Don’t Stay in a Hand Just Because you’re Already In It
Another common mistake beginners make is to think that “Well, I’ve already put that much in the pot, I have to stay in now.” No. You can’t win a pot just by throwing money at it. If you’re certain you’re beat you should fold immediately. The money you’ve already put in the pot is lost, you can’t get it back just by playing a hand all the way to the end. To play poker online for money the old traders adage of limit your losses and follow your wins applies!

However knowing how to calculate and use pot odds is one of the crucial weapons that serious poker players have in their armory, one that most definitely separates them from the amateur.

Poker pot odds are often associated with complex mathematical calculations and the less serious player can feel overwhelmed at the prospect of tackling such a subject, but don’t fret, do you really think that to be a serious poker player you need to be a genius at mathematics? Do you think all the poker pros are?

Well of course the answer is that they are most definitely not all geniuses, but what they do have is a method of calculating the odds quickly and easily to see if they are in their favor in any given situation. So let’s look at a simple, basic way of calculating the odds, remember it needs to be quick and easy so that it can be worked out quickly and accurately in the heat and pressure of a poker game.

Poker pot odds can be broken down to this simple one liner:

“If the odds of you getting the card you need to make your hand are less than the pot odds, you should bet.”

There are two sides to this equation which I will try and explain, “odds of you getting the card you need” and “pot odds.” Firstly “odds of you getting the card you need”, this one is fairly easy to understand. It’s best explained using the example of a flush or straight draw, so we’ll use a straight draw to illustrate it.

You’re in a Texas Holdem game and your pocket cards are Q T, the flop is J 4 9. In order to make a straight you need to get either a King or 8 on the turn or river so you have eight possible cards that can make your hand, four Kings and four 8s. These are known as your “out” cards.

You’ve seen five cards out of the deck, your own two pocket cards and the three flop cards. That means there’s 47 cards you haven’t seen. So the odds of you getting the card you need are:

Cards that won’t help you : Cards that will help you

Out of the 47 remaining cards, eight of them will help you and 35 won’t, so the “odds of you getting the card you need” are 35:8 or 4.375:1. Now for the pot odds.

The basic formula is:

The size of the pot : Amount you need to put into the pot.

So if the pot is sitting at $100 and you need to bet $20 to call, your pot odds are 100:20 or 5:1.

In this case the pot odds (5:1) are bigger than the odds of you getting the card you need (4.375:1) so you should call the bet. This is known as getting “value” for your bet. If you are doing these sums quickly you can think of 35:8 as being about four and a half to one, it’s good enough for a quick calculation.

This is a simplification of pot odds and there are other considerations like – will the players after you in the round of betting add to the pot? This would make your bet an even better proposition as it would increase the pot odds but it is of course an unknown factor.

Understand pot odds and you will take your game forward to the next stage and prepare yourself for the poker big league.

Read more at Texas Holdem Poker and Poker beginners issues. Useful tips about 7 hand poker - read here.

Put it this way, it’s a game where your best hand can rapidly become not your best hand anymore! Plus of course, the way you can bluff your way to win everything is amazing (I’d call it psychology rather than strategy before you take me up on that point)

The rewards once you master it are fantastic. A a good table or online poker player possesses one of the easiest ways of making money there is. Way easier than say McDonald’s! So if you are interested in playing poker for business or pleasure the best place to start or get better is NoPayPOKER.com where you can play Free online Poker with no risk. Their advertisers fund the prizes so your only cost is your time. Check it out.

Poker pro Alex Outhred will be on had for instruction at the new WSOP Academy Cash Game events. (Bodog Beat Image)

Everyone knows that poker players don’t make their living from cashing in tournaments, although a nice payday definitely helps, they pay their bills by spending hours grinding it out in cash games. The legendary Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio isn’t a tournament area, it is strictly reserved for high-stakes cash games because that’s how the big boys do it.

So, in recognition of this the WSOP Academy is launching a new style of poker camp, the appropriately-named Cash Game Academy. These two-day events will provide intensive poker training dedicated exclusively to No Limit Hold’em cash game play, giving poker players of all skill levels the foundation and tools needed to become a consistent winning cash game player.

The first such event will take place at Harrah’s Atlantic City on Jan. 24 – 25. Then two weeks later, the WSOP Academy will head to Las Vegas to host a Cash Game Academy at Caesars Palace on Feb. 7 - 8. Both events will feature instruction from poker pros Mark Seif, Paul Wasicka and Alex Outhred among the instructors scheduled for the Atlantic City event and Seif, Outhred and Michael Gracz slated for the Las Vegas event.

