99 Poker Tips

Tip #6 – How to spot a bluff

If you want to win big in poker, you must know how to analyze your opponents correctly. Knowledge of how to bluff is very important, but the knowledge about how to spot a bluff is even more important.

When you are playing a no limit poker and you do not know how to spot a bluff, then you might be a victim of other opponents to bluff on you. Even worse, if players know they can bluff you out of the pot, they will do it more often. This article includes a few things that will help you know if your opponent is bluffing you out of the pot.

First, remember that if your opponent is showing that he is weak, that means he is probably holding strong cards. If there is any hint of a bet that is put out there with the intentions of getting a call, you should fold your cards unless you have a potential straight or flush draw. In those cases, calling the small bets is worth the risk of getting over on the other player.

If he is showing that he is have a strong hand that means he could be pretending because he doesn’t think you have a great hand. You have to know the correct places to call. People will test and probe you for weakness and you don’t want these other players to be able to classify your style of poker playing. If you can afford it, you should call with a moderate hand in non-vital situations just to let everyone else know that you can’t be pushed around.

This is just a simple human nature. For example, if you have a weak hand and trying to bluff and don’t want your opponent to call, obviously you will act as if you are holding a strong hand and make a large bet so the opponents fold their cards and you win. Don’t do this too often though. You don’t want to become predictable. It’s easy to tell when a predictable player has a winning hand. They will bet the same amount (usually 3x the big blind or 1x the pot early in a hand) in because they want the chips in the pot and want it uncontested.

Some experienced players that are actually holding a strong hand will do things to pretend like they are bluffing in order to misguide you into calling. Not everyone will do this though, and you just have to find out which players will as your playing. In cases that you are playing against this type of player, you have to analyze the whole hand including every check and bet before you make a conclusion that he is lying or not.

If you aren’t sure, the safe bet is to fold. Like I said before, as long as you show the opponent that can’t be pushed around, folding any particular hand you are uncomfortable with is always a great play in the long run.

The critical point of bluffing is that most of the expert players can spot it almost unconsciously. What makes a player an “expert” is the shear amount of hands that they have played. If you’ve played more than 100,000 hands of Texas Hold’em, you’re going to have seen just about every situation imaginable. This doesn’t make you infallible, but it gives you a significant advantage over players who don’t pay attention or who are not very experienced.

Next, be conscious when your opponent stares at you. That means he is trying to read your expression and guessing that what type of cards are you holding. Players do this generally when they are not completely confident of their hand and they want to get a clue from your reaction whether to raise or fold.

Then the situation to be considered is when your opponent sits up erect, leans forward and gets a tone of arrogance in his voice. This reaction is generally when a player feels that he is next to be called, he will certainly show as if he is very strong contender by speaking aggressively and leaning forward so that other opponents may fold their cards. When the opponent throws a large bet into the pot very aggressively that means he is scared and doesn’t want you to complete a hand on him.

The players who talks too much while playing are easy to spot bluff, as such players when get any strong hand stop talking immediately. By this, you can understand that he got a strong hand and be careful. Notice the bets of the opponents very keenly, and see if the present bet matches his previous bets or not. A large bet is often a bluff, as the player want to buy the pot.

A great tell that these players will give when they are strong is playing with there chips prematurely, or before it is there turn. Things like counting how much they have will likely mean they are going to bet and are trying to decide how much to bet. They don’t even have to be physically touching the chips to recognize this if you are paying attention.

In addition, you must every time look for bodily tells the best way is to look your opponent’s eye and try to feel their fear. If they sound or look nervous, it could be a sign of bluffing. In brief if a player does any thing that he don’t do usually like talks much or be quite or leans forward or any such physical reactions show that he is scared and is bluffing in either way.

One last point I need to make. No one ever checks their cards after the flop with a good hand unless they are drunk. Most likely they can’t remember what both of their cards were and their top card didn’t hit. If the person is perfectly wasted, bet cautiously and get him to expose the strength of his hand. If not, raise big and get Mr. Double Check out of the hand.

Keeping all the above points in mind you can save you from being bluffed.

Looking for great places to play poker online? Check out pokernewsvine.com for the latest poker news, including tournaments and new poker bonuses.

As with all casino games, understanding the rules is not enough in order to play well. A strategy is needed if a player really wants to win big. Much of the strategy for three card poker relies on common sense and some relies on an understanding of the odds. We know a lot of people who are playing 3 Card Poker at UB or other online poker and casino rooms want to learn some strategy so we have listed basic strategies below. If you don’t have a UB account use the referral code CASH110 for a special bonus!

