• Blog Home
• Poker Bonuses
• Poker Reviews
• Instant Bonuses
• Poker Freerolls

• General Poker
• Poker Bonus
• Poker Bonus Time
• Poker News
• Poker Reviews
• Poker Strategy
• Uncategorized

Subscribe

The Sport of Poker…

It has long been debated whether or not poker is a sport, and most players today would agree with you that it most definitely is a sport. If you consider other sports, people do play them for recreation and exercise, but this does not make them any less of a sport. The same should be said of poker. While many players just play for fun, there are hundreds of professional players coming out of the woodwork every day.

There are tournaments just like other sports, it takes years of training and practice just like a sport, and it requires skill and mental agility just like many sports. Although it is not physical in nature, poker requires a tremendous amount of mental focus and stamina. If you consider also, that many of the tournaments and championships last for days at a time, you will soon start to respect this card game as a sport in its own right.

Since the early 15^th century in Germany and later on in Persia, various games with similar rules and formats as poker began to emerge and eventually poker became famous all over the US and Britain. With many players becoming exceptionally talented at the once humble card game, the World Series of Poker was introduced in 1970, and it was from this point onwards that poker became a serious sport in certain circles. There are also many versions of poker that are played like the community car poker which include the most popular variant, Texas Hold’em, stud poker, and draw poker.

To this day many people still don’t think of poker as a sport at all, but with the introduction of the internet, thousands of people from all over the world can play online, learn more and eventually become one of the top players in the world. In fact most of the professional championship players started playing poker online. Additionally with the media paying more attention and broadcasting many more tournaments and events, and various celebrities taking part in charity fundraiser poker tournaments, this little card game, is sure to become one of the biggest, most competitive, famous sports of all time.

PLAYING TEXAS HOLD’ EM ON THE IPOD

If you want to hone your Texas Hold ‘Em skills, there are many outlets to practice the game. One of them is playing the game on your iPod. The game is available to download onto your iPod and play whenever the mood strikes you.

The game is simple enough, you just try to win tournament and build up your pot so you can enter higher and higher stakes events. The bigger the tournaments, the harder the game becomes.

The controls of game are pretty simple. You choose to check, bet or fold. The game pits you against computer players. You win the game on the iPod if you go through and the rest of the players have folded or the final card is dealt on the flop.

You need to be careful however with the control of the game. If you want to speed things up, especially when the computer is playing, you can use the select button. But press it too many times and you will make the wrong input for yourself. Unfortunately, there is no undo command, so you’re stuck with your move.

The game is unrealistic in another part, too, in that you are only playing against a maximum of six players. In real life games, you are usually playing against eight or 10, which changes the strategy.

Of course, your ability to practice real strategy is always going to be a little off when you are playing on the iPod, because you are going up against a computer’s decision making. That means you won’t get the same reaction to bluffing or betting that you would get from an actually opponent. You will be able to go through the game and take advantage of that weakness.

And if you are new to playing the game and trying to learn the rules, there really is no tutorial. You can’t ask the game if you are doing the right thing or if you are using the right strategy.

All in all, playing Texas Hold ‘Em, let alone trying to learn the game, isn’t much of a success. In many ways, the game isn’t much better than one of those electronic handheld games that are sold for a few bucks.

If you are looking for a computer-based way to play Texas Hold ‘Em, it’s better to try one of the many online web sites where you can actually interact with players who are making real-time decisions. That will be a real challenge to how you learn the game.

How to Play the Best Flush Poker

There are a lot of different poker games out there. It seems like the possibilities are endless, even with one deck of cards. If you are interested in playing a new kind of game, you may want to check out best flush poker, a fairly easy way to shake things up when you are playing with a group of friends. 

The rules are simple; the only hands that can win are either full or partial flushes. You start by dealing five cards to begin the game and each player only gets three draws after that. Since partial flushes can win, a royal flush is the best hand and a two-card flush is the worst. Ties are broken by seeing whose flush contains the high card.  

