Some sure ways to lose in texas hold'em

Some sure ways to lose in texas hold'em The following is some pitfalls that most players fall into when playing texas holdem. By reading these tips hopefully you can save some money by not doing the same. Poor hand selection: Playing too many cards, often at the wrong time, is the biggest flaw in the losing hold'em players game. The opposite of this is being able to play good cards and weaker hands when the game, position, and pot dictates. You may not think that playing looser changes that much but it gets you into a whole host of problems that you could avoid if you played a little tighter. This especially applies against a raise that you think means the person has a quality hand. If you bring KJ and KQ against AK and KK all the time you're in for a lot of losing. Imagine if you play 89 off suit everytime you get it how quick you'll be calling for the chip runner to bring you another rack. It is hilarous because everytime you'll play there will be people who even play hands like J2 off suit! Don't be one of them, unless you want one of the other readers here to take your money home. Gutshots: A gutshot is a straight draw where only one card makes your hand. For example if you have JT and the flop is AK. If a Q hits then you will have the nut straight. People routinely draw to the river for this. You are only 1/11 to hit it on the turn and 1:5.8 to hit it by the river. To make it a profitiable play to draw to, you need to make sure that whatever you have to bet to get to the river will be better then 1:6. Sometimes that is the case, but most of the time it isn't. In low limit games you can sometimes draw for one card to the gutshot if the pot is very large and it will be the nuts but doing it consistently is another sure fire way to lose more then you have to. To keep you away from rigid rules, I'll throw in another exception. Let's say you have AK and the flop is QT4. Now you have a gutshot and two over cards. That means you have 10 outs instead of 4. If an A, K, or J comes you have a pretty strong hand. Extra outs change your hand. Backdoor Flushes: Even worse then the gutshot is the backdoor flush. This is when you need two perfect cards of the same suit to complete your hand. An example would be if you have JdTd and the flop is Qd6h5h. Notice that you'll need to diamonds in a row to win and this is worse then 1/20 to hit. To draw to that you'll have to have extra outs. Small Pairs: Having a hand like 55 in a loose game is great because if you hit on the flop you'll have a very strong hand. What if you don't hit? Is it worth trying to catch that other 5? On the flop it is about 1/8 to hit the 5 but after the flop to draw to it the odds are 1/23 on the turn and if you want to go all the way to the river it is worse then 1/10. So unless it is a pair that could hold up without improvement, drawing to it isn't a great idea. General Chasing: Most players you will run into will go to the river trying to catch their Ace and most of the time not hit it. They will also call with the lowest pair hoping to catch another one or two pair. All of these plays can be correct if the odds justify it but usually they don't. What you'll find most of the time is a calling station type player that draws to just about anything (gutshots, an A, small pairs hitting sets, backdoor flushes, etc). Avoid this like the plauge. Reraising Weak Hands: At low limit hold'em, unless you against a maniac, a raise usually means something. When you reraise your hand has to be even stronger then the initial raise because what you are saying is that you know he has a good hand, but yours is even better. To put in that third bet you should definitely have a very good hand (nuts or close to it). It's rare in low limit that a player will reraise you without a great hand either. For example you wouldn't want to cap it with someone if you have a flush and it isn't the nuts. If you raise and they reraise, just call. Or if you raise with a non nut hand and they three bet you should take a harder look at your hand add see if it is worth calling and paying off.

PokerFaces.Net community launches unique web communications services for online poker players.

A new online poker player search service has recently been launched at PokerFaces.net . It is a cross poker room player community which will allow players to find other people to play against around the world. (PRWEB) September 22, 2004 -- A new type of website is being launched at PokerFaces.net this month. It is the first of a kind of new sites whose aim is to bring the faceless monster of online poker, into the real world. PokerFaces.net is achieving this by providing a complete tool set which enables poker players to communicate with each other via email and messenger service. Furthermore the ability to post photographs, video clips and audio clips will enable players to promote themselves and build their own poker profile. Essentially it is a poker player community site which spans across all online poker rooms. The power of the site comes in being able to find other players around the world using specific poker criteria. For example, you can find players within 15 miles of your zip code in the US, who play at $2-$4 limits and plays Omaha style. Spokesman for the project indicated many future upgrade plans as the site grows, with big plans to provide live link up facilities for players. Scheduling services to promote real games will also be introduced, as well as potential PokerFaces tournaments, and even webcam service to allow players to see each other. Initial response from the industry has supported the idea behind the site and hopes to enjoy in it's success. Online poker has welcomed this fresh take on creating an online poker player community. As online poker grows, services like PokerFaces.net will be required to help bring the faceless world of online poker into the real world, by promoting real communications between players globally. If the site is successful, there is no limit to where this concept can be taken. Visionary plans even include sending top player profiles to real life tournaments and holding their own PokerFaces world tour. Visit www.pokerfaces.net to learn more about this site.

