The Poker Mag

There are many poker strategies circling the net as well as in numerous published book. Although some strategies work when you’re having a lucky run, some methods prove to be a waste of times where others do not.

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Fans that play Texas Hold Em will come across many “so-called” winning methods and ways of grabbing the win 90% of the time, and there are some indeed that keep you in the game longer than usual. One is quite a popular method that some Texas Hold Em players swear by, but like all poker methods, concentration and good judge of character is involved.

You may have heard of the term “floater” in the poker world and there are many players that say they come out on top of many poker games by “playing the floater”. Basic maths and good judging skills come into playing the game as a floater, but a lot of it is certainly common sense. So, you’re in a late position. The big blind player bets, the following poker player throws his cards down and folds and now all eyes are on you. The floater would see that the big blind didn’t bet confidently and guesses he probably has a single card with a couple of different suited cards. The floater would also guess that the big blind placed a continuation bet and he had missed the flop. The floater would then call his bet and continue to bet around three quarters of the pot until winning the round, judging the person can vaguely guess the big blind’s cards after viewing his own hands and folded poker hands.

Being a floater is exceptionally touch and go, but the theory is that it doesn’t matter what your cards are as being a floater simply means bluffing your way through the entire game – granted you don’t have an utterly hopeless hand.

Whether you are on the receiving end of aggressive poker plays, or hoping to implement them yourself, you should try to develop a good idea of the reactions you will face, or present to your aggressive opponent.

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The easy answer to defending against aggressive poker plays is to sit tight and wait for a big hand to trap them with. This can work perfectly in many cases, but the flaw with this plan is that blinds and the possibility of no strong hand presenting itself, mean that you don’t always get the chance.If you are short handed with high blinds or are simply too short to wait for a premium poker hand, you have to either carefully pick the best spot you can find with the cards you are dealt, or come out reraising when you sense weakness.

Playing an aggressive poker player at their own game and making an aggressive reraise is by nature, a risky thing to do if you aren’t picking up good cards. You might have to raise with weak poker hands, but usually you only have to succeed once or twice. The key point is that if an aggressive poker player thinks you will start reraising and fighting them for pots, they will start looking for easier targets. As the aggressor at the poker table you will usually find you are faced with the aforementioned trapping poker plays and smooth calls when someone picks up a strong hand. If you know players at the table are aware you are bluffing fairly frequently, be prepared to back off when you get called.

In the process of being faced with such trapping poker tactics, you should be aware that you can often manage to be given free cards when you are drawing to big hands fom position. Players might check to you, waiting for the inevitable raise, only to find you check behind. Suddenly your bottom pair turns into trips or you hit that gutshot Straight, where usually you wouldn’t have been given the chance because poker players wouldn’t be waiting to play back at an anticipated raise.

Making the decision to get involved in a poker pot can be swayed by several factors, with your poker hand strength, position, and tendancies of the poker players in the blinds, all playing their part.

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Another point which can sway your decision is whether you have poker chips already invested in a pot. Often in the case where you have chips invested, you will be more inclined to flat call from the small blind, or call a small raise from the big blind with a marginal poker hand. This can work out perfectly if you catch the flop well of course, but then poker isn’t kind enough for that to happen every other hand.

If you find yourself calling with a weaker poker hand in this situation, you will very often be playing the hand out of position. Being out of position often leaves you in a situation of either having to show your weakness when you miss a flop by checking, or alternatively, bet out with a half hit poker hand, or no hand at all.

That temptation to bluff is always there when you make the decision to not give up that marginal poker hand preflop, and you can be left being faced with either a reraise, or a flat call. The flat call can often be the worst of these options in fact, because the pressure is immediately back on to you to act first on a turn card that will very often have not improved your poker hand.

The best way to avoid these problems are to be very particular about how you play on the flop, not getting aggressive with second pairs, draws, or other marginal poker hands. You always have the option to get creative with a check raise if your opponent chooses to bet, as often they will be betting solely on the merit of the weakness shown by your check.

