How to play poker pairs

A pocket pair from your hole cards may seem like the perfect start to your hand, but it isn’t always as good as it may appear, unless it is one of the high value pairs.

Anything below a pair of eights should be considered as a hand to throw away. Of course it does depend on the number of players around your table, if you’re involved in heads up play, a pair of sevens would be a fantastic start, but not when there are five other opponents. People with poker bonuses should remember this.

The reason why anything below eights shouldn’t be anything to get excited about is because you would be unlikely to win the hand as it stood, unlike a pair of face cards. It is worth remembering that it only takes another player to hit one of their higher hole cards in the flop and you become a long shot to win the pot.

When it comes to improving your pocket pairs, there are few options available to you, the most obvious one being the three-of-a-kind. Although this would leave you in a strong position if you were lucky enough to develop such a hand, the odds of finding it are stacked against you. It’s important to bear this in mind when playing in poker rooms online.

There should be no hesitation with regards to face valued pairs pre-flop. They are best played aggressively and with a raise to help you build up the pot as early as you can. If you try to slow them, you could be giving your opponent the chance to improve their hand without paying for the privilege.

At the other end of the spectrum, the very low pairs require no thought, as they should be an easy fold.

Playing Preflop Poker

Preflop is not just the first street in poker; it is also the easiest street to play. In a game of incomplete information and lots of varied scenarios, starting the game with just two cards is far easier than the complexities that the community cards introduce into the game.

When you play preflop, even in internet poker, you have to decide whether or not you are going bet, fold or check (if you are in the big blind). Your decision to select either one of these choices depends largely on four points. The first is the strength of your hand, the second is your position on the table, the third are your opponents and their tendencies and the fourth are your post flop motives.

To summarise quite a lengthy topic, you want to have a narrower range of hands when you open in early position and a wider range of hands in late position. This is because it is a disadvantage to play poker out of position. If you are starting in first position at a nine handed table you do not want to go to the flop, multi-way, with a weak hand. A good example of this would be folding KJ from early position but opening with it from late position. Those using Betfair poker promotions should remember this.

The next thing to think about is your post flop motives. Unless you are going to fold to any pressure on the flop you need to be ready to play multi-street poker. The best way to prepare for this is to choose hands that have good post flop equity such as suited cards, connected cards and high cards.

Pina Nevada review

Pina Nevada is a three-reel, five-pay line slot machine brought to you by the software development team at BetOnSoft.

The game is available to be played online in a range of casinos where it can be played for free or for real money. The free version of the game is a great idea because it enables the player to experience the game without having any of their bankroll at risk. When you are ready to play for cash you won’t do too much damage to your bankroll as cash denominations range between $0.01 and $1 and only one coin per pay line. People who have taken advantage of the casino TV promotion may want to try it.

The game screen has a Miami Vice/Cocktail movie theme to it with the fluorescent tubing the order of the day. The three-reels are situated in the top left hand corner of the screen, pay table to the right and Pina Nevada logo bottom left. The symbols on the reels are all about the party life with various types of cocktail implements being used. They aren’t the sort of symbols you’d expect to see in a Casino TV advert.

Pina Nevada has a wild symbol and the Pina Nevada symbol represents it. As usual the wild symbol substitutes for all other symbols when creating winning combinations.
The only other feature the game possesses is its auto play feature. This handy little number allows you to select a predetermined number of spins and then at one touch of a button lets the slot machine make all of the decisions for you.

Pina Nevada looks great and plays well to, so jump in and have a spin, but just bring your own Margarita!

Is gut instinct your best friend?

It’s a horrible word – the gut. Just keep saying it over and over again. It is one of those words that don’t roll of your tongue like silk. Gut seems old, smelly and nasty. Maybe this is why we tend not to listen to it when it is trying to tell us something?

There is another reason we don’t tend to listen to our gut and that is because it is always telling to do things we do not want to do. In poker, for example, it is always telling us to fold. It is always more concerned with what the other guy is doing instead of you. I don’t want to keep folding; I want to know what he has? But when you stop and think about it, how many times has your gut been right? Your honest appraisal should reveal that it is right more often than it is wrong. Poker is a game of percentages so go with your gut. You should remember this when playing Betfair Texas Holdem.

