What Poker Games do online Casinos Offer

A new online poker player may well wonder what games are offered online.

The obvious answer is they all offer Holdem in both limit and no-limit games.

This form of poker is without a doubt the most popular game there is at any online casino.  The game is numerous in cash games and the number of tournaments offered online each week is in outstanding numbers.  One site out of the many online can have well over one hundred or more tournaments.

The next poker version that gets a lot of play is Omaha HiLo.  This two winners in a pot game can have huge pots in small limit games, as the two winners possibility makes players gamble on their hands.  Players who are just learning this game are at a big disadvantage when they play against experienced players.

New players do not know how to value their hand and overplay hands that are really not that good in Omaha.  Holdem players are real pigeons in Omaha, as winning Holdem hands are not of high value in Omaha.  [Read][more][...]

How to get out of a losing session

The only way to get out of losing poker session is to start winning.  This is a simple answer to a serious problem that every poker player faces.  When you are coming in second best in every big pot, this situation can become very disturbing and with some players make them go on tilt.  A player on tilt loses perspective and tries to hard to recover the losses.  This causes a player to make riskier plays and therefore end up losing more money.

An experienced player will set back, even take a short break and clear his mind to continue to play with even more severe calculations of the chances of winning .the pot.  He will let the cards speak to him when the losing streak has ended.  When the cards turn after a bad run, they sometimes go on an unbelievable rush.

If this happens push the devil out of it as the losing hands are behind you and the winners are flying to you from the dealer.  When you are even or a slight winner, think about whet you accomplished by staying calm and not on tilt.  This is one of the hardest parts of poker for a player to come to grips with. [Read][more][...]

Could the US Government use $52 Billion

The big accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers did a study of the result of taxing and regulating Internet gambling.  Their study indicates that over a ten-year period the income from taxing and regulating Internet gambling could be $51.9 Billion.  This study echoes a similar study done one year before.

This new study has added ammunition to Barney Frank's bill that he introduced, in HR2046, The Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act.  This bill would handle licensing and regulation of the Internet gambling industry in the United States.  The licensing and regulations would be scrupulously enforced and would make online gaming toe the line like they do in Europe.  Congressman Franks plans to reintroduce the bill in March of this year.

The UIGEA law has severely crippled this industry in the US and forced all online casinos to operate outside the country and in many cases the operations have very lax oversight.  [Read][more][...]

A Round Up of Poker Ferguson Michigan Poker and a Mish Mash

Chris Ferguson held the chip lead in the LA Classic until the end of the day yesterday.  He started the day with 1.7 million in chips and the lead.  He ended the day in sixth place and a chip stack of 1.5 million and the low stack at the final table.  The chip leader, Chris Karagulleyan, begins today with a stack totalling 4.0 million chips.  Ferguson got off to a very bad beat at the beginning of the round and dropped 500,000 in chips in one hand.  His round was a roller coaster ride, which saw him drop as low as just over half a million in chips and then recover to over 2.2 million only to go back down to the ending balance of 1.5 million.  This is his second final table at a WPT event.

Michigan may be going through a tough economic time, but Poker is still alive at the new poker room at the Turtle Creek Casino that just opened in its new location in June 2008.  The poker room has enjoyed a full table experience since it open.  Leslie Vancamp the poker room manager stated that the Poker Room had been booming from day one of its grand opening. [Read][more][...]

Poker Player and Murderer Possibly The Same

A thirty-year-old poker pro was arrested in Las Vegas Monday for the murder of his father and mother in their home in early March of last year.  Ernest Scherer III was arrested for the brutal killing of his Father and Mother in a San Francisco bedroom community of Pleasanton, California.  A person that worked for the Country Club Administration discovered the bodies several days later in the Country Club community.  A phone call from the daughter who lived in Utah alerted them to a possible problem, as she could not get her parents on the phone.

There is some information on a possible motive for the murder.  Scherer III was deep in debt and not doing well in the poker world.  Since turning pro in 2002 he had won $339,000 according to tournament records.  He had a wife and a child that lived in Southern California.  His Father was pressing his son for the return of a $616,000 loan he made to buy his son a home in Brea, California.  This tragic situation was brought on by the mounting debts from gaming, credit card debts and the pressure to repay the home loan.  [Read][more][...]