1.Basics
One of the most basic pieces of strategy is to make sure that you play consistently. All of your bets must be of the same size to ensure that your bankroll is able to manage through the dry periods and the bad beats. The second is to make sure that where you do decide to raise your bets that you do so incrementally rather than simply go all in on a hunch. This is not regular poker, you are only playing against the casino here and there is no bluffing in three card poker. Either you have a hand worth playing or you don’t.

2.Bonuses and Freebies
When playing online remember that the casino bonuses are essential. Only play on sites that provide you with good bonuses and free bets. Make sure of the security of your financial details and all round reputation of the site that you are playing on. If you are playing in a casino refrain from any of the free alcohol that is being served as it will only impair your judgement and is likely to make you play a good deal more erratically than you otherwise might.

3.Placing Limits
Since the house needs a queen to qualify for a hand you should also be placing limits on what you require in order to play. Don’t be afraid to throw away that ante, in fact be ready to as you will only hit a pair twenty five percent of the time. Since the house requires a queen to qualify then this should be your benchmark also. Don’t play with the mindset of attempting to double your ante by calling every hand in the hope that the dealer won’t qualify. A queen or higher is not a high qualifying hand. Playing a hand lower than this and you are asking for trouble. By playing only higher hands you are maximising your chances for success.

4.Using the Pairplus
The pairplus side of three card poker adds a different strategic mindset into the game and requires strong self discipline in order to play the percentages. One strategy is to lay a pairplus bet for every hand after you sit down at the table. Keep placing the bet until you hit a pair or higher. Once you have hit that first pair or higher reduce your bets to one every four hands since you have only a twenty five percent chance of hitting that magic hand.

Once you are armed with knowledge of the rules and strategy of three card poker, you are ready to play the game. Remember always that above all, you are out there to have fun. Enjoy your game!

All new at the Littlewoods Gaming network is a brand new poker site called GameOn Poker.

Littlewoods Gaming was established in 1923 and has been a trusted and well known name in the UK for a long time. Rest assured that Game On Poker will also get the most experienced and reputable poker experiences on the net.

Currently, GameOn has a 100% welcome bonus worth up to £200 for new players on their first deposit. Unlike many other poker sites that makes you earn all of your bonus money before you receive it, GameOn has decided that they will give you 25% of your total bonus upfront to play with. The other 75% is to be earned in a fashion similar to how you would at most other poker sites. You must accumulate bonus points to receive the rest of your bonus. 15 bonus points will earn you £1.

Also, there are satellites that are currently running now at GameOn Poker and you can win a chance to play in this year’s Irish Open, which takes place between April 2nd – 5th in Dublin, Ireland. These satellites are played every Sunday at 20:05 GMT until March 21.

The Irish Open package includes the $5,240 tournament buy-in, $1,260 for travel, $800 for 7 nights accommodation, $500 spending money and $200 towards exclusive events.

GameOn Poker’s game selection

One of the great things about GameOn Poker’s site is that there is a How to Play section that explains anything you want to know about the games that they offer, how the tournaments work, how to play multiple hands at the same time, how the jackpots work, etc.

They have single table, multi table and tournament games to choose for the following poker games: Texas Hold’em, seven card stud, seven card stud hi/lo, omaha hi, omaha hi/lo. Each game can be played either with no limit or pot limit on betting.

GameOn Poker also has Double or Nothing tournaments where half of the people who enter double up and the other half get nothing! With so many interesting ways to play, why not give GameOn Poker a try?

This is a unique online poker tournament unlike any you’ve probably seen before. At Doyle’s Room, they are hosting a special bounty tournament in which you can receive $500 for beating any one of the three “Brunson 10″ poker pros that will be playing in this tournament. The three poker pros are Amit “Amak316″ Makhija, Chris “MoormanI” Moorman and Zach “CrazyZach” Clark.

In addition to the bounty out on each of the pros, every player participating in this tournament will have a bounty of $10 on their head. That means every player you knock out is another $10 for you.

Tournament Information

This tournament cost a total of $22 to enter. $10 goes to the prize pool. The second $10 is for your bounty chip.

The “Beat the Brunson 10″ poker tournament starts tonight, February 1 at 9 PM Eastern. In order to play in this tournament, you must have a DoylesRoom account. If you do not have one, you can click on the banner below to sign up.