Casino poker has long been the place where enthusiasts of the game have spent much of their time. Before online poker arrived, casinos would always provide the one place where you were certain to find a game at any time. Whilst it is true that the casinos have to make their money too, the cost incurred from playing in a casino is usually minimal.

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Online poker rooms have a small charge for fees spent too, and so online poker does not really offer anything extra in this regard. What online poker certainly does give you that casinos do not, is ease of playing, and the comfort of playing from your own home. This aspect of online play has made the game far more accessible to potential players, and has been partly responsible for the big increase in pokers popularity in recent years.

Another plus point for online poker play, is the fact that it gives the option of playing numerous tables at once. This means that players who feel they have an edge in a particular area, can expand the profits they gain from that edge by playing more hands in a given time frame.

Casino poker has always provided a much more social side of the game though, bringing in physical tells to the equation too. Besides anything else, playing poker face to face with opponents takes a lot more nerve, and is traditionally where the roots of the game lie. On a grander scale, the WSOP bracelet events are all live games, as are all the WPT games. So whilst you can earn your living playing online poker, you could never be considered one of the greats of poker unless you take to the live tables.

As the past ten years have gone by, online poker has been changing at an alarming rate. The key reasons behind this are fairly obvious, as there have been many poker rooms opening for business online. Where you find a market such as this with many poker rooms offering a place to spend your money, you will quickly see them begin competing to attract more players. This takes place in the form of ingenious promotions, bonuses and tournament types.

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STT’s, Cash Games, and MTT’s, have all been around for a long time, but the different twists and variants of these are a relatively new invention. Jackpot Sit and go’s for instance, are an interesting way to both spur players on to keep playing more tournaments, whilst making more money and offering a big prize too.

Cash games have not really evolved in the way they function, but there are always prmotions linked to cash games that you find online. The bonus for cracked aces or winning a pot with 2,7 in a ring game appear sometimes, and offer players an extra incentive at the poker tables.

Most of the development within online poker tournaments though, is in the shape of MTT’s. There are now a multitude of rebuys, freerolls, guaranteeds, with bounty payout possibilities for some. Added to these are ongoing leaderboards to reward those that are consistently successful.

Satellites to major land based events provide a potential stepping stone to poker glory too, and these can be found on almost any poker room you care to name. Online poker is evolving fast, and it will be interesting to see the new variants of tournaments and promotions that come to the fore over the next few years.

Poker – In recent times, there has been a growing series of tournament types which offer something a little different to players.

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One such tournament that has emerged in recent times, is the bounty tournament. You can find this type of tournament at many online poker rooms, and it entails bonus payments being made for the elimination of players.

This can be done by either awarding a percentage of the prize pool for each player eliminated, or it can award a partial payment, with the remainder of a single buy in amount being put onto the bounty of the player who eliminated them. This means players left at the end of a tournament will have bigger prices on their heads. Sometimes you will find prizes are paid for positional placements also.

Other new online tournaments include the double or nothing games. These involve half of the field of players in an STT format being paid double their entrance fee, with the othe half that are eliminated obviously winning nothing. These new online tournament types give players a chance to experiment with different types of play and find the games that are best suited to them. Other new tournaments online include large scale series of poker tournaments akin to the WSOP, only on a smaller online scale. This gives those who play solely online poker, or are strong at that format, a chance for recognition and life changing wins within the confines of online play.

Durrrr versus Antonius Latest atrik Antonius is the first Full Tilt Pro to have taken on Tom Dwan in his challenge which he has opened to the poker world. The action kicked off several months ago, and has been running intermittently since.

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During the first 12,000 hands or so, the lead moved back and forwards between the players, with no clear leader emerging. With so much money on the line, it is perhaps not surprising if the poker players were playing a little on the cautious side, but after 12,000 hands, a trend began to emerge. Patrik Antonius moved to between $500k and $600k ahead. These may sound like huge sums of money, but in the bigger scheme of things, this was a defecit that durrrr certainly had time to overturn.

