Archive for January, 2009

Different versions of poker

Friday, January 30th, 2009

Poker has innumerable variants. When somebody decides to learn to play poker he or she has to study the different poker versions once and to decide which is the most suitable one for him or her. Let’s take a look to the most popular poker games:

1. Five Card Stud
This is the only poker game, where you are allowed to see your opponents cards accept one. This is why you have to watch all movements from the play. It can be a big mistake to look for one card which has been folded by your opponent in front of you. The most important rule in Stud games is to fold in case that you cannot beat, what was shown up on the table by the other players. As you see, you have to be very patient because Five Card Stud is an extremely deliberate game. To win, you need to weigh the rakes and the amount of the blinds/ante. Your wined pots must be enough to get the money you need to put back into the pot and eclipse the rake. In case that your ante/blinds are huge, you have to be more aggressive. Finally, when you have nothing you have to bluff at additional pots. In this game it is really useful to start your game as a tight player and to change your style in course of the game. Your reputation as a conservative player can be used to win pots from the other players by bluffing. Use this when it worth using, when it is money in the pot. In this game, such as in many other.

poker games the most important thing is to understand that for you it worth paying money to see cards, just if you have monetary advantage from this action. To make correct choices, your mathematical solution is to learn how to calculate poker odds. Using the pot odds you will know what is the probability to pull that card, which will make you winner. This chances will be weighed against the pot size. Don’t forget that in this game you have to take into account some additional information when you make decisions. You know that the game has been started with eight players . A face up card has been received by each player, and five of them have folded. You have to think about and to recognize the cards what they have in play. This was only an example of the many details what you have to be attentive on. You have to observe every card and have to think at all possible situations from future. Calculating the pot odds it isn’t a simple thing. It requires to remember all the cards you saw on table and to calculate quickly your possibility to get the card you need. If you are playing online this process could be easier. You just need to have a program which calculates instead of you your percentage. It worth trying out!

2. Seven Cards Stud
In this game each player receives three cards for starting the game. Two cards are faced down, and the third it is faced up, so everybody could see it. An other card will receive all of the players after a round. This is also faced up. This process is repeated two times, so every player who hasn’t folded yet has four faced up cards, and two face down hole card. When the final fifth round is taken place, each player has 7 cards. They are than showing their hands, and five cards are selected by each player among the seven, with the aim to make their best hand. The winner is that player who has the best five cards hand. An ante means that amount of money which is put by all of the players on the pot before dealing. An ante is not necessary to play this game but it can be played also with it. The first bet usually makes that person who has the lowest one of his or her face up card. Depending on the rules the bet can be the half or the full amount of the opening bet, which was established before. If two players have the lowest numerical card, the forced bet would be played by the player with the lowest alphabetical card. So in this case the lowest card will be the club, followed by diamonds, hearts and spades. Player from the left of the bettor has the chance for first to raise, call or fold. This is valid just for the first round. In the other rounds, the first bettings option has the one who has the best face up hands, and than play is proceeded to the left.

3. Five Card Draw
For starting the hand everybody receives five cards faced down. Players are betting with their initial hand. Than they can discard cards from their hand and they are allowed to receive from the deck an equal number of cards. After the last draw begins the final round of betting, and players show their cards. The money in the pot is wined by the player with the best cards from his or her hand. This game is played usually with an ante. Referring to this rules are variable because this game isn’t played often in Online Casinos. Bettings are working clockwise from the left player from the dealer.

4. Omaha
In his simplest form in Omaha everybody receives four face down cards. After the first bet three cards will be placed on table face up, these are The Flop. In the next round an other card will be put on table face up. This is The Turn. And so on, in the next turn The River is placed on the table faced up. In the final round players are showing their four face down cards. That is the winner who has three face up cards from the table, and two cards in his or her hand. This five card combination must be the highest Hand Ranking.

betting is moving clockwise, beginning with the player left from the dealer. Forced bets in Omaha are called Blinds. Small Blind is placed on table by the player from the left of the dealer, and Big Blind is placed of the left player from the former. Blinds are set before and usually are indicating the size of the pots.

5. Texas Hold’em
The game begins with receiving two face down cards, which are called hole cards. After the first round three face up cards would be placed on table. This are The Flop. The fourth card is placed on the table after the next round, and it is called The Turn. The River is the next card placed on the table after an other round. After a final round of betting the left two down faced card from the players hand is being shown. The hand is wined, by that player, who has the highest Hand Ranking combinations. Such as in the former ones, betting begins from the left player near the dealer and moves clockwise. Blinds are the forced bets. Big and small blinds are the same as in Omaha, which is described above. At the first round of bet, players are required to make a bet in the amount at least as the big blind. After The Flop also is required a same amount of betting. An amount of twice the big blind is required in the last two bettings.

