You say to yourself, I’ve won this hand before by doing this and that or this is a hand that I like and I believe in these cards and so on. Poker games usually last hours and anything can happen. Any two cards can win pots of any size. We all dance and sing inside our minds when we see a pocket ace but the guy with the pocket three’s is probably going to walk with the pot if a three shows on the flop.

What I’m trying to say is that a good strategy would be is to change the way you play. Start out by changing the way you think- if two or three players raise and re-raise maybe it would be a good idea to go into the pot with a low pair or a 3-5 hoping for a low flop and let them fight the with each other while you just call on the low flop. Sometimes low is good. Sometimes showing the table you bluffed is good and not shameful.

Poker is like a recipe – you throw in a little bit of every style of poker playing you know and you get a pretty good expensive meal at the end. Poker is only probably 50 % luck. One should ask themselves how much lucky can one get.

Lets say 6-7 really good hands in a 6-7 hour game. The trick is to get as much money as you can just in these 6-7 hands. The way you do that is when the other hundred hands that you play – you change the patterns, you bluff, and you pre-raise on low cards, you play conservatively and rough and loud, you sometimes think for a while, and take your time, and sometimes you should call as fast as the player raising says the number he is raising maybe even before he said the hundred in 500 hundred.

Don’t be categorized by other players because that’s what they are trying to do id to pin you to a category play and then they think they can read your hand. Good luck all!

I play many online casino games, mostly poker variations and some blackjack and video poker too.

I started playing poker, NLHE specifically, around 2 1/2 years ago and immediately started making money. However, since I really didn’t know how to play, my beginners luck run out and that trend quickly turned around. Around this time I discovered bonuses and with the addition of bonuses I could make a little money overall although I was losing money playing the game.

Around four months after I started playing, I had a really bad month and lost a decent amount of money even though I was clearing bonuses. I really wanted to continue playing but at that time I was playing at Paradise and the $50 tables were the smallest buy in that I could play. I couldn’t move down and my confidence was shot so I ended up becoming discouraged and only played on and off for the next 6 months or so.

Around that point I was introduced to PLO8 and immediately was drawn to it. Unfortunately just like NLHE, I started winning before I really knew how to play and became discouraged when my luck ran out. However this time I did the smart thing and starting playing limit O8 (which at .5/1 is an aquarium) until I really understood the game.

I had 1 losing limit month, then 2 break even months, then something clicked and I started winning. I had a couple of winning months, then switched back to PLO8 and destroyed that game for a couple of months.

After that I went back to NLHE, because I wanted to be positive in all of the games that I played. I started playing the NLHE $25 tables and beat them to a bloody pulp for about a month. Then I attempted to move up to the $50 table and got my ass handed to me, so I moved back to the $25 tables, recouped my loses, and decided to go back to PLO8.

I made that decision a few months ago and since then have played some PLO8 $25 tables to get myself used to seeing 4 cards again. I have been playing well so I think that it is time for a run at the $100 tables.

I plan on posting in this blog for some of the sessions that I play. I will keep the results on in the first post updated and I will post specifics for each session. Those specifics will include (1) the stats for the day, (2) any hands that I think I played well, (3) any hands that I think I played poorly and (4) any hands that I had questions on.

Hopefully this will force me to analyze my game and help me move to the next level in poker.

The first tip to help you make profits if you are starting at poker is to raise your big hands pre flop. Beginners fail to do it, maybe because they do not understand the logic of that move. It will make the pot larger and get rid of limpers. This leads to bigger pots when you are the favorite, and in NLHE you want to win the big pots.

Another crucial tip advised by some of the most profitable online poker sharks is never to draw to the idiot side of a straight. The reason is that you must know to fold big hands. In this case you will almost always lose the big pots, as they occur when another player has the highest side of the straight.

The next tip is that unconnected cards of medium and low face value are to go to the muck. Also strong players know that low pairs must be mucked most of the time, except for the occasional set mining attempt in a pot with limpers.

Another recommendation is to play aggressively with your open-ended straight draws after the flop. Be aggressive with an ace or two high over-cards after a rainbow unpaired board, when no one could possibly have hit the flop hard. If a player raises at such garbage flop, fold because he must have a strong hidden hand.

