Author: horse-racing-free-tips

A successful Texas hold em player is one who maximizes his return or minimizes his loss with each decision he makes. Expected value (EV) is essentially the amount one would expect to win or lose if this decision were to be repeated millions of times. (rememer your precalculus “limit as n goes to infinity”??? didn’t think so!)

Every poker decision, whether it be to bet, raise, check/call, check/fold, check/raise has an expectation of success or failure. Those that will lose you money in the long run are said to have negative expected value (-EV). Folding always has an expected value of zero. You will never gain or lose money by folding. Folding, though it has an EV of zero, may often be your best decision from an EV perspective.

Let’s look at a few examples. Expected value is not always easily calculable, even in limit texas holdem, but every time you play you should try to analyze your decisionmaking with EV in your mind. For instance, you’re playing 1/2 and in the small blind with 84o on a flop of K96 rainbow. The small blind checks and only you and a tight player are left. There is three dollars in the pot. Should you bet? You are risking one dollar. Betting has a positive expectation if you can expect the other two to fold more than one in four times. If you try it four times and it succeeds once, you win a three dollar pot and lose your one dollar bet the three other times, making it a 0 EV play. (We’re discounting the chance that you are called and catch runner runner or win in some other very unlikely way) Remember, we analyze each decision on its own Expected Value merits. If you are called and catch an 8 on the turn, you must again analyze your decisions based on their likelihood of success or failure in the long run. Poker, and Texas Holdem in particular, is a game of short term variations, but you must continue to make the correct EV decisions and you will be a winner in the long term.

Another example: You are holding A8 of spades, again playing 1/2. There are 3 limpers ahead of you and one behind you. The flop comes K96 with two spades. The first player bets and the other two in front of you call…you should raise! As we’ve seen in the Poker Odds section, you have about a 35 percent chance of hitting your flush. You will not win each time you hit it…perhaps someone has flopped a set or two pair and will hit a full house, etc. You may even occasionally win if you spike an Ace. Anyway, it is pretty clear that your odds of winning the hand are better than 25 percent, and with 3 players in the pot ahead of you, you want to get more money in the pot while you have an advantage from an expected value standpoint. Now, there are other factors that will enter your head and should be taken into account. If the original bettor reraises you and the other two fold, you’ve now put 2 dollars in and gotten the others to put 6 in. Now we may or may not be in positive EV territory, depending on what our opponent has. Also, we must consider the fact that our raise may have bought us a free card or may have gotten someone with an Ace and a better kicker or paired side card to fold. As you can see, there are many factors influencing the expected value of our decisions. We may not always be sure we’ve made the correct poker play, but it’s extremely important that our thinking process runs along these lines.

Even preflop you must think along expected value lines. You may be holding AJs in the small blind. Six players, most of them very loose, limp before you. A raise is in order. Think in terms of expected value or pot equity. Your hand figures to win more than one in every seven times against the starting hands held by the others, so a raise is in order. Again, evaluate each decision on its own merits. If you miss the flop in this instance, checking and folding may be your best option from an EV standpoint. Or, it may not…you may have an overcard, gutshot and back door flush draw…again, do the math in your head and arrive at the correct decision.

Finally, remember this…in general, a bet has a higher EV than a check/call. You will sometimes win by forcing people to fold. Now, there are times when this is not correct due to the threat of a raise (if you’re planning on calling), but always bear it in mind. In Texas Holdem, aggressive poker is winning poker.

Have you ever invested your time and money into an Internet gambling site only to end up losing plenty of both? I sure have. I have personally played on sites where I have spent hours playing the free gaming software that they provide. I was hoping that I could practice on their site, using their gaming program, before placing any real money on the table. I figured that it would give me the edge when the money was on the line. Plus, it was fun to play.

So after I finished putting hours into the gaming program of my choice, usually Blackjack, I would sign up for the real gaming action and put some money on the line. Not exorbitant amounts of cash or anything, but cold hard cash. What would soon befall me was a harsh wake up call. Not all gaming programs are built equally and not all gaming sites are honest. There are a very substantial percentage of online casinos that are just vacuums waiting to suck up every single dime that you and I are willing to toss into its hungry maw.

In a way those lost dollars were simply payment for the education that I got from my misfortune. I wouldn’t have necessarily minded losing the money, because unfortunately that is bound to happen from time to time when gambling, it was how I lost it. I was troubled by the speed and cold mechanical efficiency of how quickly I was fleeced. I would play the free version for literally an hour or so with the balance either increasing, or very slowly decreasing. After I switched to the money version of the game I was cleaned out in a matter of minutes. In fact minutes would be a bit of an overstatement. It literally left my eyes spinning as I watched hand after hand be won by the “dealer” without so much as a small bone thrown to me to make me think that there was even the most remote chance of actually winning any money.

Of course, after this happened the first time I chocked it up to bad luck or lack of skill. So I practiced some more and laid down some more money. The following events were an exact duplicate of the previous hands and I was left with even less money and a severe distrust of online gambling sites. I figured that all online gambling casinos were the same and that there was no realistic chance of winning anything. I assumed that it would be fine to play free games but to not ever disillusion myself into thinking that I could make any money at it.

Thankfully after my bad start I did find that there are very solid, reputable, and fair online gambling sites. It is now easier than ever to find a good site and by finding one that has a solid random number generator and third party testing we really can’t go wrong.

Today, I am going to take a look at the exciting game of roulette. I have to take this opportunity to share with you that I love this game. I always have and probably always will too. I used to play roulette at a regular land based casino, but in more recent years, I moved online. Rolling the roulette wheel online is the convenient way to play.

I don’t know about you, but I feel that there is an almost magical attraction to the roulette game – thrill and anticipation all revolving around one simple concept. At the press of a button, a piece of this rotating action can be yours.

Let’s access some spinning fun at the game of European Roulette. All the glamour of the popular roulette game has been rolled into an online attraction. In this article, I will outline how this simple game works.

Roulette is believed to have evolved from a game in France in the seventeenth century and certainly has experienced some changes along the way. Since its invention, roulette has become a popular form of entertainment and is now played around the globe. I am sure that its creator, mathematician, Blaise Pascal, would be rather surprised, although proud, to see the online versions of the roulette game available today via the Internet.

Simplicity is the name of this game in my mind. Based on chance – all you have to decide is upon which number to place your bet. Give it a try.

The main aspect worthy of note in European Roulette is that the online table and wheel contain a single zero. This game provides better odds than the American Roulette game which includes a double zero. In the European version, there are 36 red and black numbered compartments and one section hosting a zero.

How to Play

In European Roulette, bets are placed in the betting area of the roulette table next to the roulette wheel. The small ball is then released into the dial and the roulette wheel begins to spin. Once the roulette comes to a standstill, the ball settles in one of the numbered spaces and winnings, if any, are paid out accordingly. It is as simple as that!

Real Time Gaming’s version of European Roulette provides realistic sound effects and bright graphics to enhance the player’s online roulette experience. Once you set the wheel in motion, you can hear the noise of the ball spinning around with the movement of the roulette dial. The ball then bounces until it finds its resting place in one of the roulette sections. So that there will be no doubt, the winning number and position is then shown on the top right hand side of the screen.

What are you waiting for? Spin into a European Roulette game and enjoy some great entertainment.