Category: Gambling and Casinos

The World Series of Poker has sprouted many followers in the last couple of years. Amateur tables are popping up all over the world and friendly cash games are everywhere come Friday night. Whether it is for thrill or profit the so called sport of poker has the attention of many onlookers year round. While Amateurs know the basics of the game they usually get lost in all the poker lingo spoken at the casino poker tables. While some is lingo is made up by experienced players to throw off the amateurs, some are actually well known terms in the poker world that any amateur trying to make it big should know. Below is a guide to all the poker lingo you could ever want to impress your friends or intimidate an experienced opponent. Take a look.

Ante: The initial money thrown into the pot to induce betting. This is done before the flop.

All In: When a person decides to put all his chips in to bet on a certain hand. No Limit Hold’Em is the most popular game and All Ins are allowed as many times as a player wants. In Limit Hold’Em you cannot bet more then the pot itself.

Backdoor: Backdoor is a reference to when players are chasing a card that has not come up yet but has a good chance to. Having 4 cards of the same kind is a backdoor flush draw, having four cards in a row is a backdoor straight draw.

Bad Beat: A Bad Beat occurs when a player has a large advantage over the other and the last card beats the big hand by luck. Bad beat is usually used to imply that the player with the weak hand should not have been in the hand at all and it was by mere luck that he won his underdog hand.

Blind: In Texas Hold’Em, the game uses blinds instead of antes. The blinds are forced bets to induce some money in the pot by the two people sitting to the left of the dealer. The first person to the left of the dealer is the “small blind” and bets a smaller amount. The second person to the left of the dealer is the “big blind” and bets twice what the small blind has.

Bottom Pair: The lowest pair out of the cards out on the table.

Check: When a player decides to not bet he calls “Check”. This is the option of betting zero dollars.

Check Raise: When a player checks with a strong hand hoping another opponent will raise. The player then re-raises with his strong hand thus getting more money out of his opponent in the pot.

Drawing Dead: When a player is trying to make a hand that will still not win the pot.

Flop: The first three cards that are “flopped” onto the table. These are also called community cards.

Heads Up Play: When there are only two players playing a certain hand they are considered “heads up”.

Muck: A pile of unused cards usually in front of the dealer. These come from folded or burned cards. To “much your cards” is to fold them by throwing them into the muck pile.

The Nuts: Likely the favorite expression of any poker player. The Nuts indicates a hand that is mathematically unbeatable with the cards on the table.

Offsuit: When the two cards you are dealt are of different suits.

Pocket: The two cards dealt to you in Texas Hold’Em that only you can see.

Rake: The total amount of money that the casino’s dealer takes out of every pot.

The River: The last card to be flopped on the board. The 5th card to come out in a Texas Hold’Em game.

Short Stack: The short stack is referring to the player with the least amount of chips at the table.

Tell: A tell refers to a players action when he or she has a good or bad hand. Some players take off their sun glasses when they have a bad hand. Other players tend to itch their right hand when they have a good hand.

The Turn: The fourth card to be flopped onto the table in a Texas Hold’Em game.

These are the necessary terms in order to keep up with the pros. There are hundreds of other terms in the world of poker, yet they are much less needed or too experienced for the amateur. Learn this lingo and impress your friends or play at experienced tables and wow the crowd. Lastly, poker is a great game, but the greatest player in poker knows one this: When to know you’re beat. Everyone likes to hold’em, but sometimes you get that feeling and you just have to fold’em.

This is one of the most amazing aspects of poker and life at the same time. There are many ways to tilt. We all must know how to, or at least we have all witnessed the devastating effect of tilt in its true meaning. It can be a wonderful thing to see, when a player throws money at everyone. But I’m sure most of us don’t go over the limit that much.

Usually, poker players think they can’t be influenced by the tilt. And it is true, some really aren’t. But most are, at least at some points; in some situations they can become vulnerable and this is only human.

The most dangerous form of tilting is the semi-hidden tilt. It is partially hidden because it is not a genuine tilt, it just tends to be one. It is a subtle manner to it, one that progresses slowly, one step at a time. This is the way someone can place you under the influence of tilt for hours and you can’t even realize what is happening. You will realize it at some point far away from the beginning of the procedure, and we will try to take measures. But unfortunately you lost a lot of money before you realized that you are gradually advancing to tilt.

So, analyze your game and see if you have been ever tilted or if you usually tend to be. And if the answer is yes here’s what you can do: you can count it as just another bad part of your game and try to eradicate it. A definition for tilt would be something that would sound like this: poor reasoning when playing hands as the effect of a bad poker night. This is the classic tilt. But the semi-hidden tilt is different. This one can appear because of simple boredom or because you have allowed your self to lower your poker standards and match your opponents’ ones. The thing you should do in this case is to always play your best and never be influenced by the tilt process.