Doyle’s Room Bio

Doyle’s Room is an online poker room that is endorsed by the one and only 10-Time WSOP legend Doyle Brunson, the most trusted name in poker. If you sign up at DoylesRoom, you can receive a 110% signup bonus worth up to $550 free on your first deposit. For existing customers, you can also take advantage of a 25% reload bonus.

Couple things to note for Doyle’s Rooms bonus:
1) Initial deposit of $30 minimum to be eligible to receive this bonus
2) You have to play a lot to be able to receive the whole amount of this bonus

The way the bonus works is that you get 1 Frequent Player Point (FPP) for every $1 Rake you contribute and 7 FPPs for every $1 tournament fee. You will receive bonus money in $10 increments for each 167 FPP you earn. If you played only tournaments with a $2 fee, like the one tonight, then it would take you approximately 12 tournaments per every $10 earned.

Any time is a good time to play poker at Doyle’s Room. There are hundreds of table games and tournaments with up to a million dollars guaranteed each week.

You can play any of the following poker games at Doyle’s Room:

• Texas Hold’em (Fixed Limit, Pot Limit, No Limit)
• Omaha High (Fixed Limit, Pot Limit, No Limit)
• Omaha Hi-Lo (Fixed Limit, Pot Limit, No Limit)
• 7 Card Stud (Fixed Limit, Pot Limit, No Limit)
• 5 Card Stud (Fixed Limit, Pot Limit, No Limit)

Doyle’s room is open to US players except for the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington State, and Wisconsin.

Tip #5 – Classify your opponents

Most poker players are creatures of habit. After playing 4 or 5 rounds or 50+ hands, most players can be classified a certain type. The most notable types of players are the rock, the calling station, the fish, and the more and more popular “weak-tight” player.

The rock is the easiest of all to identify. They play tight poker, only playing premium hands. They are very conservative. They raise when they have top pair top kicker, or over pairs.  Rocks have a hard time folding their big hands, and will usually call down queens and kings with an ace on the board.  Because of this it is hard to bluff a rock post flop.

You want to identify the rocks so you know

• who you can steal blinds from
• who you can get paid off from when you hit a flop big
• who 99% of the time will not bluff

The popularity of poker has led to many people trying to improve their game.  One of the first big things that people learn is to play less hands, or play tight.  This has led to an influx of rocks and his closely related style, the “weak tight” player.

Weak tight players are a lot like rocks.  Rocks will bet their good hands though.  Weak tight players are less aggressive.  They will not bet middle pair when it is pretty obvious that it is good.  Weak tight players will not make many moves if any.  An aggressive player can steam roll a weak tight player all game.  It is pretty easy to know where you stand in the hand against a weak tight player.

You want to identify the weak tight players so you know

• who you can steal blinds from
• who you can get to fold post flop
• who 99% of the time will not bluff you

Fish are the life blood of the poker world.  They feed the entire poker ecosystem.  Fish are generally people who do not understand many of the fundamentals of Hold Em poker, call with any two cards preflop, call without proper odds, will draw to losing hands (inside straight draw with 3 to a flush on the flop), will draw dead, and will call to the river on most hands.

You want to identify the fish so you know

• who you can value bet
• who will try to chase draws without the proper odds
• who you can double up through
• who will pay off your big hand

Value betting is the opposite of slow playing.  Value betting is betting when you are pretty sure you have the best hand.  Playing a fish, 2nd pair, bottom pair, top pair bad kicker are often the winning hand and should be value bet.  Against a rock, the same hand could very well be a fold.

The calling station tag is for the players that never fold after hitting the flop, even if it is bottom pair, or 4th pair with three over cards on the board.  They never raise with bottom pair, but will call it all day if the price is right.  Many rocks, weak-tight players, and fish share this attribute.

Some fish are aggressive and will raise when they have crap because they saw Gus Hansen do it on TV.  Some will fall right into this calling station category and will not raise with anything, even the nuts.

You want to identify the calling stations so you know

• who you should not bluff
• who you can value bet
• who will help build a pot
• who you should not slow play
• who will pay off your big hand

When I first started playing online poker tournaments, it was routine to see tables full of fish and calling stations.  As more and more people learned to be tight, most single table tournaments have 1 fish and 7 rocks.

Yes, it’s quite simple realizing the importance of the role that is being played by the video poker in the 21st century world of gambling. This is not at all a surprise to a person who’s been paying even slightest of attention for the past few years or so. Getting into deep into this issue, however, an individual might feel tempted to make enquiry of just what it is all about the charisma of video poker which makes this very game so alluring to the millions of world wide.

