Category: Gambling and Casinos

You must select your starting hands very carefully because it is crucially important to choose the right hand to start with. Every situation calls for a certain type of hands so choose the hands accordingly to other external factors.

When you select the table to play in you must be careful. Select only tables you can afford. Do not try and play at a table that is over your bankroll edge, you must pay attention and see that at least some of the players at the table are weak or at least weaker than you.

Read others as quickly and as often as you can. Make sure you know from the first moves who are those who play hands that shouldn’t be played at all, which players can be bluffed and which bluff, who usually calls or bets with low value draws or hand, who plays tight and who loose.

Call in Omaha as less as possible. If the odds are on your side then raise or bet. If not, simply fold. Call only when you have something good in mind as tricking a player or increasing your odds.

You have to take seriously when someone bets a great amount or raise the same way. In pot limit Omaha this counts a lot because bluffing can be disastrous and the majority of players don’t do it.

In Omaha there can be 13-way, 17-way or even 20-way straight draws. Don’t; remain accustomed to the regular 8-way straight draw because this is a different game with different odds. Wait for the right draw to raise.

The nut flush draw can be in hold’em a great possibly because you might usually win the pot when you get a pair for you Ace or get the flush, but in Omaha that is not true so stay away from that draw because it just isn’t going to happen in most cases.

When you have been dealt a pair of Aces and next to them two other low cards, unconnected and unsuited in anyway to the aces, then you must know that you hand is pretty low. The chances you have on the flop are minimal and if the flop dealt cards don’t give you an Ace then you will end up probably loosing the pot.

When playing multi way pots the odds change and you should always draw the nuts. When everyone placed their chips in the middle, play aggressive because if you have odds on your side and draw for the nuts. Do not try and involve all you money to a simple draw without any additional implications because you might not hit it or even if you do you will split the pot with another player.

Why do we play poker? But especially why do you play poker? This might strike you as an odd question but it is very important for your future success in the world of poker. The reason why you play poker is at least as important as the way you play poker.

We can categorize somehow the reasons why we play poker, we can properly analyze them and after that we can use them to improve our actual gaming style.

If we could ask several hundreds of players “Why do you play poker?” the odds are quite big that their answer would be “For the money”. But if we could access their last year statistics we would see that some just didn’t win any money at all, or at least that they didn’t win more that they lost. If money is the only reason these people play poker they why do they keep on doing it? Of course, there are many more answers that they don’t really want to admit. This happens because there are many other motivations that push us to play poker just as great as the desire to win many, but many of them are even greater.

And when you come to think about it, you can surely find many many reasons: fun, the love of the game, competition, making friends, the desire to beat the best there is in the world of poker, and the list can go on and on. But if you understand the various reasons behind your game you will eventually manage to change your view about winning and losing or you will be able to choose the perfectly fit games for you, the ones that will bring you the most success.

In his book, “Psychology of Poker”, Alan N. Shoonmaker explains in detail the importance of understanding personal impulses in order to find the answer to the question “Why do we play poker?”

I will take the liberty to speak a little bit about this theory.

Take a pen and a piece of paper and write down the following:
Money
Making friends
Relaxing
Pleasure
Competition
Just passing time

If you can think of additional reasons, write those down also. Now you will have to think hard and find within yourselves the real reasons you play poker for.

Once you did that, write after each reason a percentage, even if it is 0%, just keep in mind that all of them added must equal 100%.

If someone would play poker 20% for Money, 10% for relaxation, 50% for pleasure and the remaining 20% for competition, then he would be what is called a loose player most of the time, playing many hands and staying in the game as much as he can just for the thrill of being there. This is the most important think for him and it influences his style of playing.

If you manage to carefully and correctly analyze your own situation you can eventually change some parts of your game you don’t like or improve the ones that you consider are good.

In many types of competitions, the battle is firstly within yourself and only after that with your opponents. Bad mistakes in poker are made when you are too proud, when you question your ability and doubt your self all the time, when you are too scared or shy when you must take an action or when your thoughts are just somewhere else.

If you play poker just with friends to pass the time, then you must choose games with low bids, so your bankroll will last longer. If you are playing to relax then stay out of the games with poker fanatics and choose some games with less involved players.

