How To Avoid Poker Trash Talk

• Author: Billy Kernow
• Filed under: Poker
• Date: Feb 21,2010

Certain poker players would rather complain about a pot they lose. They actually think that complaining will make them feel better about what just happened.. Complaining is simply bad karma. Since it cannot help your strategy to engage in complaining, then you have to start asking yourself why you are doing it.

You can recognize players who complain frequently by their poor long term results. Mentally and financially. If you desire to become a money-making poker player online, this is one of those practices you need to do away with immediately. Now I am not talking about being angry at yourself. I am talking about going to chat in your online poker table to scold or abuse your opponents\’ decisions.

There\’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there are many different styles of poker. Bear that in mind, since what you consider a bad play could very well be a legitimate tactic which has positive EV over many hands. Even is it truely is a bad play, what possible benefit could be had by telling your opponent? At the very least you\’ve made an enemy and made yourself look bad at the table, but worse than that you\’re pointing out your opponent\’s weaknesses, and he might just listen to you and improve – that\’s one less fish you can earn from!

Complaining might also aggrivate other players who will join in and before you know it you have an argumentative game. You could end up with several players \”ganging up\” on you and that is likely to put you off your A game, and even if it doesn\’t affect you it certainly can\’t help.

There\’s a simple way to do away with complaining to other opponents and that is plainly to not yak and keep your disparagement to yourself. Once you are able hold your tongue, you will find very little yearning to do it to yourself and eventually develop a winning attitude whereby your only desire for contact with your dumb-luck antagonists will be, \”Nice hand\”.

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Poker Skills – When To Raise From Early Position

• Author: Bill Kernow
• Filed under: Poker
• Date: Feb 19,2010

Playing hands from early position in poker is a good way to mix up your play, and that in turn helps construct an volatile image for yourself. Keep in mind though, that when playing lower limits especially, this can become pricey due to the myriad of players and hands that will go behind.

We\’ll assume for a moment that you don\’t have a premium hand in early position, since you should probably be raising with that anyway. Rather, you might consider playing suited connectors, A-X suited or a small pair. That\’s quite a range of hands that could be playable from early position which really enlarges the range of hands you could be playing in your opponents mind. You need to be cautious though, because that also means opponents will play back at your often and you need the skills to play well post-flop.

That means your opponents will be reraising you with quality hands, or even their own bluffs and justifiably so. In addition, at a full table you have eight or nine opponents to act following you, and that\’s as many as 18 other cards that can blend for something better than yours. More often than not that will be the case and you will be creating many multi-player pots if they permit you to stay in. So why do poker players raise from early position then?

There is a reason skilled players do this, at least now and then, and its not just to mix up their play – that\’s a given. The real purpose is to hit a flop in such an innocent way, that other poker players will make pricey mistakes against you because they utterly misjudged your hand and over-dedicated chips or money to the hand. Usually it\’s a huge pot.

You see, even though the majority of early position hands will cost you money, the scheme is to keep all those losing hands in small pots, not big ones. The professionals comprehend that in any given session their winnings often come from just a a tiny number of of the hands played. But when you do hit, those few wins can be so significant they make up for all the other hands and more.

If you are going to play hands from early position use your reading and pot control skills until that one perfect hand comes up and you pick up a massive pot.

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Poker Strategies – Being The Aggressor

• Author: Billy Kernow
• Filed under: Poker
• Date: Feb 7,2010

Experienced, successful hold\’em players can tell you that poker is a game of betting, not calling. The amount of pressure that you can constantly direct onto your opponents can frequently be measured in parallel with your general success in poker.

When your opponent bets into you, they force you to be the one who has to make a decision – do you feel you have the better hand or not? If you\’re holding a margin hand then it\’s not easy to make that decision, which often means you\’re forced to fold. So it is almost always better to be the aggressor in a hand, unless of course you relaly have a very strong hand and you are trapping your opponent. The idea of being aggressive is to persuade your rival to guess incorrectly about what you\’re holding. Whether you want them to fold or call is dependent on the situation, but what you always want is for him to make a mistake. By constantly betting and applying pressure you encourage your opponents to make errors.

In the low limit games, you want to be very selective about the hands you play and the position you play them from. If you are discriminating enough, you can frequently get away with re-raising your opponent and winning a nice pot without ever revealing your cards, based on your strict image.

