Hand Analysis: Pockets Queens

February 23, 2010

Pockets queens: the ladies, the Canadian Aces, the Hilton Sisters, the Horrible Janes, the Wire Cutters, the Snowshoesthe love and hate affair with pocket queens goes on and on. It is a bittersweet romance seeing the 3rd biggest pair in the online poker game show up and your table and getting kicked around more often than you’d like. But you’ve got to start somewhere, and queens are always worth a raise, and a reraise. This is a poker hand worth getting in with, and getting dirty. Obviously, when the flop brings an ace or a king, you’re going to slow down. You can’t keep pushing when the odds are that your poker opponent has an overpair, in which case you’ll have only two outs. But giving up too early is also wrong. Take a card off, see if your opponent keeps pushing or calling, and perhaps you might get a different perspective on the hand. It can be tough, when not facing an overcard, to tell if your opponent is pushing at your with a hand that beats you, or is dominated by you. Because players will push JJ very hard, the same way they’ll push KK, you kind of need to judge based on gut and circumstance, and knowing your opponent.

Making it into the Sit-n-Go Money

February 4, 2010

Many online poker sites offer sit-n-Go tournaments, which are self-contained tables. SnGs typically start as full 9 or 10 player tables, with payouts structured at 50 percent of the prize pool for first place, 30 percent for second, and 20 percent for the third place finisher.

When playing SnGs, your goal is first to make it to the money, then to win it all. You must pick the right spots to put your few precious starting chips at risk. When the blinds are still small in the first three levels, you can attempt to see cheap flops from late positions when holding marginal hands like small and medium pairs and suited connectors. Only play these when the pot is not raised ahead of you.

Without absolute premium cards, you should always fold when a raise comes out and let your poker online opponents eliminate each other. Folding is part of the strategy for making it to the money.

Once the blinds go beyond the fourth level and starting escalating into higher amounts, you are going to have to be more aggressive about trying to steal pots. You have to build your chip stack to keep pace with the blinds. When the SnG gets down to just four or five players, the tendency is for everyone to tighten up to make it to the money. This is when you can attack the blinds and attempt steals.

When the bubble breaks and you’re in the money, your goal is to finish first. Fold when there is likelihood that one of the other player’s will knock off the third online poker opponent, advancing you to heads-up. When heads-up, don’t limp in but instead raise with any premium cards.

Sweeten the Pot

November 23, 2009

In online poker, it’s not how many hands you win that counts as much as how many chips you earn. Everyone loves to win an online poker hand, but raking in a huge pot is especially satisfying. What strategies can you use to help build bigger pots? If you’ve got a big drawing poker online hand in the early round of betting, then put in a “pot sweetner” raise. This type of raise if just a small bet, perhaps twice the big blind, that is likely to get called by at least a few other players. It’s easier to successfully execute the pot sweetner strategy from a late betting position or the blinds pre-flop when there has only been limping into the pot. Most of those limpers will probably put in another bet, and now the pot will be doubled or close to it. A small raise into the pot will probably not scare off any other bettors already in the pot because now the pot odds are more favorable for everyone. A pot sweetner allows the players to remain in contention for a big pot at a small cost. Pot sweetner raises should be used sparingly. The best opportunity for pot sweetening is when you are on a big draw - say with 15 outs to complete either a flush or a straight. Your investment in the pot will be relatively small in relation to the potential reward if your monster hand materializes.

Ante up in Seven Card Stud Poker

June 11, 2009

Seven Card Stud is one of the classic poker online varieties, whose popularity has only recently begun to wan with the upsurge in Texas Holdem players on the internet. Like most popular poker online varieties, Seven Card Stud is a game of successive betting rounds. Players have the chance to set the tone of the game in each round, or enlarge the pot if they think they can win. The most important betting round, and the most pivotal one to the game, is actually the ante round.

Now antes in Seven Card Stud are set up in a similar manner to antes in other poker varieties. Typically, a Seven Card Stud ante is 10% of the lower table limit. So if you are playing at a $10-$20 table, the ante would be around $1. It may seem like small change at these stakes, but antes can really add up over time if you end up folding a lot. In a unique Seven Card Stud twist, the percentage of the ante to the table stakes can actually change. When you get into really high stakes games, the ante is often a higher percentage than normal. In some cases, the ante can even be as much as 25% of the betting limit. Larger antes result in larger pots earlier in the game.

Chat Box in Online Poker

February 25, 2009

Online poker provides a great opportunity to practice sound technical poker principles, such as calculating outs and sticking to good starter hands. But poker wisdom and pros often say that the game is more than just figuring out the numbers, pot odds and risk. People, their motivations and playing style make a big impact on the outcome of any poker game.

When playing poker online, you don’t have the same information available to you as during a live game with real people. You can’t pick up on body language signs to read your opponent’s intentions. There is one online tool you can utilize to get to know the other players better, and that is the chat box feature. By making comments about your hand or another player’s, you may draw some responses that reveal information about someone’s playing style.

The chat box can even let you be a bully, especially if you have acquired a big stack. Remember, the psychological aspect of poker can be just as important as the mathematical odds. If you have not encountered any of the players before, and they don’t know you, then you can try to use chat to intimidate, just as some players use trash talk at live tables. It’s possible to leverage the chat box to scare other people off the pot with just a few remarks that make other players wary of calling your bets. But don’t overdo it. Just as when choosing to play a hand, you must choose the right spots to use the chat box to attempt a steal or bluff.

You Can Download Your Free Real Arcade Games At Any Time

June 26, 2008


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Free Real Arcade Games are available in many famous websites during all the days and nights as well. More than fifty versions of those lovely games can be found and download completely free. The most famous of those free are Dinglebell, Sheep Dog, and Party Pooper too. The lovers of those games must keen with some specifications in their computers, such as Windows and English Language. Imagine that those games are not that easy ones, but they are involved with entertainment and passing the challenges too.