Poker played over the Internet is referred to as online poker. Its popularity has experienced such a tremendous growth that revenues from online poker are said to have reached $ 200 million a month in recent years.

Online poker tables typically spread Omaha, Texas hold’em, Seven Card Stud, and so forth. Games can be played in tournament structure or as ring games. A poker tournament is typically played with chips which are worthless if used outside the tournament, whereas “real” money is used in ring games played at online poker. Ring games and tournament games also differ in that throughout the tournament players have to stick to one predetermined style of poker, as opposed to ring games, where the types of card games available may vary.

The online poker game is recommended for beginners only as far as the ring games are concerned. Tournaments are for more experienced players, and they don’t offer the possibility of cashing out at any time, as it is with ring games. Cashing out in tournaments is only possible after the player has won or lost all the chips. Moreover, most online poker rooms charge a tournament entry fee. In fact, this is one of the three major ways in which online poker rooms profit. The other two are represented by the rake and by playing against the house for real money, when the profit comes from the fact that the odds are clearly in favor of the house. When it comes to money, players may be referred to in terms of play money players and real money players. The former are generally uninitiated in online poker and it is highly recommended that they sign up as beginners in order to get some idea about the online poker game.

The poker enthusiasts can witness a whole world, fully devoted to the hobby of online poker. In the virtual poker rooms, the player or the novice can try many kinds of poker competitions without becoming bored, as compared to getting to the next chair which occurs within physical realm. The version of online poker provides a full choice of space, where the competitors can simply select a poker room according to their tastes, and harmonizing the bet amounts, so that even the pleasure factor would stay connected.

If you are in game then definately you need some help–here http://sitngoproreviews.blogspot.com/search/label/Review%20of%20Sit%20N%20Go%20Pro help you a lot, sure guarantee!

When the stacks aren’t as deep, they lose value as the maximum you can win (your opponent’s stack) is less. And when the stacks are shallow, you also risk a higher percentage of your stack to win a smaller end pot.

This is why new players lose so much playing suited connectors: they risk too much with too little reward.
Playing suited connectors profitably is actually very easy: just stop overvaluing them. Straights and flushes don’t come around nearly as often as you think they should. Stop limping from up front, calling raises and then calling bets with weak gutshots.
If you do that, you’re essentially frittering away chips. What you should do instead is look for profitable situations in which you can either a) see a cheap multiway flop or b) steal the blinds with little chance of getting caught.
Rakeback
Low-Blind Levels
Early in the tournament is when suited connectors are the most valuable. When the blinds are $10/$20 and $15/$30, they are still very small compared to your stack as you’ll have 60-80BBs.
This will be the deepest you will be all tournament. And though you should be playing tight early without risking many chips, you should not pass up opportunities where you can see cheap, multiway pots in position.
If you can hit a big hand early and double up, the game becomes a lot easier for you.
When the blinds are low, players will often limp and you will see many multiway pots contested. In situations like this you can definitely limp hands like 5 6 or 7 9 off the button or from the cut-off.
phil ivey
If you flop a draw and are getting good odds, great - take them. Try and hit that big hand. If you miss completely, then just bail out. Muck that hand. Don’t get involved with second pair. It’s not worth risking the chips.

Notice I said you can limp from the button or cut-off. It’s late position that makes these hands profitable.
Limping in from early position is not cool and is not profitable. More often than not you will end up getting raised from late position and you will be forced to muck, forfeiting your chips.

Do not give away free chips.
If you are going to play suited connectors, play them from late position and don’t get crazy on flops. Chase with decent odds and don’t unnecessarily risk chips. Your stack is your life in a sit-and-go - protect it.
poker raise
Mid-Blind Levels
The mid blind levels - i.e. $25/$50 to $50/$100 - are the trickiest to play. Your stack size is very awkward with only 15-30BBs.
There is little value in suited connectors here. The stacks are too shallow to limp and try and hit a hand, and raising as a steal risks too big a percentage of your stack with not enough reward.
You should almost never be limping suited connectors at the mid-blind levels. The only situation that might be marginally profitable is off the button after several other limpers and at $25/$50 only. Otherwise you are better off just folding.
Near the end of the mid-blind levels, the value of suited connectors switches from being able to make a hand and stack someone to using them as steal hands.