And so it proved, after about 14,500 hands, the tables turned, as Durrrr began clawing the hundreds of thousands of dollars back, reaching the evens mark a little after 16,000 hands.Twere a few blips afterwards but generally, durrrr has pulled out a strong lead since then, reaching around 1.3 million profit at one point. The last poker session to have taken place was a fairly long one, with over 3,000 hands played. Currently, durrrr sits on a lead of over $700k, but with the challenge having not reached halfway yet, Antonius still has time to turn it around.

Online poker has developed and changed the face of poker in some ways, although some formats remain the same with online play as they do with live play. The standard cash game, single table tournament, and multi table tournaments are present in both cases, although playing at a computer can afford you interesting opportunities.

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Most online players will have heard of, or indeed tried out multi tabling, and it has become the standard way for poker pros online to ensure their edge in skill translates into profits. You can open one STT, play it, and get unlucky to not cash, but we know that luck evens out over time…or tables.

If you are playing ten tables at once and are one of the most talented players on each of those tables, theoretically, as luck evens out, you should emerge in profit overall. This was demonstrated earlier this year by Bertrand Grospellier who broke the world record for the number of Sit and Go tournaments opened, played, and completed in one hour. This seems easy on the face of it, but when you consider that to break the record you have to finish in profit, the challenge gets a little trickier.

Grospellier managed 62 tables within that hour, finishing in slight profit for the session, which considering how stretched your attention would be across so many tables, is a remarkable achievement. This record was made by Grospellier as he sat in front of four monitors, being cheered on by fellow professional poker players during a break in his EPT schedule in May. Guinness World Records are verifying the record, which shows an extraordinary amount of concentration and poker talent.

Throughout July, Bodog.com have been running their own mini poker series for their players online. There is a tournament leaderboard working in conjuction with this promotion, which offers a seat in the final tournament of the July mini poker series at Bodog.com. Victory in this tournament will win you a seat in the WSOP main event next year.

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The mini series consists of several poker tournaments played over a few weeks, with the top 30% of finishers in each event being given points for the leaderboard. The best players are invited to take place in the semi final, and those that go far enough in this event, will come back for the final.

It is not just a straight battle for the WSOP main event seat at Bodog.com however, as there are other prizes that do not quite manage to win the prize package to the main event. 2nd and 3rd places pick up prize packages to the Bodog.com poker open taking place later in the year. 4th and 5th places will be given seats to the semi final of Bodog.com’s ‘Flight Club’ promotion. 6th place down to 9th receive $162 for their efforts too, and so you have a good chance of winning a prize if you make it to the final.

If you manage to win the WSOP main event package, you will be sponsored by Bodog.com, and the prize package total value totals $12,000. This represents a great opportunity to go to the biggest event of the year with Bodog.com.

The Bellagio Cup V Event is a prestigious event on the WPT circuit, and has attracted some big names who are fresh from the chaos of the WSOP in Las Vegas. Just last night the winner was finally decided for the 2009 Bellagio Cup V Event, after an exciting tournament featuring some great players.

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26 year old Brazilian Alexandre Gomes lifted the title after his duel with Faraz Jaka head up. Gomes had actually been one of the shorter stacks during the tournament as they went into the final table action, and did very well to fight back and win. His final hand was with (A,J) against Jakas (A,7), and netted him almost $1.2 million poker prize money.

Other notable players at the final table included Justin ‘BoostedJ’ Smith who is an accomplished online poker player, and also Erik Seidel, who has a wealth of experience and WSOP bracelets to his name. Seidel finished 6th place, and little known player Christoffer Sonesson finished a very commendable 5th. Pro player Alec Torelli was the next to fall in 4th place, after his (A,Q) lost it’s race against the (10,10) of a rapidly advancing Alexandre Gomes.

Justin Smith managed 3rd place, but it was Gomes who made it heads up and defeated a foe who had spent much of the time on the final table as chip leader. After this exciting final table, many will be looking forward to the next event scheduled on the WPT, but then there will be others who are simply glad of a rest after the hectic past 6 weeks.