The best part of the best flush draw poker game is that you get to work on your bluffing. If you’re used to Texas Hold ‘em or another game, then this is a skill you can work on even as you are goofing around with a game like best flush. It all depends on how many cards you draw. Everyone will have a two card flush with five cards, so all you need to do is convince the other players you have more than two cards in your flush. Maybe you just pick a card, maybe you pick two. Either way, you’re in their head. 

How about betting? Well this is the best part, because you can have a lot of bets and you can have a big table when you are playing best flush. Up to 10 players can play (if you can fit them all around the table). Bets are taken after each card is dealt. You should end up with a good pot, because everyone will have a two card flush and those with three will think they have a chance.  

If you are the dealer, then you have bit of an advantage over the rest of the players at the table. If the dealer wants to try a three-card bluff, then they can see if other players draw two cards in response. Then the dealer knows if they have the upper hand. It’s all about being the best bluffer. If you can do that in an off-the-wall game like Best Flush draw poker, then you will be able to carry some of that practice over to big stakes tables at big stakes games that you play.

Knowing When to Fold Them

It may seem like the opposite of what you should be doing, but in the game of poker one of your best skills is to know when to fold.

That’s right, quitting so that you can rather play another round, is one of the keys to winning. Why? Because in poker, you don’t want to waste either your time or your chips on a bad hand, so the sooner you put it down, the better.

When you fold, you drop out of a chance to win the pot. Usually, a player just tells the others around the table that they are folding or they just throw their hand into the discard pile. Be care about what you do with cards, though, depending on the rules of the game you are planning. In some games, when you fold you are not allowed to turn your cards over.

An unwritten rule you need to be sure to follow is not to fold out of turn. This can hurt the balance of the table and give a player a competitive advantage when they shouldn’t have one.

The key, though, is to know why you should fold. There are many reasons why - all of which could benefit you in the long run. One of the biggest reasons to fold comes when you figure out some other player’s tells. If you know someone is bluffing and really has a good hand, then you should fold in order to save yourself some chips. Of course, the opposite is also true, in which you could figure out a players’ tell tendencies and decide not to fold and stay in the game.

Other reasons to fold are when you have a hand you should play - a pair lower than jacks, for instance, with nothing helping on the flop.

There are a lot of skills you need to learn in order to excel at poker. While bluffing and betting are two of the biggest, learning when to fold your cards is up there too. 

The Fine Art of Bluffing

There are many ways to tell your average poker player from someone who has the skills to win big pots consistently. It’s more than just a run of luck; it’s a set of abilities that few people understand who are just casually watching the game. One of those skill sets you need to acquire in order to become elite is really known when and how to bluff. Without it, you’re sunk.

It’s best to start out with some of the general guidelines for bluffing. The first is - beware of bad players. You may all the poker playing skills in the world and still be torpedoed by someone at your table who really has no idea what their doing. If you have someone like this playing with you, be careful about bluffing with nothing. If your opponent isn’t skilled with how or when they bet they will keep calling and calling until the end and you will lose with your no hand to a pretty sorry pair.

The second rule is - don’t be a One-Trick Pony.  If you are really good at bluffing, you can’t expect to live on it for an entire game. No matter your abilities, you aren’t going to bluff your way to a championship, so don’t try. And don’t always bluff in the same way. The key to poker is to make your opponents so unsteady that they are thinking about you more than they are thinking about their own cards. If they know you are an awesome bluffer, they’re going to see right through you. So, just like a championship boxer, you need to vary your punches. If you score a big win with a bluff in one hand, you need to go strong without a bluff in the next.

The next rule is a crucial one - bluffing isn’t for sissies! The best way to convince the other people at your table that you’ve got a great hand is to bet like you’ve got a great hand. There’s no better way to tell someone is an experience player than to see them go with nothing all the way until they’re called and them have them say they were bluffing. No, they were just playing badly, especially if they were checking each turn and only throwing in the minimal raises. For a true, skilled bluffer, you need to be laying out big bets on the table and daring the other players to figure out what you’re doing. Like any other poker prospect, it’s about controlling the table and you’re not controlling the table if you are half-heartedly bluffing. You have to go for the gusto with big, confident bluffs that put your decisions in the driver’s seat.