While you might be slightly +EV limping the button at $25/$50, you are almost always better off raising or folding at $50/$100 and higher. That’s because the stacks are too shallow to rely on implied odds but the blinds are getting high enough where players (mistakenly) tighten up.

High-Blind Levels
Once the blinds get to $100/$200 there is going to be little play left. You may have 10-20BBs, and the chip leaders may only have 30.

At this stage, you should definitely be loose-aggressive.
At this stage, you should be able to tell which players are tightening up and which are loosening up. You should be loosening up, playing a loose-aggressive game and exploiting the players that are tightening up.
This stage of the game is also where you build your stack. If you were card dead up until now it doesn’t matter. Your goal is to increase your stack, and you do this by taking blinds.
Suited connectors make excellent blind-stealing hands. As I discussed in the re-steal article, when you’re choosing a hand to steal with it doesn’t have to be great - that’s why it’s called a steal.
If you were raising with a strong hand it would be for value, not as a steal. When you’re stealing, you’re relying on fold equity - that is, you want your opponent to fold. Thus hand value is not as important.
Suited connectors are great for stealing because they are an excellent “Plan B.” “Plan A” obviously is to have your opponent fold, but that’s not always going to happen. You need some hand value to fall back on.
Statistically, if your opponent happens to wake up with AA, suited connectors are the strongest hands possible. They are also only a slight dog to a hand like A-K or two unpaired overcards.

Push or Fold
As the blinds increase and your M decreases, there will be little to no play left. You are left with two options - push or fold.
With 10BBs or less you should be pushing fairly frequently and picking up the blinds from tight players. Suited connectors are great at this stage. You rely on fold equity but again you have your hand value to fall back on just in case.
That’s all there is to it. As long as you can recognize when the value switches from being an implied odds hand to a steal hand, you should be able to play suited connectors profitably.
No matter what the blinds are, the most important part is playing position. From late position you’re more likely to see a cheap flop early, and later on you are more likely to succeed with your blind steal.

rakeback bonus

Rakeback offers provide online poker players the opportunity to receive a percentage of the rake they contribute to each pot back at the end of every month. These rakeback offers vary by online poker room, but they all have one thing in common. You don’t have win in order to make money while playing your online poker rake back account.

Yes, this is the truth. Online poker players are playing every day with the objective of winning money at online poker tournaments and ring games without understanding the fact that by just playing you are generating money for yourself via the rakeback offer you have signed up for.

Rakeback is as simple as this: Your Rake Back = Monthly Gross Revenue X Rakeback %

Now we need a couple definitions.

1. What is rake and how is rake calculated:

The rake is the fee that every online poker player pays to the “house” or in this case the online poker room for playing in a hand at their online poker room. This fee is different from poker room to poker room. The rake is calculated in one of two ways, the dealt method and the contributed method. The dealt method is calculated by totaling up all of the rake in a hand and then dividing that amount between all players who were dealt cards in the hand. The contributed method is calculated based on the total amount each player pays into the pot. The dealt method gives an edge to those players who play fixed limit games. While the contributed method can add up to greater rake for No Limit poker players and thus earning greater rakeback.

poker lesson

2. What is Monthly Gross Revenue (MGR)

Monthly Gross Revenue is the total amount of rake you generate while playing at the online poker room. This amount includes all rake contributed while playing ring games as well as tournament entry fees. Some online poker rooms do not pay rakeback on tournament entry fees so you should check with the poker room before signing up. So now that we have these rakeback definitions down, we can calculate how much theoretical rakeback you can earn in a month. A player who generates $1000 in MGR over the month and is signed up to a 40% rakeback deal now will receive $400 in rakeback at the end of the month.

$1000 X 40% = $400 to your pocket.

Now this $400 is going to be paid to you wether or not you win $5,000 or lose $100 playing online poker. The rakeback is always going to be there and is only dependant upon how much you play, not how much you win. Now let’s take a look at yet an other example of how rakeback can make you a profitable online poker player.

Like all poker players you are going to go through hard times and find it difficult to even just break even. In our above example, you don’t even have to break even at the table in order to still earn a profit. As long as you generate the $1,000 in monthly gross revenue, you now have a $400 cushion to work with. So even if you happen to end the month down $200, you are still going to end the month up $200 after you receive your rakeback payment.