Solid poker players suggest to learn how to catch bluffers instead of always folding passively to their bets and raises. Learn to make guesses if your opponents is bluffing to make you fold or if he has a strong hand. You must take chances and try calling bluffers otherwise you will be the preferred target of the most tricky players.

A more advanced tip is that you should know how to bluff yourself as well, as this will add money to your bankroll. Omitting to bluff at times is a leak which makes you too predictable. Analyze your competitor to determine if he can be forced to fold with no effort, or if he bluffs a lot himself.

Beyond pure Texas Holdem strategy tips, you need also to select the poker room that fits you best. If you have never played poker before, a good way to learn the game is video poker. Visit a site like http://onlinevideopoker.com full of information about the variations and subtleties in the game of poker and video poker.

This special event of the 2010 WSOP edition, by invitation only, will bring together 25 WSOP bracelet holders elected by the public on the internet and two more players selected from special satellite tournaments.

And the satellite that Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier won was really special as it included seven other strong players who do not yet have a WSOP bracelet: Paul Wasicka, Liv Boeree, Andy Bloch, Michael Mizrachi, Gus Hansen, Sorel Mizzi and Gavin Smith. Plus the celebrity poker player Don Cheadle, included for his poker charity contribution.

Bertrand Grospellier took over on its eight opponents to win the ticket to the TOC, the largest freeroll in the world with a gigantic prize pool of one million dollars and a first prize of $500,000 for the winner. The 25 elected players are selected from the pool of 521 bracelet holders and chosen by the public. All this is somehow similar to reality TV, where talent and popularity are mixed to lead to an enormous prize for the winner of the contest.

On June 27th Bertrand will battle with other great poker names like Annie Duke, Joe Cada, Mike Sexton and Mike Matusow. Bertrand Grospellier is an extraordinary poker player and it does not come as a surprise that he participates in this Hall of Fame tournament.

There were 3 stages in ElkY’s gaming prowess. First he was a world-level StarCraft online gamer living in Korea. Then he became one of the best online poker players in the world, being the first SuperNova Elite player at pokerstars, not one of the easiest poker sites. Bertrand is holding a World record in the Guiness book for the most online sit and go tournaments played profitably in one hour (62). And finally he became a fantastic live tournament poker player.

Despite his young age, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier has already won some prestigious tournaments such as the PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure (EPT) and Festa al Lago tournament (WPT). It is time to add a WSOP bracelet to his list of trophies, is it not?

Las Vegas is the epicenter of bricks and mortar gambling – with all manner of card, table and video slot games ruling the roost. But deep in the heart of Vegas beats the pulse of Poker. This is the game that pundits the world over are all too eager to play. The 2010, 41st annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) is soon to kick off and the anticipation is extraordinary.

Come Thursday May 27, 2010 the Rio Hotel and Casino is going to be abuzz with activity. The good news is this majestic Poker tournament lasts until Saturday July 17, 2010.

The WSOP was first held in 1970 at the Horseshoe Casino at the behest of Benny Binion. Ten years later there were 52 participants. By 1987 there were over 2,000 participants in the series. To think that number quadrupled by 2006 to 8,773 players is astounding.

Players can count numerous worldwide tournaments sponsoring big Poker paydays and the like. But the WSOP is the benchmark of Poker excellence. The winner of each event receives the coveted WSOP bracelet and a huge cash prize. Naturally the Main Event bracelet is the most sought after prize in the game.

But what makes the WSOP most enthralling is the feature event – the $10,000 NL Hold’em Main Event. This is Poker at its most riveting. Harrah’s Entertainment plays host to this prestigious event and as the days begin to count down, the anticipation reaches fever pitch levels.

In poker getting strong hands may result from your preparation. People do not get lucky on their own. They become lucky when they set themselves up to get lucky, and that is what they must do if they want luck to help them to make money.

In other words you have to be smart about how you want to minimize chance and increase luck. Have you ever thought about using poker video training sessions to improve your skills? How about pokervt? This is a great school run by Daniel Negreanu, give it a shot.