Harrah's Entertainment creates World Series of Poker Circuit

ADAM GOLDMAN Associated Press LAS VEGAS - Harrah's Entertainment and ESPN says they'll capitalize on poker's best-known event by beginning a series of high-profile tournaments across the country next year. The Las Vegas-based gambling company hopes name recognition shuffles rival tournaments to the back of the pack, while enriching shareholders and players as it tries to carve out a huge swath of the lucrative and fast-growing poker market. The World Series of Poker Circuit will include a point system and seven televised tournaments at its casinos in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Atlantic City, N.J., New Orleans and San Diego, Harrah's Entertainment executives said. The circuit concludes with the Tournament of Champions in Las Vegas with top point earners gaining entry. While Harrah's wouldn't forecast anticipated revenues, the company is betting the individual events will attract hundreds, with each participant spending $10,000 for a seat at one of the tournament tables. Dan Goldman, vice president of marketing for PokerStars.com., said anecdotal research shows that from 50 million to 60 million people play poker at least once a month. Harrah's thinks the World Series of Poker brand will help it tap that market. "It's so far head of everybody else you can't match up," said Howard Greenbaum, Harrah's vice president of specialty gambling and golf operations. "Everybody wants to play in the World Series of Poker. It's dying and going to heaven for the poker player." John Mulkey, a Bear Stearns gambling analyst in New York, said Harrah's should generate a solid return on their investment. "It was a natural for a company like Harrah's with its distribution points across the country to own such a popular event," he said. Harrah's signed an agreement in July to buy Caesars Entertainment Inc. in a deal that if approved by regulators would make it the largest gambling company in the world with more than $8 billion in revenues. Other pokers already capitalizing on the poker craze include Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and the "World Poker Tour" on the Travel Channel. Steve Lipscomb, chief executive of the three-year-old World Poker Tour, began airing tournaments to impressive ratings about 18 months ago. Lipscomb's company, which has since gone public, puts on a series of 15 poker tournaments with about $70 million in prize money. The finals are played at the luxurious Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas. "When you play in the World Poker Tour championship at the Bellagio, there is no better poker event in the world, including the World Series of Poker," he said. "We've established the sport. The WPT is the NBA." "If they try to go up against our event, they are going to have to try to take on an established event," he said. While the Harrah's tournaments will carry the World Series of Poker name, the crown jewel will remain the legendary poker game that has been held at the smoky Binion's Horseshoe hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas since 1971. When it begins next summer at the Rio hotel-casino off the Las Vegas Strip and Binion's, Harrah's believes more than 5,000 people could enter the 36th annual World Series of Poker seeking what ESPN calls "poker immortality." The 2004 world series attracted a field of 2,576 players, far surpassing the 839 in 2003. Next year, the total prize pool in the No-Limit Texas Hold'Em main event could exceed $50 million, with the $5 million first place being increased by several million. "We had expected to see a substantial increase in the number of players, but didn't anticipate anything of the magnitude of what actually occurred," said Ginny Shanks, Harrah's senior vice president for acquisition marketing. Harrah's bought the World Series of Poker and the Horseshoe name in Nevada for $44.3 million earlier this year. "We knew it (was) the oldest, richest, most prestigious and most media-hyped gaming competition in the world, so we certainly knew it had the potential to generate strong revenues from the event itself, broadcast contracts and licensing and sponsorship deals," Shanks said. Harrah's also has a licensing agreement with a company to sell World Series of Poker chips and playing cards among other items. ESPN purchased the rights to televise the World Series of Poker from the former owners of Binion's for $55,000 a year, Shanks said. But those low-budget days are over. ESPN's is filming the circuit in 2005 and its contract expires next year. "We need to see what the ... market will bear," Shanks said. Terms between Harrah's and ESPN weren't disclosed for the 2005 broadcasts. Last week's broadcast of the final table of the 2004 World Series of Poker taped in May gave the sports network its highest-rated and most-watched poker telecast ever, ESPN said. "The World Series of Poker is it," said Bob Chesterman, coordinating producer for ESPN original entertainment. "It's the pinnacle of poker. The players knows that and the viewers know it." ESPN said the last hour of the finals posted a hefty 2.8 rating representing more than 2.5 million households. ESPN hopes to draw similar numbers when it airs its first Tournament of Champions in Las Vegas. Tuesday's three-hour poker slugfest was played earlier this month and included 10 of the best players in the world, including patent attorney Greg Raymer who won the world series at Binion's in June. The winner takes home $2 million. ON THE NET Harrah's Entertainment: http://www.harrahs.com

