Category: Gambling and Casinos

Does poker require luck or skill? Some play the game and seem to hit every card needed for the winning hand. Others, with a hand that could not beat any hand on the table, slyly walk away with the pot with a wink and a smile.

So the answer to the question it would seem would be that it is a little bit of both; luck and skill are needed to be a successful poker player. After all, gambling is a game of chance.

But consider this: some mathematicians contend that the odds of getting a royal flush are 1 in 649,739. So, given those odds, chances are if you rely on the luck of the draw you will definitely lose more than you will win.

So how do you become an experienced poker player and win all the time? Well you can become an experienced poker player but, alas; you won’t win all the time. Poker does require skill and the old adage, know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em certainly has a ring of truth to it. Furthermore, you must factor in the skill level of the players at the table, your bluffing and betting skills, the stakes involved and of course, luck.

Here are some important tips for the successful poker player:

Do not gamble if you cannot afford to lose. People lose a lot of money due to lack of planning and some gamble way over their heads because they don’t know when to stop. Pick an amount to play with and stick to it. Additionally, do not borrow money to gamble, you just add more pressure upon yourself having to bet with borrowed funds. Allocate a budget and stick to it!

If you are serious about winning, avoid alcohol. You may make bets that you would not normally make. Play with a clear head.

Don’t play if you are stressed out or emotional because not being in the right frame of mind can cost you big at the poker table. Play with focus. If your mind is preoccupied with other problems, your judgment will suffer and you open yourself up for critical mistakes.

Study your opponents and define who they are and how they play the game. You may have to adjust to their style of play. Do not be intimidated by the aggressive nature of a particular player or the passiveness of another.

Don’t wait on cards, they usually don’t come. Don’t be afraid to fold the poor hand. Poker is a time consuming game and you aren’t dealt a winner every time.

Display a “poker face”. Your expressions and mannerisms can tell a lot about your hand, even to the most inexperienced players. Whether you have good cards or a terrible hand, it is best to display the same emotion and not convey any clues to the other players. Conversely, if you are a seasoned player, you can use this “poker face” style to your advantage to project false “tells” to other players and force false reads on their part. You could pretend to have a powerful hand by aggressive betting, table antics or talk and pull off a successful bluff.

Patience is the key and you have to know when to bet. Be knowledgeable as to when to bet and get a feel for the game. Bet wisely and in control. Bear in mind that bluffing will not work if you are a poor player and expert players will eventually sense this and pick you apart, making your night a short one.

Practice! Practice with low stakes games, hand held games or play for fun as you refine your game and skills. Read articles, books and ask other players about the game and different situations that might occur.

There are thousands of poker books written with tips, guidelines, rules and regulations but the important aspect to remember is your poker strategy and your game. Practice, refine and define who you are as a poker player. Know your limits, play the odds and odds are you will come up a winner!

One of the most obvious things that beginners to poker do, is they play hands that have no chance of ever winning. You don’t have to be a pro to know that if all you have is a high card of 5 to know that your in trouble Many beginners will be drawn in by the rush of gambling and play hands just for the thrill of playing. I would recommend that you play for that thrill but play smart.

Other beginners will play in games that are over there spending limit. I always say that you have to check that limit. You dont want to be left there betting money you dont have, or all of your money in one play and then lose it all. The thing about online poker is that its so easy to play because its exciting but you don’t see your actual money, all you see is numbers. This makes poker online seem like a crazy game.

Many Poker players will get very emotionally involved. This is hazardous to your bank account. Anger sometimes comes from helplessness. When you are playing online and losing every game and your money along with it you have no way of getting it back, there is no person that sees you losing this money. It is just you and your screen. In many cases to try and receive there money back, many players will just keep playing until they are in debt.

