Now we’ve gone through the various possibilities open to you as an online poker player, its time to get into some basic strategies so you can think about how to make playing profitable, as well as having fun doing it. As previously suggested, the ideal place to start is with Limit Holdem as it’s the most popular game and also the fixed betting structure means you’re protected from losing large amounts on one hand. Continue Reading »

When playing poker, you will often find yourself on a draw after the flop. To decide how to play your draw, you should consider the pot odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds, and the chance of a redraw.

Pot odds are fairly simple and the Pot Odds Calculator will help you with this. Pot odds means the odds you need to need to justify a call, just based on the money in the pot and assuming you will win if you hit a draw. For example, if you have a flush draw on the flop, you have 9 outs. This means you have a 19.1% chance of hitting a flush on the turn. To justify a call just based on pot odds, you assume you will win if you hit the flush, but will lose otherwise. Therefore, amount you call must be lower than 19.1% of the pot to justify a call. Continue Reading »

1: Playing too many starting hands

Only 20% of all starting hands are profitable with 10 opponents, this a mathematical fact. When you play a bad hand it’s like throwing money out of the window. Example: You have 72o in late position and 1 player in the game. It will cost you one big blind to call, but in this situation your expected winnings are smaller than one big blind. Maybe you’ll get lucky, but in the long run you will lose. Continue Reading »

Texas Holdem is the world’s most popular form of Poker where players are dealt two cards prior to a voluntary betting round. Ultimately five cards are dealt face up, for all the players to use, to make the best five card combination from the two cards in their hand and the five community cards on the board. There is no definitive birth date of Texas Hold’em , but it is generally accepted that the origins of the game began in Texas in the early 1900s. It is commonly said that “Texas Hold’em takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.” Continue Reading »

There had been some headway in proving that poker is not just a game of chance. In a study released at the end of March, it was proved that Texas Hold’em Poker is statistically a game of skill. The study was conducted by Cigital and investigated 103 million hands on PokerStars. Of these hands, 75% did not make it to show down. This proved that there was substantial skill involved in getting people to fold their hands. Regardless of if they had the best hand or not, players were able to out maneuver their opponents getting them to fold. In the remaining 25% of the hands Continue Reading »

One day while playing online it dawned on me just how much the typical poker player doesn’t grasp the basic concepts of betting and raising, especially when it comes to how many chips to put out there. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played against someone who makes a fourth street or river bet that only equals 20% of the pot or less. The same can be said for players that make minimum raises pre-flop in order to try and protect powerful hole cards like big pocket pairs and A-K. Continue Reading »

How many times during a tournament do you see a player fold, fold, fold their hands during the late stages of a tournament, letting their chip stack get so small that they would need to double up 2-3 times just to put themselves back in contention? What these players fail to grasp is the Ten Big Blind Rule. Continue Reading »

One of the hardest questions to answer when playing a cash game is knowing when to get up. There have been times when I have sat at even for 5 hours, and then suddenly I have a massive rush of cards. Then there are other times when I am up just a little bit and things take a turn for the worst. I know several people who set goals for themselves, and as soon as they hit that goal they rack up and run for the door. Continue Reading »

Life in the poker world would be much easier if we could sit down at a table and automatically know exactly how every person at the table plays. If we knew exactly how every player played, we would be able to bluff them with ease and know when they had the nuts. We would also have an easier time extracting the maximum amount of chips from them. Thankfully, this isn’t too far fetched. It may not be as easy as just looking at a player, but after come careful observation at a table you should be able to have a good idea of how they play. Continue Reading »

In season one of High Stakes Poker Daniel Negreanu had some miserable luck, getting out drawn repeatedly.