The History of PokerStars.com

The story behind the world-famous PokerStars is indeed a true rags to riches story, and the family that owns and operates the said online poker room never thought that the simple beginnings of their site will become a huge success that it is now considered as one of the biggest and most popular online poker room not only in the World Wide Web but in the whole world as well.

The Proud Owner

The proud owner of the most famous online poker site is the Schienberg family from Toronto, Canada.

It was ten years ago that  the father, not knowing that much of the online gambling industry, decided to build a company by creating and designing his own website that caters to online players.  [Read][more...]

Strategize and Learn How to Adapt to the Different Poker Games

In these hard times, you need to learn how to adapt and formulate strategies in order to recoup some of your losses.  The same can be true in your poker game.  Nowadays, you no longer need to depend on what you know and what works for you, but you have to really get in there and learn more strategies.

Since there is a big difference, too, when you play online poker from live poker, it will do you very well to learn strategies from both.  This way, you get to make the right decisions when you play, be it online or live.

Understand the Flops

While it will do your online poker game good if you habitually build big pots when you play against multiple players, this is actually a big mistake if you play in live poker.  By this strategy, you allow yourself to miss the flop and open the game for other players to hit.  What you should do then in live poker is to increase your raise, especially if you have a good hand, and increase your calls if you have a tentative hand.  [Read][more...]

Winter Weather and Live Poker

With spring just around the corner, live poker rooms and casinos are waiting for the players that have been holed up at home to come out and play.  The players have had a belly full of the bad weather and being stuck playing in front of a computer are getting restless and ready to play in a live game.  The difference in a live game and one on a poker screen are like honey is to vinegar.  There is no comparison for players that like the feel of a real table and reading players that is part of poker in a live game.  The winter months have kept them stuck playing in the virtual world where there is no sound or smell or anything remotely like the game over a felt table.

Each year as the snow melts these computer poker players come out to see if the real game of poker still exists in a real poker room or a real casino.  As they soon learn, the real game is alive and well.  The poker room managers have been waiting for winter to unleash their missing players that were captives of the computer world.  [Read][more...]

Holdem tournaments vs Ring Holdem

What is the major difference between a ring or cash game and a tournament in the game of Holdem?  The games are technically played the same and the card values are the same, so what is different in the games.  The one difference is the player can rebuy as long as they want and never be forced out of the game even if all the chips in the present stack are lost.  When the stack is lost in a tournament, the player is knocked out of the game permanently.  The fear of being knocked out of the game can be a determining factor on whether a player will call or raise or not.

Online you see a great many all in bets as the game is played with a great deal of pressure.  In live tournaments the online players play the same and the old timers took a while to get use to the pressure these young online players brought to the game.  They still do not fold if they think they have the winner, no matter what is bet.  However the fear of getting knocked from the tournament is an ally in the betting sequence.  [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...]

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...]