The answers can be various and they only depend on you. But answering the question is a must if you wish to improve your game.

Copyright 2006 The Brad Eden Company

The truth about online poker Online is you do not use a real deck of cards. You really don’t even use cards at all while playing any type of game online. You are playing with computer generated information. These are the same numbers as mathematics that are flawed and irregular and have a massive array of patterns. This is why I cannot stress the importance of securing your own personal poker business. I personally found that once I re-evaluated everything I did not want to continue playing poker online unless I had an incredible edge not only over the players but the site itself. When I first started I played not for recreation but because I thought I had a chance to make some money out of it. Then when I came into the poker scene and literally got robbed of hundreds of dollars. I’m sure you’ve seen poker sites post their “RNG certificates” to show that you are playing a “fair game”. “RNG” stands for Random Number Generator. The “RNG” is a special area in

computer gaming software that will “try” to produce a “random event”. In poker software the “random event” would be the cards and the outcome of the hand. Not many people understand this concept but producing a completely random event from a computer is IMPOSSIBLE. Think about this for a second. If a completely random event was possible from a computer that would mean Artificial Intelligence would be possible. Artificial Intelligence is basically having a computer hold a real conversation with you and being able to do anything at all it wanted. Since we are not living in a fantasy world this is not possible. That also means that when the poker RNG software tries to pick random cards and random events it is simply relying on what it is programmed to do. Every event that occurs from a computer requires a human to program that event. This is the big question about online gambling software. How is it fair then if it is not random? The bottom line is simple.

When you physically pick up a deck of cards and begin to shuffle those cards you are causing a natural random event that a computer would never be capable of doing. Your motion and sense of touch and all of your other senses for that matter are playing a major role in where those cards fall. You will never get that type of randomness from a computer generated deck of cards. The poker sites will never let the public know how their RNG functions because then we could mathematically figure out the cards that will come next. Then when the site uses a “Third Party Tester” you still don’t know what’s going on for real! Are you going to trust a piece of paper on a site saying that the RNG is really random when it is scientifically impossible to have a completely random event from a computer at all?

end of part 2

Let’s say you have played online poker for a while and now are curious about real poker rooms. When you go for the first time in a casino, things get different and you might face some emotion you will have to hide like anxiety, hesitation and even fear. Even if you get a little intimidated at first because of the huge rooms and the agitation all around you must go past that quickly and remember that is it all about poker here too.

When you first enter you will see many poker tables everywhere and people at each table, girls that serve drinks and persons that bring the chips or take them. The management employees will be dressed elegantly and they will be all over you since the moment they spot you, trying to make you as comfortable as possible. The overall atmosphere won’t be quiet as you might expect. People come in casino mostly to have fun, they are usually middle-aged or older persons that try to escape for a while the tumult of everyday life, so they will talk, laugh or even get mad once in a while.

Before heading for your casino, be aware that most casinos have a dress code so make sure you are dressed as you should. And also, if you are a young poker player, online you can play from the age of 18 in most poker room but in a casino you won’t be able to enter unless you are 21(the legal age).

Very near to the entrance in a real casino you will find a board that tells you which tables have available places and who is waiting to sit down at which table. There will be a worker next to that board that is there to ask you what you want to play and to direct you to the table as soon as a place is available.

Your chips will be brought to your table by the chip runner and you can place then on your rack as you find it suitable and convenient. You can now start playing hands at your table. In the unreliable case (for the casino) in which you win a pot straight from the first tries, then you should know that in real casino, because the dealer is a real person and not one of the players, people tips the dealer each time they win. Simply take some of your chips and hands them over to the dealer. Tip some amount that won’t influent your overall winning for the day.

There are a few things that you should try to avoid if you wish to be welcomed and to come back again. You are not allowed to curse at people. Everything must be civilized, of course. Also, do not scream at dealers or offend them, they are doing they job and they do not take sides. It is possible that you won’t be allowed to use your cell phone, so better turn it off when entering the casino. And lastly, do not slow down the game speed. Avoid having the dealer remind you several times that it is your turn, it is still a poker game not a night out with friends.