to help improve your poker skills:

Play tight. This is the best advice for beginners, period. Think about it, poker is a game of statistics; unless the game is rigged, players who happen to hold the best hand at the beginning will win most of the time. The idea of playing tight is to allow you make an easy decision whether to fold or hold your cards in every betting round. Hands like A-A, K-K, Q-Q, and alike, are considered to be the best starting hands in poker. Meaning that if you’re playing only these kind of hands, you will make money at the end of the day. However, many newbie players are not patient to wait for these cards to come, therefore they are playing garbage hands that only empty their bankroll. So next time you sit in an online poker room, choose a room that is full of loose players who will unconsciously give you their money.

Pay attention to your position. Poker is also a mind game that requires concentration, great memory, and a skill to bluff. It is a fact that player who act last will have a greater advantage over other poker players who act before him. This is because he has a chance to observe others’ reaction before he has to make any decision, therefore it is a good idea to play more hands in late position and throw away most of your hands when you are in early position. Having said this, sitting on the left side of a solid player is a lot better since you can see what his action is before you have to put your chips at the table. Again, the idea of this poker strategy is to allow your decision making process a lot easier in every betting round.

Pay extra attention on drawing hands. Drawing hands mean if you need one more card to make a great combination like flush, straight, or full house. You have to know at all times how many cards will help you make that great combination and beat your opponents. Unfortunately, not all drawing hands are treated equal. For example, 5-6-7-8 will have a greater chance of making a straight than 5-7-8-9. The reason is obviously clear, 5-6-7-8 will make a straight with 4 AND 9, giving you two outs, as opposed to 5-7-8-9 that will make a straight ONLY with 6. Knowing poker odds at all time will definitely make your job a lot easier whether to fold or hold your hand. This is the guideline, if your chance of getting your out is bigger than the pot odds, you should to call. On the other hand, if your chance of getting your card is smaller, you need to fold immediately.

So there you have it. If you apply these strategies, you will win more money than you lose. There is no reason to say “I am a bad poker player” to yourself. Yes, luck plays a role in poker, but again, poker is a game of statistics. There are certain percentages whether or not your hand will win at the end and as far as I know, nothing can prevent those numbers from happening. Like I said earlier, experience will help you play better, and nobody can teach you experience. You have to earn it by yourself. When you do, it is guaranteed you will play poker a lot better. Believe it or not, an experienced player’s instinct is 70%-80% right!! Imagine being able to “guess” your opponents’ cards and get it right 8 times out of 10.

Finding a good place to play poker is a must. If one is to play online for large stakes then they are going to want to find a poker room that’s going to deal them decent hands when it counts. Some poker sites constantly deal crappy hands that can keep a player down on his luck.

Paradise Poker is a great site. Some people know this site as the “World’s Premier Online card room”, On this site there are constantly tournaments going on and a player will always find some high stakes game to enter. People have mentioned that this game has the most pleasing graphics and yet it is not crowded with all sorts of unnecessary icons. For those players worried about the security of their money, Paradise Poker has shuffle card reviews from a highly recommended company, Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Poker Stars never have a time where there is not a large tournament going on that anyone can enter. Popular with most of the free roll players, the site offers some enjoyable aspects to the programming. Although the site, itself can appear rather chaotic with the extensive graphics that people can use as their icons.

Ultimate Bet may not have the financial status to back it up, but it certainly has a few well-known players such as Annie Duke, Russ Hamilton and Phil Hellmuth. One great aspect about this room is that it includes a rather nice feature where players can minimize their gaming table on the screen, allowing them to play multiple tables easier.

Most of the time, Ladbrokes has encounters worth watching, and for added reliability they are connected with the Hilton Group. Sponsoring a huge tournament in Europe where they don’t accept US players is an annual competition known as the Ladbrokes Poker Tournament. Although the software is nothing extraordinary, it can still provide one with hours of poker entertainment.

Poker Room has a variety of options. Of those include multi-table tournaments, as well as Texas Hold’em, 7 Card Stud, Omaha, Hold ’em as well as a host of other casino games. For those players worried about viruses, don’t be, there isn’t a download is needed to game on Poker Room. With the addition of a good links section, players are allowed to play a free roll with play money, which includes tournaments.

Prima Poker is more of a group of poker sites rather than a single room and boasts a minimal wait time before a game is available. With twenty-one sites from which they use to collect players for a game, it doesn’t matter where you connected to the site from, there will be a game started.

Full Tilt is another great online poker site. Although the graphics may appear slightly childish, Full Tilt’s interface can be a lot of fun, especially if the cards aren’t flopping your way. With Team Full Tilt, this site boasts some of the best players in the game, including Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson and Phil Ivey this site has earned its bragging rights.

Relatively new to the scene is Hollywood Poker. Unlike any other site, Hollywood Poker allows players to game along side some of their favorite actors including James Woods, the official spokesperson. The graphics aren’t anything special; however, they do offer a cornucopia of options allowing players to maximize their experience.