So why don’t we?

There are always more players around the table than us. In a full ring game we are one hand out of ten so why should our hand rank as best? It is because the majority of situations won’t favour us that our gut instinct keeps telling us to take actions we feel uncomfortable with. This is even true in Omaha poker.

Remember the gut is not there to be pretty and to tell you what you want to hear. The gut doesn’t want to take you on a date or buy you lunch. The gut’s job is to give you the answer you need to hear, not what you want to hear.

The gut is your best friend so treat him as such.

Flow and poker

Have you ever studied the flow of water? Next time have a closer look, because the flow of water can be akin to the game of poker. You are stood by the seaside and watch as the main stretch of ocean seems calm and uninterrupted, yet as the salty seawater hits the coastline there is violence everywhere as the water explodes in the face of the construct blocking its path. You are stood by the riverbank and watch as the water flows freely until it hits a rock or some other obstacle in its path.

Again there is violence and the whole flow becomes slower as it tries to find a way around the blockade. Those with a Betfair poker bonus should remember this.

Think about poker in the same way that you would think about water. Try and find away to go with the flow. If you can spot when turbulence is about to appear at the table then find a way to merge with the flow. Find the rhythm in the game. Go around the stones in the water and don’t crash into the cliffs or the beach. The players who take this path usually end up the worse for wear. If you maintain your flow and your rhythm and avoid the obstacles in your path then you will find poker so much simpler. People playing poker online need to bear this in mind.

Let the heroes be heroes. Let them have their battles with the obstacles. Let them crash idly into them. Going with the flow is a much more important.

Control is key to poker

The reason why poker is such a challenging game is because it tests our ability to make big decisions under pressure, stress and sometimes joy.

Players who can control all their different emotions the best are usually the ones who experience the most success in the game.

The changing conditions of the game is one of the reasons why poker is so appealing. If it was under the same circumstances each time, it wouldn’t be quite as interesting. Poker is different to most other card games, such as blackjack and brag, in that you don’t know what situations you are going to be faced with when you sit down to play. This unpredictability is appealing is exciting and also is relished by anyone looking for a game with a challenge.

There will be days where everything you play goes your way. The luck will be with you and you will hit your flush and straight hands on the river, whilst your pair will be matched by an opponent, but edged ahead with a stronger kicker. These are the days when playing on Paypal poker sites feels like a real pleasure.

However, on other days, you will be pushed to your limits, when nothing goes your way in terms of luck. This is when you need to concentrate even harder and respond to the current circumstances. You may feel angry by the negative amount luck you have had, and will be tempted to go on tilt. However, if you can stay calm and continue to make the correct decisions with regards to odds, you should be able to come through the difficult spell.

The aim for us all is to play our best game regardless of the conditions. If you can get to this stage, you have mastered the art of self-control and self-discipline.

A Look Inside The World of High Stakes Online Poker

If you are a regular attendee on the live tournament poker scene and you see a young man sat behind a huge pile of chips, with a purple hoodie covering his brown hair, then you are probably looking at Benny Spindler. The young German professional poker player has amassed just under $2 million in live career earnings in a very short space of time. But Spindler can also win a pot or two in the virtual world as well, as his recent $501,000 weeks profit demonstrates.

Spindler, also known as “toweliestar” first came to prominence in 2009 when he won the $25k Heads-Up SCOOP event for $310,000. Amazingly Spindler was only $17,000 in profit on his PokerStars account at the beginning of September and in just three weeks has run that amount up to $706,000. Betfair online poker players also make some big profits.

It wasn’t just Spindler who has been winning big online either. Israeli pro Rafi Amit won over $271,000 and continues to be the hottest online property with $1.56 million in earnings in 2011. Finnish Pro Sami “Lrszk” Kelipuro, who has been ripping it up on the live circuit over the past few months, also had a great week with a $115, 00 profit. Those just starting out may want to try Betfair GSOP VII Mini.