It is so true that in the game of poker variance may hide the fact that skills is what you need more than luck. This is so in other games as well. But in poker, luck must be handled with care. It has been said that the luckier you get, the less money in your pocket. As if you get too lucky you will learn bad playing habits.

Most players love to have lucky hands. But, too much luck is actually the enemy of a player. A bad player wins a pot and he believes that he knows what he is doing and that he made a great play. A horrible player does not see the good moves, always counts on luck, makes perfect catches, and so on. A bad player will always hope to get miraculous cards. So, these fish are believed to have more chance than other players, simply because they always make unbelievable plays that only luck can support.

Superior players on the other hand do not expect luck for their profits. They actually always attempt to make the mathematically correct move. So it could look like they are lucky for example when they win a big pot, but their detractors do not understand their strategy. They played correctly and got lucky too, but they are winning players not because of luck, but because they always seek positive expected value plays.

Good players count on their opponents to make mistakes. This is how they make their money. So if a calling station calls the bets from a solid player in a situation where he does not have the proper pot odds to call with his drawing hand, this is negative expected value for that bad player. It does not matter if he hits the draw or not, in the long run he will slowly bleed his money.

In summary poker is a game of skill where chance veils the truth about skills.

This hand was played at a pokerstars $1/$2 NL table. The buy in was $200. I was in the cut off and limped with 22 after a bunch of other limpers. The flop was seen 8 way including both blinds.

The pot was $16 and the flop came 4c2h5h. Both blinds checked. EP limper (who is very loose) bet $6. The next limper who is even looser called. The next player raised to $18. The raiser (I’ll call him Mr Tight) is the winningest player in my PokerTracker database among players with a significant number of hands. He plays very well but also is very predictable. He enters the pot voluntarily only 12% of the time. He had a little more than a full stack as I did. There was no doubt in my mind that he had either a higher set, 99 or TT. He would have raised pre flop with a higher pair and he would not slow play a set in this spot.

This was a very tough spot for me because I was 75% sure he had a higher set. I needed to reraise to get any draws out but he would have gone all in for sure with a set, but I was not sure if he would with the overpair. He never talks in chat but he had to know me as well as I know him if he’s as good as I think he is. We’ve played a couple 1000 hands together. I almost folded my set, but decided that the pot was going to be big and I wanted to see the action at the turn so I flat called.

The button also called, but everyone else folded. The pot was $82 by then. Mr Tight had about $180 left. I had about $200 and the button had about $60 left. The turn was the ace of diamond, so the board was now 4c2h5hAd.

Mr Tight checked to me. That was strange. He was obviously afraid that one of us had a straight draw and just hit the straight. If I bet, Mr Tight will have to fold an overpair, but will call with a set trying to catch his boat. If the button was not in the hand, I might go all in right now but I was afraid that he had a straight, so I was stuck in the middle. I decided to bet $35 and see how they reacted. They both called. Ok, I was done with the hand. I was 100% sure that Mr Tight had 55 or 44. The button very well may have a 3 for a straight. He only had $25 left but probably would not go all in because he wanted Mr tight to call the $35.

The pot was $187 at his point. The Gods of Poker were obviously happy with me that day, because the river was the 2 of diamond. The board had paired and Mr Tight was now leading out for $74. Man, I actually felt sorry for him. I just hit a 1 outer! I raised all in knowing full well that he was going to call with his full house. The button folded and Mr tight called as expected and I won the almost $500 pot. The cards did not show but I knew what he had.

He was playing at another table I was at, so on the other table I said “55 or 44?”. I had never seen him say a word in chat and I had tried to get him to answer before, but this time he said “check the hand history”. I said “if you did not have 55 or 44, I have been giving you way too much credit”. He did not answer.

A few minutes later someone who was playing at both my tables (where I had $500 on each table) asked me if I was a pro. Now Mr Tight piped in and said “yeah he is a pro at hitting 1 outers for $500 pots”.

You think he was a little bitter? I promise you, I came very very close to folding my set on the flop because he is so predictable.

Ready to start making money spending time playing online video games?

