For New Hold'em Poker Players

If you're new to the game of hold'em poker this guide is definitely one you should read. It won't teach you strategies but it will show you the basic rules and how the game is played.

If you like it please leave a comment.

Good Luck

Short Handed Poker Tournament Play

In a poker tournament if you find yourself at the final table, or are playing in a sit-n-go, it will work down to a short-handed game eventually. A short-handed game is a game with five or less players.Play in a short-handed game is quite a bit different than play at a full table.

The first thing to remember is that the blinds come around much faster so that your game has to loosen up.

High cards go up in value and drawing hands go down in value. In addition, pairs go up in value. The reason for this is that there are fewer players to draw out on you.
Remember that you will never be getting the proper pot odds to draw to straights and flushes.
It is best to raise when you have high cards or any pair (even deuces). Because the chances are that you have the best hand going in and you should make the other players pay to draw against you.

As the number of players decreases the faster the blinds will come around and the more aggressively you will have to play. This means when there are five players you should play higher cards and medium pairs. If there are four or less players you should play all pairs and high cards. You should also be willing to raise more with these holdings.

Remember you probably have the best hand so play it!




Good Luck

Please leave your comments.

Poker tournaments-downtown Las Vegas

In downtown Las Vegas there are four poker rooms. All of these rooms feature no limit hold`em tournaments. Most are held seven days a week.

• Fitzgeralds: This casino holds re-buy tournaments which are held daily at 12 pm and 9 pm. The buy-in is $35; the re-buy is $15, and the add-on at the end of the re-buy period is also $15.

• Golden Nugget: Tournaments are held daily at 11 am, 3 pm, 7 pm, and 1 am. The buy-in is $65 with one $45 re-buy

• Binion's: Tournaments are held daily at 10 am, 2 pm, 8 pm, and 2 am. The buy-in is $70 with one $40 re-buy. The winners of each of these tournaments receive an entry into a monthly freeroll. This casino also hosts the "Ultimate Poker Challenge", for information call the poker room at 702-366-7397

• Plaza: There are two tournaments held daily 7 pm and 12 am. The 7 pm tournament buy-in is $50 with one $20 re-buy. The 12 am buy-in is $70 with a $30 re-buy. Single table "Sit-N-Go" tournaments are also offered between 10 am to 5 pm with $40 buy-in.

These card rooms also have special tournaments that you can inquire about from the staff, when you visit the room of your choice.

How to know Your Poker Odds

Hand odds
Poker odds can be defined, in the simplest terms, as the odds of making your hand in the remaining cards to come. Though this is important, it is not the only thing to consider when trying to work out the odds on a particular hand.

The easiest way to calculate the odds on a particular hand is to count the number of outs that you have to make your hand. Outs are the number of cards left in the deck that will make or improve the cards that you already have. To work out the odds just subtract the number of outs from the unseen cards to come and the answer will tell you what the odds are for that particular situation.

A good example of this would be, in a game of Hold’em, where you hold two cards to a flush and the flop brings two more, so that you have four cards to the flush. There are nine more cards that can complete your hand and there are forty-seven unseen cards left. If you subtract nine from forty-seven this gives you thirty-eight. So your odds are thirty-eight to nine, or roughly four to one, against making your hand.


You will be most concerned with the odds when you are drawing to a straight or a flush. The easiest way to remember this is that a straight is a 5 to1 underdog when only 1card is needed to make it, if it is an open ended straight. A flush is a 4 to 1 underdog when only 1 card is needed to complete it.

Pot Odds
You must also compare the odds of making your hand with the odds the pot is offering (pot odds) for the bet that has to be made. If the odds of making your hand are xx/1, is the pot offering those or better odds? If it is then this is a good bet, if not then it is a bad bet.

Another consideration to think about is the chances that you will be beaten even if you make the hand you are drawing for. If this is a possibility then the pot odds have to be greater than the odds of just making your hand to make up for those times you are beaten.

Implied Odds
An important consideration, that you need to look at, is the implied odds that the table is giving you. Implied odds are the additional bets that you will collect on later betting rounds if you make your hand. This is mostly a judgment call based on what you know about your competition and how they have been playing the hand so far.

With practice and experience you will be able to estimate what the odds of winning the most from each of your hands are.

Good Luck

The Future of Poker

The future of poker is not as bleak as most online players would have us believe. For the rest of the world it will still be the online poker rooms, but for us in the US it will be quite different.

We will be going to live poker rooms to play because poker will not go away. The popularity of the game that was brought on by television is still with us. But, as Americans we will demand convenience, there will be an increase in the number of local poker rooms around the country.

How this will come about we can only guess. We suspect that local and state governments will see the chance for increased revenue and begin to authorize more poker rooms. This will present opportunities for gaming businesses to operate in new or expanded areas. Because the demand for the game and government greed will not go away.

So look for the changes. They will come.