Here you have the most popular poker games. There are a large amount of games played in casinos, homes, online poker sites. You can choose some of them and learn all little aspect of the game, or choose more games and get deeply into their misteries step by step.

Free online poker

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

Play money games are easy to play, so people have the tendency to get carried away. One of the thousand websites where you can access free online poker is hansapoker. This is not really worth the effort, unless you are a very good player and in real need for cash. So before you throw yourself head first into a real game make sure you have enough experience on the free online poker sites. This happens when you sit for hours and play the free rolls and the time spent doing this goes into a sort of black hole. And also by playing for play money, which is available on every site, you can learn a few tricks which will help you move to the real money games. To be able to play, you need to register on the site and download the Hansa Poker software. Do not imagine huge sums; they are just enough to keep you interested for hours. Most of these games have really high stakes involved, so using your computer to train without losing money can be of great help. The danger with this type of tournaments is the time vortex.Hansa Poker site’s Customer Service and your account will be credited with $ If you win 5000 Action Points you will get another $ To be able to download the Hansa Poker software, your computer needs to be able to support the size and necessities of the software components, so it means that it should be equipped with at least 30 Mb of free space on your disk, a version of Windows 98 or higher, minimum 128 RAM memory and at least 40MHz the power of the processor. Free online poker is always the best option when you feel like playing a game with a win. Most of the poker players view free online games as an unparalleled occasion because it gives them the opportunity to play their favorite game for free. But this might really prejudice them, because they might go for real money games and not be able to win. Both of them are easy to learn to play but the difference between playing online and playing live consists in the fact that when you play live you need to be able to spot bluffs and be a good judge of character. Free online poker has made the poker game easier to learn, and a lot of people play it just as training for real games, outside the online poker environment. The most played poker games are Texas Holdem Poker and Omaha. As a novice you have to aim for play money because is the best way to get used to the free online poker tables, types of players and strategies. This is only for beginners though, because for expert players there are more complex games and bigger prizes. Hansa Poker is offering the players the chance to win real money with absolutely no deposit needed. Most of the sites have poker freerolls which are tournaments where the hosting puts up cash prizes for the players, which can enter the game for free. By playing without depositing real money, you don’t take the chance of losing your money.

Mistakes made by players

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Mistakes made by online poker players.

Most people who play poker have some typical behavior that communicates to the other players the type of cards they hold. This is known as “tell” in poker. Understanding a player’s tell can help another player to be one up or even win the game.

It will be difficult to pick up tells in Texas Holdem if you do not play regularly with them. In low limits people mostly play wildly or even loosely which makes it difficult to read the other players’ hand.

At upper limits and tournaments you’ll notice a lot of mistakes are made because people misread other people. It is very important to read other players hand correctly. You can’t always win with your own hands. Winning also depends on how the opponent plays. One has to read the body language and other expressions to understand the cards of the opponents. Bluffing is a big part in the game. At the expert level there is a lot going on that doesn’t at the lower.

Tells in low limit Texas Holdem

If you don’t play regularly with a person you will never interpret their mannerisms correctly. In low limit Holdem usually the best hand wins. Bluffing is not a big part of the game.
You need to be alert and pay attention to every detail of the other peoples plays, but you shouldn’t go into the cardroom hoping to win by picking up tells. Reading hands takes time and patience. It will allow you to pick up a few more pots here and there but you will most likely still have to hold something yourself.

Subtle Tells and Blatant Tells
Blatant tells – are the ones where the cards are exposed by very obvious behavior of a player.
Subtle tells – There is this constant exchange of information between the players that includes everything from the way they are handling their chips, to the amount they are betting, to their actions in previous hands. All of that, if taken in, should give you a good idea of what your decision should be. A subtle tell might be a tight player who always tries to slow play his best hands (check raise the turn) instead of betting them right out. If you were watching carefully you should pick up on this and be able to pay him off less when he does catch something.
Another subtle tell might be if someone constantly over plays their hands. One thing to note is that usually people don’t just do things some of the time. A person really aggressive in one situation will most likely be very aggressive in others. This isn’t true as you move up the ranks, but in low limit a person tends to be in one category.

Another tell or read would be that a player is very loose and aggressive. They often raise preflop with little or nothing and keep betting after the flop. Against this type of player you shouldn’t always assume he has AA, AK, or KK when he raises. You might see that one player likes to jam it up every time he has a flush or straight draw. Other players may just call in that position.

The above example are all reading skills that help you make better decisions but they aren’t tells by the strict sense. Another tell which makes your play pretty easy is if there a flush draw and you raise on the flop and a good player calls two bets cold. Now either he already has a good hand or he is in there for the draw. All of this is good old fashion deductive reasoning.

There are more subtle tells than blatant tells you have to read in your poker career. If you can master reading of hands you’ll end up making money as it will teach you when to call and when to fold.