Many people are making big money playing video games. Gaming is a fast expanding activity, in particular online gaming. People like games and the Internet has opened the door to a realm of new possibilities. Julius Caesar used to say “panum et circem”, some bread and some games, that is all people need. Things have not changed much in 2,000 years, and this is why gaming is so popular.

Are you up to the challenge to become a Professional Game Player?
Want to make money doing what you actually want to do?
Want to make money doing what you’re already doing?

Well…You can!
You can become a professional video game player (pretty sweet, huh?)

This is the beauty of our modern high-tech economy, that nowadays many professions have
been made possible that did not exit ten or twenty years ago, or even just a few years ago
sometimes.

As online gaming is getting extremely popular with the improvements in connectivity, graphics,
simultaneous multi-users systems & database management, new high-paying jobs are emerging such
as professional game player. Here game player is a wide field. Video games is one type of games in
its widest sense, which may also include online poker and online backgammon.

Also included is the sub-category of video games tester. These testers are high-level players who
get paid to test games before release.

As rosy as all these jobs may seem, do not forget that there are still jobs: you need to work hard and
put a lot of hours into it if you want to make a lot of money. So you have to have the passion about them,
otherwise this cannot be a long-term route for you.

We will discuss more about this topic on this website, so thank you for visiting and come back in the
near future.

So when Lindgren quit the basketball team and dropped out of Butte Junior College, it seemed only natural that he would find a job that thrived on competition. He’s been competing full time ever since.

“Whether it be basketball or football or anything you could compete in, I always have competed,” says Lindgren, whose win-at-all-costs attitude has landed him a successful poker career among a motley crew of some of the world’s most competitive and narcissistic characters. “Gambling was something like that and then I finally found something in gambling that I could beat, which was poker. It was a natural fit.”

Although 33-year-old Lindgren has already carved out an impressive career in poker circles with tournament winnings totaling over $7 million, finding his “natural fit” wasn’t as easy as playing pocket aces. With pipe dreams of becoming a Las Vegas high roller, Lindgren’s first foray into the glitz and glamour of high-stakes gaming was as a blackjack dealer at a small Indian casino near his hometown of Burney, CA.

Dealing cards behind the tables was about as far from the final table as you could get. “When I started playing poker, I was playing $3 and $6 Hold ‘em in the back room of an Indian casino where everybody was smoking. It was pretty nasty,” he remembers. “Fortunately there was a poker room in the back. I was playing more poker than I was dealing blackjack.”.

Once Lindgren knew he could make more money playing cards than dealing them, he started playing poker full time. It wasn’t long before he realized that making a living at the tables wasn’t as easy as shooting hoops at Butte. “I was starting out when I had just turned 21 and I was trying to play poker without a job,” says Lindgren. “It’s pretty hard to pay the bills.”

To earn a steady paycheck, Lindgren took a job as a prop player at the Casino San Pablo in the Bay Area, where he was paid $150 for an 8–hour shift to help start and keep games going at the tables. It wasn’t any closer to gaming glory than the dealer job in Burney. Instead of being a fish at a big-time table teeming with action, he was getting paid to keep flounders in a poker game just long enough to make the tables worthwhile. It was the ultimate thankless act of guerilla gaming, but it might have proven invaluable in Lindgren’s endeavor for a spot in the pinnacle of the poker world.

Soon enough, Lindgren started practicing his skills online and before long, his days of smoky backrooms and small fries gave way to the bright lights of televised tournaments and $25,000 buy-ins. No longer content to play $3 and $6 blinds, Lindgren now spends upwards of $500,000 on buy-ins each year. It has proven to be a sound investment. Since December 2002, Lindgren has won three major tournaments, including PartyPoker.com’s Million III and the 2003 World Poker Tournament in Aruba. Additionally, Lindgren has become a spokesperson for Full Tilt Poker and Knob Creek Bourbon and co-authored his poker book, Making the Final Table.

As if that weren’t enough, Lindgren is finally ready for his close-up, playing himself in a bit role in the Curtis Hanson film, Lucky You. He describes the spot acting gig as “very cool” and is looking forward to trading glances with the film’s star, actress Drew Barrymore, at the movie premiere. But Lindgren isn’t relocating from his posh digs in Las Vegas to Hollywood anytime soon. “I don’t want to pursue acting full time,” says Lindgren. “I don’t take orders that well, so I don’t think that I could be an actor.”