A rule related to this is - don’t bluff against sissies! If you are risking a lot with your bluffs, you need to be going after the big players at the table. It makes the stakes worth it when you are going after the players at the table who are competing with you to win, not someone who is on their way out. They will either lose, or you will try to bluff them with their chip stack is worth it. Otherwise, don’t waste your time or your bluffing skills on them.

Chinese Poker

Chinese Poker, is a game for up to 4 players.

Gameplay:

After the antes are posted, each player is dealt a 13-card hand. The players divide their 13 cards into 3 hands. The first hand has 3 cards, the second hand has 5 cards, and the third hand has 5 cards. The 3-card hand can either be high card, pair, or trips. Straights and flushes do not count. The second hand must beat the first hand, and the third hand must beat the second hand. The three hands are arranged face down in front of the player. After all players have arranged their three hands, there is a showdown. All players’ first hand is revealed at the same time. Then all the second hands are revealed. Finally, all the third hands are revealed.

Winnings:

There are many different scoring systems for Chinese Poker. The most common system is that, 50% of the pot goes to the player with the highest second hand. 25% goes to the highest first hand, and 25% goes to the highest third hand.

- Thomas Hardy

Poker Jargon

This is a small glossary explaining the basic poker terms, that will be frequently used in these blogs.

Preflop: The betting round after you are dealt your two hole cards and there are no cards on the board yet.

Flop: The first three board cards in Hold’em.

Turn: The fourth board card that comes out in Hold’em, the card after the flop.

River: The fifth and final card that comes on the board in Hold’em, after the turn.

Suits:

• h = Hearts
• c = Clubs
• d = Diamonds
• s = Spades

Blinds: The forced bets that take the place of an ante. The person to the left of the dealer must pay the small blind, and the person after him must pay the big blind.

Board Cards: The cards in the middle of the table that are shared by everyone.

Draw: Drawing means hoping to improve your hand with the cards that will come on the board. You are on a draw when you want other cards to come out on the board to complete your hand. If you have 10h 9dand the flop is Qs Jc 2d, you are trying to draw an eight or a king on the turn or river.

Limit Poker: Poker with fixed-size bets. In a $2-4 limit game, all bets and raises are $2 in the first two rounds (preflop and flop), and all bets and raises are $4 in the last two rounds (turn and river).

Short Handed: A poker game with six or less players.

Outs: Cards that can improve your hand. If the flop is 2h Qc Jh and you have 9h 10h, you want a king or an eight to complete your straight. There are four kings and four eights in the deck, so you have eight total outs.

Position: Where you sit at the poker table. The dealer has the best position. The small blind acts first.

Pot Odds: The odds you are getting when you are drawing. For example, say you have Ah 3h and the board is 5h Kh 6d. There are nine more diamonds out there (thirteen minus the two from your hand and the two on the board), so you have a roughly 18% chance of hitting your flush on the next card. Thus, if the pot is $100, and the bet is $10, even though you are losing, you have odds to chase your flush draw. However, let’s say the pot is $100 on the turn (there is one card left) and your opponent bets $300. The pot is $400 and you must put in $300 to see the river. You are getting pot odds of 4:3 which is not enough, because the odds are about 4:1 against hitting your flush.

Implied Odds: The same as pot odds, but taking into account making bets in the future. Thus, you may call a bet at the flop, but have implied odds of making bigger bets on later rounds if you hit your draw. So, if you have Ad Kd and the flop comes Qc 7d 6d, your implied odds are what you have to call at the flop compared to how large the pot will be at the end of the hand.

- Thomas Hardy

Copyright © 2007 Poker Bonus Time · Log in