One of the common features that the web sites providing top video poker uses in order to attract the newbie is to arrange and sponsor tournaments, termed as “satellites” where the winners get to enter into the real-life poker championships. This is in fact a lot more than just a gimmick to pull traffic. As a matter of fact, satellites are predominantly responsible for acquainting few of the world’s most acclaimed and loved players to the world of television.

It’s not a surprise that a number of differences prevail between the video poker and the standard style of playing it. A good number of players really thrive on such distinctions. The deficiency of the ability to read the opponent’s tells is quite the central thing here. Video poker fanatics generally learn with time to recognize the particular set of “invisible” tells, like as the betting patterns and most importantly the available reaction time. With constant practice, the skilled players can even read the virtual table with great bit of clarity as while facing an opponent individually.

In video poker, the play goes on at a lot faster rate. Online players seldom get time to even congratulate themselves on winning a strategy that functioned so well just 30seconds earlier before a complete new hand is handled by the computer automatically.

Then if you are a newbie to the video poker, then ensure that you always play on the lowest denomination machine unless and until a rise is observed in the level of your expertise. Refrain from the temptation of taking the big fat bets on, at least unless and until you turn in to an expert of the game.

Be patient and take your time with a view to study all the hands. It might sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be astonished hearing the number of video poker players who are sinking deep just because of being careless of the action of their hands. So, whenever required take as much of time as you require.

Finally, before landing in to a video poker site try to make an extensive research on their online poker site. Try to accumulate as much of information as possible about the video poker from the site and then decide the casino of your choice.

Tip #4 – Simple Steps to Improve Your Poker Game

Ok, its a little bit of a more general post this week. Here are some of the simple steps you can take to improve your poker game.

Everybody loves to play poker. Why not, since it can bring a lot of money and bragging rights when you win your home poker game. Being even a little bit casual and not focused on the game and you will find yourself losing your money. So you need to keep some simple things in your mind while you are risking your hard earned money in this game.

These are more guidelines to follow while you are playing and are some of the more basic tips for those who are just starting to play in tournaments and against their buddies. Some simple steps are listed below.

No need of playing every hand

Beginners always play too many hands and this causes them to lose early. Here’s a couple of pointers. The number of people at your table should dictate how much you play. If there are 9 or 10 people playing, then the most you will want to get involved is about 1 out of every 4 to 5 hands.

Once there is 6 or fewer, you have to change up and start playing more. If you don’t, then people will fold when you bet and take your blinds away from you. When you get down to the point where people are concerned about holding on to win some money, that’s when you start to bluff and take advantage of the other players weakness.

What hands should you fold? At a table with 9 or 10 players, depending on how many people are in or have yet to act, you may want to fold anything worse than a King-9 suited, Queen-jack or a pair of 8′s.

Drinking Deteriorates Thinking

I’m kind of proud of myself for that rhyme. Drinking too much alcohol may be fun and your more unpredictable. But you will predictably lose most of the time. Your judgment goes to crap when your Irish eyes are smiling.

Plus, you negate any advantages that you can take away from others like who is full of BS and who is likely to fold.

Don’t bluff too much

This especially holds true on the internet. People just love to call, even if they only have a small pair. Bluffing is an art which needs to be learned. You should never bluff too much, or otherwise people will be expecting it and will try to use that to take you out of the game.

Also, you have to know who your bluffing against. Is it the person who hangs on to their chips and won’t commit? Then that person is very easy to bluff against to win. Did that person just raise you? Time to pack your bags or fold your hand.

Never be in a hand because you are already in it

I know your the big blind and it’s tempting to play that 6-2 off suit. But if someone raises you, don’t call. Best case scenario is that you fold after the flop and feel stupid. The worse case scenario is that you actually make something on your hand, then promptly lose your money to a better hand.

This also includes calling all the time to try to make your straight or flush. It seems like if your one card away from the flush after the flop, you should have a 1 in 2 chance of making the flush. You don’t, its more around the lines of 1 in 4 because of the cards in your hand and on the board.

Don’t check to see what your cards are until it is your turn to bet

This is a great tool to use, it prevents people from picking up tells about your hand. People will see what you do when you fold and what you will do when you have a great hand. Don’t give them more information than you need to.

Never play with money that you can’t afford to lose

This is the most important of all. Winning in poker is far from guaranteed. You should always play within your limits so that you can take care of your business.