So, from now on you will have to monitor you game and make sure you are taking the best decisions. The best thing you can do is to imagine yourself in a very important game. Imagine that everyone else besides you opponents can see your cards and therefore everyone can judge you. For example imagine your game is transmitted life on some TV channels. And if you make mistaken, everyone will know and they will al tell you every time they meet you, they will criticize your game or even laugh at it. So this way you have to play in a manner that would make experts value your game.

Being ashamed is the thing we all fear. So just try to play and feel proud of the way you are playing. This is one way to avoid tilting.

Early life
Doyles Bruson was born in Longworth, Texas, a town with a population of approximately 100, and was one of three children in his family. Because of Longworth’s size, Brunson frequently ran long distances to other towns, and became a promising athlete. He was part of the All-State Texas basketball team, and practiced the one-mile run to keep in shape in the off-season. Although he was more interested in basketball than running, he entered the 1950 Texas Interscholastic Track Meet and won the one-mile event with a time of 4:38. Despite receiving offers from many colleges, he decided to attend Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas because it was close to his home. The Minneapolis Lakers were interested in Brunson, but a knee injury ended his playing days. He had taken a summer job and was unloading some sheetrock at work. When the ton of weight shifted, Brunson attempted to stop the shift with his leg out of instinct, but it landed on his leg, breaking it in two places. His leg was in a cast for two years, and the injury ended his hopes of becoming a professional basketball player. He still occasionally requires a crutch to get around because of the injury. Brunson changed his focus from athletics to education and obtained a master’s degree in administrative education.
Brunson had begun playing poker before his injury, playing five card draw and finding it “easy”, and he began to play more often after being injured. His poker winnings paid for his expenses, and he obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1954 and a master’s the following year. After graduating, he took a job as a business machines salesman, but on his first day in the job he was invited to play in a seven-card stud game and earned over a month’s salary in less than three hours. He soon left the company and began a career as a professional poker player.

Poker career
Doyle Brunson started off by playing in illegal games in Exchange Street, Fort Worth, and Texas with a friend named Dwayne Hamilton. Eventually they began traveling around Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, playing in bigger games, and met fellow-professionals Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. Hamilton moved back to Fort Worth, while the others teamed up and traveled around together, gambling on poker, golf and, in Doyle’s words, “just about everything”. They pooled their money together for gambling, but after six years they made their first serious trip to Las Vegas and lost all of it, a six-figure amount. They decided to stop playing as partners but remain friends.
Brunson finally settled in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Brunson continues to play in the biggest poker games in the world, playing $4000/$8000 minimum bets and also at the World Series of Poker. He won his ninth gold bracelet in a mixed games event in 2003 , and in 2004 he finished 53rd (in a field of 2576) in the No Limit Texas hold’em Championship event. He won the Legends of Poker World Poker Tour event in 2004 (garnering him a $1.1 Million prize), and finished fourth in the WPT’s first championship event. Early in the morning on July 1 , 2005 , less than a week after Chan had won his 10th gold bracelet – setting a new record – Brunson tied the record by earning his 10th at the 2005 WSOP .
As of 2005 , his total live tournament winnings exceeded $4,200,000.

A home game of poker with friends can be a great deal of fun with your friends or family. You can also find lots of different and fun poker games online if you are a friendly and respectful player yourself. The secret to a fun game is the players in the game. One jerk can ruin a game and a table of polite players with a sense of humor can be great fun.

The game is the same in a polite game as a nasty game. The difference is the atmosphere of the table can help keep players at the table longer if they are having a good time. Watch the classy tournament players on TV and you can see for yourself the difference between a fun table and an ugly table. Verbal fights in poker are not uncommon, but some players can carry them to extreme.

Poker is an intelligent person’s game. People who are good with numbers have an advantage and people with a sense of humor add to the enjoyment of the game. When people are laughing and having a good time their current losses do not prey on their mind. They may stay longer and lose more if they are happy with the game. Playing well is also a way to have fun. Reading the other players and catching the bluffer will enhance your fun. Getting a rush of good hands that hold up will also make for a fun game. The best fun of all is winning and being ahead when you leave the table. Second most fun is getting even after you have been seriously down most of the evening. Knowing how to play well and then putting it into practice makes the game more fun for the player.

At some of the online poker sites you can set up your own private games and invite your friends to play. This is a great way for friends to get together who live miles apart. This obviously would be more fun than playing with strangers.

There are some new games being offered on some internet sites that are a mixture of games. There are also some mixed tournaments being played on some of the popular online sites. It is always fun to win a bit of money when you’re gambling or at least ending up close to even at the end of a sessions play.