With his remarkable success on the poker circuit, you aren’t going to hear too many stories about bad beats from Lindgren. But rest assured, he knows a thing or three about losing. After recently falling to local Las Vegas pro Chad Layne and finishing 140th and out of the money in the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship, Lindgren the competitor was crestfallen. But Lindgren the pro, a little older, a little wiser, knew that his loss and the countless other losses to follow are part of the game.

He still hates losing, but has learned to handle it better than most. “Nobody likes to lose. I never take losing lightly. Losing sucks,” Lindgren explains. “Obviously you don’t have to learn to be a loser. You can’t win all of the time and that’s actually hard for a lot of people to deal with. A lot of people who get into gambling are ultra-competitive and they are not used to losing.”

Maybe it’s his ability to brush off losing long enough to come back and win a big pot. Maybe it’s his 2004 World Poker Tour Player of the Year Award. Maybe it’s his golden boy looks and poised grin that keeps you guessing. Whatever it is, Erick Lindgren is now the face of a new generation of poker greats alongside good friends Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, and Daniel Negreanu. With another decade or two of seasoning, this cabal just might someday be mentioned in the same breath as the true poker luminaries; the Brunsons, the Chans, the Hellmuths.

Sure, Erick Lindgren is still the same intense competitor who used to collect MVP honors instead of poker chips, but it’s just a bit more fun knocking out Daniel Negreanu when he also happens to be one of your best buddies. “I won $1 million to beat out Danny Negreanu, who finished second (in PartyPoker.com’s Million III) and is also one of my best friends,” says Lindgren. “It was fun to go first and second because whether I won or lost, it was just going to be a pretty awesome time.”

Lindgren will have to collect a few more victories before the poker world considers him among the all-time greats. He only hopes that, if it does happen, it will be alongside his friends. “I definitely see myself 40 years down the line and looking across the table and seeing Phil Ivey and Daniel and everyone,” he says with the kind of glint you’ll only see in someone that knows they’re answering their true calling. “I can’t imagine not playing.”

If you find out you have a tendency to play this way, you must make a concerted effort to change the way you play poker, as this is a losing style. This is something that many sensible players take conscious efforts against turning into. There are many players who literally feast on the weak-tight players.

Consider the term “weak tight”. If this term is compared with terms like “weak loose” or “strong tight”, it is obvious that the problem does not lie with the “tight” part at all. A tight, aggressive play is the best approach in a game of poker. We know that weak-loose play means playing too many hands and folding too often before showdown. But weak-tight is much more a difficult situation to deal with.

There are some basic aspects connected with weak-tight play. Let’s look into a couple of examples.The first aspect is the lack of realization that you might need to risk a loss in order to make a win. To win a bet, you will have to be in pots that make bets. To win a few times, you will have to lose many times. But, you should not be ever concerned about losing a pot; only that the play you are following should be mathematically correct. You will be able to win only if you accept losses also.

The next aspect is about the fact that you need to very rarely let others dictate the pace for you. Weak-tight players constantly react to others and rarely make the others react to their moves. They often fight battles that are chosen by their opponents.

These are actually the fears that exist at basically any limit, but this is considered as a bigger risk especially in the low limit. This is because in such games, people would tend to make a call to the river even if they have a weak hand. Therefore, throwing lots of money on a particular hand can be risky, as there will be more suck outs.

It is often worse to make a check or a call rather than a raise when you have a good hand. It will certainly help you to end up with winning a bigger pot. You might be able to still win hands by just calling and checking. However, you tend to lose a big sum of money very fast especially when making a raise and an open. That is likely to happen if you are aggressive and get booted out on the river.

So, this is the reason why the large number of online games becomes very easy to beat. Players do not really begin to charge when they are holding a good hand. This is not the way to grow your gambling bankroll.

They will be more concerned on useless issues. For example, they might be more concerned about useless ideas like losing the previous pots after having driven the betting. They will never accept the mathematically correct plays based on statistics. This is in spite of them knowing that this sort of mathematics exists and works.