Many beginners who play poker will try crazy things like walk into a casino backwards and throwing salt and rabbits feet for luck. Although, like in all gambling, there is a large portion of luck in poker. If you are a good player this will effect your winnings, but if you really don’t know how to play you will never win, good luck or not. A good player will take the worst cards with the worst luck and turn it into the best hand in history

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. In poker it is the biggest mistake you can make. I have heard of people who have watched some pros playing poker on T.V. who where winning and just copied them at a casino That is not a good idea because, on T.V. the pros play in tournaments. These are much different situations then the ones in the casino’s. In some cases the players they imitate are not actually good they actually just had a good day.

* take these tips and please use them and remember to refer to them when you find yourself doing any of these things.*

A poker tournament is a game where the winnings are used as points, where the players play by specific rules and one, two or three player get to actually win money in the end. The number of winners and the rules are specific to every tournament and they are made public before the enrolment for the tournament begins.

Every one who wants to enter the tournament pays a fee, the same amount of money that is to be used as the bankroll of every player for that specific tournament, and it is called the buy-in .Next to the buy in the casino, online or offline, will take itself a fee from all players called the entrance fee, fee used to sustain and entertain the tournament. Let’s say the buy-in is $300, and then the casino might take an extra $30, so in order to enter that tournament you will have to give the house a total amount of $330. All the money gathered fro the buy-ins is collected for the prize fund and it will be the buy-in multiplied by the number of players. If in our example if it is a tournament with 200 players, then the total prize will be of $60.000. Players can be paid for their games only after the tournament is over and only if they qualify among the top players. Usually there is a price for every top 10 player, but this depends on the casino and tournament too. The prices are announced before and they are calculated as percepts from the price pool gathered. For example 40% first price, 30% second, 10% third, 8% fourth, 7% fifth and 5% sixth for a tournament in which the top 6 players receive prices.

In a tournament all players start out with the same amount of chips. It is usually played at different tables, splitting up the players equally and from that on every player will leave the tournament as soon as he or she goes broke. A tournament can be fast or slow, depending on the skill and chips amount the players start with. Professional players prefer tournaments that are slow so they have time to weight their decisions, to observe their opponents and to play a while before growing that enormous stack that will make them gamble too much. Poker tournaments are played until one player collects all the chips that were in the game.

To be first depends not only on your poker skill, but on your luck also. To be in the first ten is a clear statement that you definitely are a threat for any poker player of that level.

Sometimes in tournaments there come times when a special situation arises. One of these situations that a player can encounter during a poker tournament is known under the name of “The gap concept”.

The terminology of gap concept was first pioneered by an extraordinary poker writer named David Skylansky. This basically means that when you are playing poker you can find yourself in the situation when you just need a hand that is better than the one you are holding in order to play against another player. The opponent would have to open the betting and to play against him your hand has to be better than his hand you would have needed to open the betting yourself. That difference between you actual hand and the hand you would have needed in this case, to call his bet, is the difference that defines the gap concept.

This particular difference varies a lot during poker tournaments. It is defined mostly by the poker playing style of your opponents, whether it is tight or loose. The gap is smaller when others play loose poker and it growth bigger and bigger as they get tighter. This happens mostly because a tight player will not take so many chances but he will also hold on to his hand once he has a good one.

Let’s say you are first in and you hold a hand that doesn’t necessarily pushes you to bet. But another player bets or raises and you have to call or raise his or hers bet in order to prove the power of your hand or just to stay in the game and be able to play it the way you intended in the first place. The gap concept is not always a bad situation. Players can take advantage of this gap and turn the odds around. If your first choice was to semi-bluff, the gap concept gives the opportunity to do so without thinking about it. If you call a bet with a hand you wouldn’t normally do that, it doesn’t mean you will lose the round. It gives you and opportunity to enter further bidding rounds that you normally wouldn’t have entered and it also make you hope and maybe hit a draw with the help of additional cards dealt.

On the other hand, if you are positioned in late position when you play Texas hold’em and you have quite a few chips on your stack, then you can raise and call with lower hands. If you have hands like a small pair or Ace plus another unimportant card you can call a bet without many risks, but be aware of the aggressiveness of players in first position and blinds because if they are very aggressive and call or raise you back a lot of times then you can waste a lot of your stack for a hand that just isn’t worth it.