At the bottom end of the win list is Niki Jedlicka who is now down $459,000 on PokerStars for 2011. Former most profitable online player Rui “PepperoniF” Cao also dropped over $205,000 recently, but despite that loss still has $1 million in profit for the whole of 2011.

Pre-flop tips for Omaha

Every Omaha hand begins with each player being dealt four cards but you will only actually be using two of these four cards. To play Omaha successfully for the long term, you need to have four good suited and connected cards and this is one of the key facts of the Omaha Poker pre-flop which you must always remember. When you look at your cards you need to decide if you may have a chance of making a flush or a straight from your starting hand. If you think you may be able to do this you’ll find that it will give you extra winning hand options which is what the game is all about.

Nothing can really be decided before the flop, so the best Omaha poker pre-flop strategy is to play in a conservative manner at the beginning and wait until you see what the flop is before you start to make any sort of decisions. Not many people are going to fold before the flop unless an exorbitant amount of money is required to call.

Omaha Poker is probably the loosest form of online poker there is and you should keep this is mind and watch out for the loose cannons which may be flying about on the Betfair poker website.

Your hands now start to have some relevance and you will be guided by Omaha Poker flop strategy as what to do next. Remember you can only use two of your four cards so you need to consider carefully which cards to use and what you want to do next. As online poker tips go, this is a crucial one.

You also have to be wary of what the best possible hand could be. Omaha Poker flop strategy says that if there is a pair on the table, they could mean a full house and possibly even quads. Pay close attention to your opponents’ betting to see if there are any tells that they may be holding one of these hands.

Thrill Seekers

The online casino slot game Thrill Seekers does exactly what its same suggests, with up to 50 win-lines available in the game, it maximises each spin with regards to your chances of winning. All the pay-lines can be revealed before you start the game and range from the orthodox straight lines to reflected patterns. The one thing they all have in common is that they start in the first reel and end in the fifth. If 50 is too much, you don’t have to play with the maximum amount.

Symbols in the game all relate to fairground fun. For example, they will include candy floss, ice cream and popcorn. Those used to playing Monopoly online slots may take a while to adapt to the change.

The bonus round in this game will be activated when finding three or more hammer symbols. In this round you will be required to hit a target with your hammer which will reveal a cash bonus prize.

Three of the symbols in the game only require you to find two of them, as long as they are connected in the first and second reel.

The jackpot in the game is hit by finding five of the wild symbols connected in one of your pay-lines with odds of 10000X your stake. These are a picture of a clown and can also be used as a substitute for any symbol except the scatter or bonus ones. This makes finding combinations in your pay-lines much easier. Fans of Bejeweled slots may want to give it a try.

Finding three of the scatter symbols, which are attraction tickets, will qualify you for 10 free spins and all the winnings will be doubled from this round. It is possible to win more free spins once you are in this mode of play.

Non-showdown winnings

When analysing your game and making notes about your performance, it is important to pay particular attention to your non-showdown wins and losses.

If you have a problem in this department, you need to highlight it and work on that side of your game. Your non-showdown winnings are an integral part of your game and if you are not showing a profit then you are a long way off being a solid poker player. This is where the best Paypal poker players separate themselves from the average ones.

Of course it is still possible to be successful at poker if your showdown winnings outweigh the non-showdown losses. However, showdown winnings are very much reliant on your cards and the quality of them. If you are having an unlucky day your showdown winnings will be minimal, if not non-existent.

The only way of making a loss in the non-showdown side of your game is if you place chips into the middle and fold before the hands are revealed. Therefore you are making one of two mistakes. Either you are entering too many pots with hands that should have been folded before the flop or you are not betting your hand correctly. In Texas Holdem poker you should be dictating betting and not folding easily when a sizable bet is thrown at you.

It is well established that the best hands don’t always win the pot when they are determined before the showdown. You need to use position on the table to your advantage to make your opponent think you have something better than you have.