So called \”calling stations\” (players who constantly call) in poker are almost always losing players in the long run, and frequently give up their chips because of their curiosity and lack of skill. You never want to be a calling station in poker, but you do want to realise who they are so you can take money from them in the most valuable way possible. And that is simply value betting your decent hands in average increments, to keep them in the hand rather than pushing them off a hand too early.

The essential rule here is that you want to be the aggressor in the game, but you want to do it against the right opponents with the correct hands. If your Ace King hits nothing the flop, you should almost certainly still do a lead out bet to keep the pressure on, but after that, you ought to be using profiling information to decide what to do beyond that.

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Improving Your Poker

• Author: Thomas Kearns
• Filed under: Poker
• Date: Jan 29,2010

If you wish to improve your game, ditch the arrogance and ego involvement, and don\’t depend on the constant repetition of a few rules you learned to get you safely by. The basic step to improvement is to recognize the need for it. Introspection is at the core of every good player as much as technique, luck or insight into their opponents\’ minds. Perfectionism is not the answer. The answer lies in the ability to be self-critical and correctly and precisely define your strengths and weaknesses.

Other than arrogant amateurs and those that play by rote, there are some players of talent who find that the skills they have will do them just fine. They will not improve because they do not see the need for it. These players lack inspiration and place their hopes on a few brilliant moves and lady luck to capture a few wins.

Neglecting weaknesses and relying on a few strong points is perilous behavior for a poker player. Opponents aren\’t all nitwits and can zero in on the fact that you constantly make the same moves, although successfully, and can figure out a way to get around them. They will eventually surprise you with one large move against you. Such players have paid attention to more facets of the game and have improved their skills. They have confidence in the variety of moves they make.

There are no successful one-armed boxers. There are no successful poker players with just one or two moves. A good player is at work to constantly sharpen all his poker skills. At the same time he recognizes his weak points and works at overcoming them, no matter difficult that may be.

The first step to enlightenment is to understand that the game isn\’t worth playing if you don\’t play to win. Secondly, improvement is based on acquiring the discipline to form a habit of undertaking tasks you would rather not do. This is not a mechanical exercise, you must understand why it is you are doing it, otherwise you will give up. Following a routine without knowing why and relying on only one or two skills in the hope that the stuff you don\’t like will just go away, is not realistic and not playing an engaging game of poker.

A good golfer will have visions of where he wants the ball to go and the ideal way to put it there. A good poker player must do the same: envision himself as more than a competent player of the game, feel the rush of excitement that leads to triumphant results, and come to the decision that this is a good thing. If your imagination is too stifled to experience this feeling, you need to admit to yourself that you really don\’t get it and explore other opportunities that will successfully engage you. If this vision, however, stirs your passion, work on improving all your skills and the results will amaze you. As an added bonus, achieving the discipline it takes to consistently do things that do not appeal to you and you may even fear, is in itself rewarding.

The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Action Rakeback as well as Fat Bet Rakeback.

Rush Poker – Strategies For Full Tilt\’s New Poker Format

• Author: Billy Kernow
• Filed under: Poker
• Date: Jan 28,2010

There\’s a new form of poker online and it\’s causing a storm in the online world. Rush poker as it\’s known is a creation of Full Tilt poker and is designed from the ground up to make online poker more fun, with less waiting. and more action.

Rush poker can be Holdem or Omaha, and Stud will be coming soon. The game is played exactly as normal, on 6 or 9 seat tables, but with one huge difference. As soon as a player is no longer in contention to win a pot, they are instantly reseated and dealt a new hand at a new table. This means you can fold preflop, and rather than wait five minutes for the hand to play out, you get right back into the action straight away. This difference means that players don\’t get bored, and can play 3oo or more hand per hour!

Rush poker strategy requires aggressiveness. Since most players will be folding all the time, waiting for a hand like pocket kings, you can raise preflop and steal the blinds. While you won\’t get much chance to read your opponents, since the table keeps changing, the fact is that most players will be folding low hands so you see a flop of 3, 4, 6 and don\’t have to worry too much about someone making a straight. However, the same reasoning means that if you come in with pocket sevens and make trips, your opponents won\’t have a clue and you\’ll probably win a huge pot!

Since players know that a new hand is only seconds away they are more likely to fold marginal or drawing hands, so aggressive raising and reraising pre and post flop and be very effective. Raising pre-flop also prevents the big blind from seeing the flop for free.

Rush poker is not only great fun, but can be really profitable too. You\’ll refine yorru strategy over time, but these tactics outlined here should give you a great start. And the best thing about playing rush is, when you\’re playing 300 or more hands per hour you\’ll be learning and building up that experience fast!

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