Poker and Books

Pokers has arrived as a study from books and not just from the play in dark smoke filled rooms in the back of a Honky Tonk.  Many of the old time players that learned that way have now written great books on how to play better poker.  The great Doyle Brunson comes to mind immediately as his books have been the bible for many of the newer poker pros that are seen on TV.  Since then, many of the big stars of today have taken the time to put into words their opinion on what works to make a player a winner.  The Internet has given many young players the needed number of real hands in real time to give them actual playing experience.  In the old days of only playing in live games, this hand and playing time experience only came from hours of real time play.

Learning the math and the way to play hands is well worth the time-spent reading.   Now, any player can find many solid books on the various poker games including both cash games and tournaments.  This time spent is cheaper than learning by losing in situations you may have avoided if you had done the reading.  This will still happen, but cutting these expensive lessons to a minimum by reading is a far cheaper way to learn. [Read][more][...]

NBC National Heads Up Tournament is Set

This annual Heads Up Tournament will be played at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for three days starting March 5TH.  Each of the four years this 64-player match has been held has proven to be a severe test of Heads Up Play.  This year's announced field is a Who's Who list of poker players from around the world.  Many of them have a strong record in other prestiges' poker events and have a proven capacity to win at any tournament.  The number of WSOP winners is outstanding as well as those that have done well in the WPT and the major tournaments that have been held in Europe.  The list represents players from 15 different countries of origin, which enhances its International flavor.

The player list includes five celebrities, four of them previous players in the event, one Caesars qualifier and three amateur qualifiers.  Reading the list of professional poker players is like an all-star list of the all time best poker players that are still playing.   Famous players like Doyle Brunson and Chris Ferguson give a taste of the quality of the pros that are invited to play.  Previous champions of this tournament are automatic players as well as winners of some of the better-known tournaments. [Read][more][...]

A Suggestion for Early Play in a Holdem Tournament

This suggestion works and will get many players deeper into the tournament than if they just sit and wait for a super starting hand.  The suggestion is this play suited connectors even if they are small value cards.  The reason this works is simple.  The blinds early in the tournament are small and unless you are playing -with some all-in maniac, the wagers to see the flop are not very threatening to the starting stake.  If you get lucky with this starting hand you may have the best of it at the end of the hand as a player with Ace King or such will be sucking wind even if he hits one of these cards on the River.  Your two pair, straight or flush may just win you a huge pot.  Another facet of playing this way early is you can play this way several times and fold.  The small loss of chips is nothing compared with the possible big pot this starting hand may capture.  Remember, many players will only play big cards of pairs.   If you are playing these small cards, the flop may hit you perfectly and give you an unbeatable hand at the end of the deal. [Read][more][...]

Poker Playing Activities Remain Strong in Recession

Despite the fact that the economy has been in a bad position for the past year and doesn't show any signs of immediate improvement, and despite all the talk about the need for stimulus packages and government assistance, online poker playing endeavors are not seeing the super decline in gambling endeavors that Vegas gambling sites are witnessing.

A number of casinos have been forced to reduce their rates just to attract clientele and to keep revenue flowing in the online market is seeing a less dramatic impact.  In fact, recent statistics indicate that while online gambling endeavors have slowed down a bit, it still managed to be up as much as fifteen percent each year.  Some concerned establishments believe that this may indicate that even online gamblers will begin to bend to the economic pinch, others are not so sure.

ThinkEquity Quest as well as PokerScout.com, in an effort to find predictive financial answers, surveyed online poker players to determine precisely how they spend their gambling money.  The findings of the study were pleasantly surprising.  [Read][more][...]

Is poker a game of skill? A South Carolina judge thinks so

A South Carolina judge by the name of J. L. Duffy stated it so in the middle of the trail of five men arrested for running a weekly game of Holdem.  He was very clear in his surprise statement that Texas Holdem was obviously a game of great skill and he had no doubt about it.  The defendant's attorney was very surprised by the comment and also said that it sounded very good for his clients.

This group of poker players pulled out all of the stops by binging in a real poker player as an expert witness.  Any one that watches the WPT on TV would recognize their expert witness as Mike Sexton who is seen every week commenting on the play during the Weekly WPT tournament.  You may have also seen him playing very well in some live tournaments this last year.

Since this trial is still going on, the verdict is not known yet and both parties state that no matter who wins there will be an appeal to a higher court.  The violation of the law is in dispute as gambling or betting on a chance outcome is illegal.  A game of skill would seem to go in the face of this law, but it is up to the judge how this case will be settled.   Other states, California for example, have used this logic to make poker rooms and the game itself legal using the game of skill logic. [Read][more][...]

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