As you can now see, if you didn’t before, the importance of playing online poker with a rakeback deal in place for yourself. You can find many rakeback offers at Treasure Hunter Poker by visiting any of our rakeback pages.

Don’t throw your money into the muck with your cards any more. Start making money while your are making money at the online poker table today.

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Origin of “the nuts”
In poker, “the nuts” refers to an unbeatable poker hand. According to some poker experts, the term originated in the old west, where players often bet their horse and wagon. When a player put up his horse and wagon in a game, he would be required to remove the nuts from his wagon wheels and place them in the pot, so that he could not flee if he lost the bet. Therefore, it was assumed that anyone would bet “the nuts” with only with the best possible poker hand strength.

Software (9)

carbon poker free is using the perfected software of the Poker.com network and is also the second to do so. It is fairly unknown to the average poker player, but regardless of its lack of its status, this room is indeed based on the highest quality software you can think of. It is based fully on a Flash module, meaning that aside from being a low-weighting program, it is also resizable with no image quality loss as a direct result. Aside from just looking good, Carbon Poker offers everything from player notes to custom chat icons to excellent lobby filters. Features are dwelling here, although the table isn’t as customizable as some other sites, but still good. All in all, there is little to complain about.

Traffic (6)

It is a member of a new and very small network, but in spite of this, there is more action than you would expect. Both real and play money players go beyond 8000 during peak hours, which is more than acceptable. Most of the traffic is in Texas Hold’em as one would expect, but Omaha and other games are populated every now and then too. A majority of all players come to play ring games, although the frequent freerolls do lure a lot of new and veteran players to the tournament tables as well.

Tournaments (6)

Carbon Poker is not a place to go if you are looking for satellites to real action poker, such as World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour. For such tourneys, we recommend any of our top rated poker rooms. Carbon Poker does offer a few exciting tournaments, but is limited to its lower player count. Therefore, we rarely see games of the same magnitude as offered on sites like Full Tilt Poker. Either way, you have the regular and daily freerolls ranging from $50 and up to $50,000 (occuring only once every month). Freerolls aside, CarbonPoker also offers tournaments with guaranteed cash prizes ranging up to a few thousand dollars.

Game Variety (8)

In 2005, the Poker.com software was far behind its competition in terms of varieties. Only Texas Hold’em and Omaha was available, but fortunately, times changed in late 2006 when a few great additions came to our attention. Aside from the already mentioned poker types, Carbon Poker offers 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, 5 Card Stud, 5 Card Draw, Triple Draw and Budagi, a Chinese poker variation.

Soft Competition (8)

The competition is usually very soft at Carbon Poker. It is typically poker rookies and small-stacked players who come to play at the freerolls, and then later end up at the poker tables to lose cash. Even if you go as high as $2/$4, you often see tables with over 55% seen flops, which is significant at these stakes. The lower you go, the higher the number, of course. While it’s not the softest of all competitions, it is far from the average stack too.

Sign Up Bonus (7)

As a new member on Carbon Poker, you receive a wealthy bonus worth $1000 with a match of 200%. To claim it, you are required to enter the Carbon Poker promotional code max1000 (also known as promo code) in the Coupons field, which is located in the cashier. To read more about this bonus, please refer to our Carbon Poker promotional code guide.

Loyalty Rewards (4)

As a player at Carbon Poker, you earn Comp Points, which is short for complimentary points. Just like in a land-based casino, you earn such points to receive rewards for being a loyal member. Unfortunately, Carbon Poker lacks proper rewards and comes only with a few mini promotions and entries to tournaments, with the latter one being the most interesting of the two.

Promotions (4)

Carbon Poker is still in a growing phase and must attract more poker players before it can offer heavy duty promotions. For now, you have the new player bonus at $1000 and freeroll entries added, regular freerolls, a Royal Flush bonus which earns you a 100x bonus every time you hit it with your pocket cards, and last but not least, the comp points, which are fairly rewarding.

Support (5)

Only e-mail support is available once you run into trouble. This is obviously the most popular method of correspondence, but live help and telephone support would not hurt. We found the response time to be fast, usually within a few hours, and very accurate, however.

Deposit & Cashout Methods (6)

Deposits: Visa, MasterCard, ECO, Click2Pay, Neteller, Moneybookers and ePassporte.

Cash-outs: Neteller, Click2Pay, MyCitadel and bank transfer.

carbon poker free