Are poker ‘bots’ raking online pots?

Some suspect computer programs have infiltrated Internet games. By Mike Brunker Reporter MSNBC Updated: 4:24 p.m. ET Sept. 20, 2004 Pull up a chair at a friendly poker game in a buddy’s den and you probably know the other players and have some idea of their card-playing weaknesses – like Big Al's habit of fingering his chips when he's itching to raise. But take a seat at a table in one of the rapidly multiplying online card rooms and there's no telling who’s sitting to your right – or if the player is even human. Concern is growing in online chat rooms and news groups devoted to poker that sophisticated card-playing robots – known as “bots” in the nomenclature of the Web – are being used on commercial gambling sites to fleece newcomers, the strategy-impaired and maybe even above-average players. “It is pretty much a certainty that bots are playing online,” said Gautam Rao, a 43-year-old Canadian poker pro who regularly plays three high-stakes Internet games simultaneously. “… What we don’t know is how strong they are.” Widespread use of bots capable of beating your average player would pose a significant problem for the red-hot online poker sector, which has grown exponentially in recent years and is expected to top the $1 billion revenue mark this year. Without some way of verifying the identity – and humanity – of players, the business could be significantly undercut. Many don't see a threat But skeptics – and there are many – argue the complexities of the game and the changing strategies ensure that creation of a program that can “read” opponents’ cards using screen scanning techniques and respond in real time is years away at best. They point to the handful of commercial products that purport to give online players significant advantage, which they roundly deride as woefully inadequate, as proof today's bots are no match for humans. Rao and his fellow believers have a ready answer: A bot capable of playing against the best humans already exists. The University of Alberta’s Computer Poker Research Group has developed an artificially intelligent automaton known as “Vex Bot,” capable of playing poker at the master level, though as yet it can only apply its gambling genius to two-player games. Vex Bot has been used by researchers to test the frontiers of artificial intelligence – and as the basis for a commercial poker tutorial program, Poki’s Poker Academy -- but some fear it may become a blueprint for programmers with more sinister motives.

Online Tells in Poker

The in-turn buttons lead to the most obvious tell unique to online poker. If the blinking light representing a player acts immediately, it’s likely this person has clicked the box of an in-turn action. It is usually easy to determine when a player has a no-brainer hand. The immediate "check" is often incredibly revealing. If you are first to act, and for some reason take a moment before checking, and your three opponents immediately check behind you like rifle fire, this is a tell as big as Texas. They ain’t got nuthin’. Another common situation... the first player takes a moment, then finally checks. You have the "bet/raise in turn" button checked, so your bet appears, but instantly the player next to you raises. Uh-oh, he had the bet/raise button checked too, and didn’t care what you or the first player did. That tells a lot more than a just normal raise would -- an awful lot more. Besides the speed of action resulting from using the buttons, other online tells can be discerned from how slow a player commonly acts on their hand. Players who are consistently super-slow (rude human speedbumps) are likely not paying attention to the game, either because they are playing two games and are not competent at it, or because they are doing other work at home. Either way, if all of a sudden this person plays a hand crisply and promptly and aggressively... well, they got somethin’. "The Stall" is a common tell among average or slightly below average players. When the last card in Holdem or Omaha makes a coordinated board (making a nut hand like a flush), the mediocre player pauses as if thinking, and then finally bets. This pause almost always means "powerhouse" or at least that the bettor thinks he has a powerhouse. It's a comically inept tell in its obviousness.