Good Luck

Poker Tounaments vs Cash Games

Here is an article by Matthew Hilger that I think is really worth a read if you can't decide which you want to play.
http://www.internettexasholdem.com/index.php?option=com_content

Poker TV shows

Last night/this morning, I watched ESPN and they had a poker tournament with a twist. It was a pro-am tournament with the amateurs starting out with 50% more chips than the pros. The name of the show is "Pro-Am Equalizer" catch it if you can. For example, the amateurs were Shannon Elizabeth and Don Cheadle. It was a lot of fun watching these two try and beat the four pros on the table..

Another show I've been watching is "Poker After Dark" on NBC at 2:00 AM. It's kind of late but it's a good show. It gives you an insight into how the pros think when they're just playing with each other.

As I said in an earlier post that the TV shows weren't going to go away. Instead they are becoming more numerous.

MTR sells Speedway Casino

MTR gaming announced yesterday that they have sold the Speedway casino in N. Las Vegas for $18.2 million. As they paid $20 million for Binions (previously known as Binions Horseshoe) and the Speedway (total) this means that they ended up paying only $1.8 million for one of the most historic hotel/casinos in downtown Las Vegas.

Having played at Binions on numerous occasions, I think they have made quite a deal. It has one of the best poker rooms in downtown.

I'll be talking about this room later.

Good Luck

A Change In The Poker World

I have been reading a lot of posts about the "unlawful internet gaming act". They all talk about the effect that this law will have on online poker, but none look at what it will do to B&M rooms.

As the televised poker shows will still be seen and people will still want to play poker, their only alternative will be to go to the B&M rooms. In most states poker is legal in public card rooms. Though I agree that the law does not make playing online illegal, it does make it very difficult to fund an account online. Especially since Neteller and the other main money transfer businesses have pulled out of the US market.

In playing here in Las Vegas I am running into many online players that have given up on the internet. They are afraid that their money is not safe or readily available. These players will have to change their approach to the game and the strategies they use.

Right now many players have to travel quite a distance to a local card room, but as time goes by I think that many more rooms will open up in more convenient locations.

The poker boom will not end. It will just change direction.

Good Luck

Bankroll Leaks

I was reading a thread in the TwoplusTwo forum that got me thinking about leaks in my bankroll. In the thread a player was saying that, though he was a winning player at poker, he could not seem to help himself from playing blackjack and losing. And I realized that I had the same problem with video poker.

Though I may win in a game or lose, after I leave the table I will go play video poker. I will play sometimes until I have lost my whole bankroll. If I am going to be serious about poker I have to find some way to plug this leak. I think I am going to have stay away from the machines and not consider them a form of entertainment. How I am going to do this I don't know but I must find a way.

There are other leaks in my game but I think this is the most important one and until I can fix this I am not going to worry about them.

Good Luck

Brick and mortar card rooms-Journal

I played in the card room at Binion's last night and found it very frustrating as I was only able to sit in a 2/4 limit game with a lot of tourists. These people play very lose and wild. As I don't really like a 2/4 game to begin with it was very hard to stay. After about an hour I left and looked elsewhere.

I went to the Fitz and found a 3/6 game going and sat in. I like the games at the Fitz as they are more sane. I also enjoy the people there and the food is great in their coffee shop. Though the game broke up early I did enjoy myself.

If you're going to play downtown at all I recommend the Fitzgerald poker room. It is a new room and the dealers are very helpful.

Good Luck

Brick and mortar card rooms II

In Las Vegas the poker rooms mostly offer three types of games. They are holdem, seven card stud, and omaha. Though many rooms offer all three of these games, most do not. Later on I will talk about which games are played at each room in town. But for now just be aware that this is the case.

Each game requires a different set of strategies and playing style. As do the types of players that normally play in the room. Some rooms are frequented by mainly tourists and others by locals. This means the games can be very lose or very tight. A game played in a room that mainly has tourists tends to be far loser than a game that is played in a locals room. As far as the way to play each of these games, you will have to read up on them on your own.

For now just check out the rooms you like and the games played there then try to learn about the best way to play them.

Brick and mortar card rooms

Today I want to talk about playing in B&M card rooms around Las Vegas, NV. In the future I am going to list the rooms that I play at, but for now let's just talk about the idea of playing in a real room.

The first thing to remember is that you must sign in and get on the list of players waiting for a seat. You will be asked your name or initials. The next thing you will have to let the floor man know is what game you want to play and at what limit. He will then put you on the list for that game and will call your name when a seat becomes open.

You will see that there are two types of games, limit and no limit. Limits for each game will be posted. They look like a fraction such as 2/4. This means that the limit before the flop and on the flop is $2 and the limit after the flop is $4, in holdem. In other games it will be posted in the same way but will apply to other points in the game. A no limit game will be posted in the same way but will apply to the blinds only.

Before you go to your table you will need to buy some chips. There will be a minimum buy in for the game you have chosen, you can get that many or more.

Next time we'll talk about the games you can play and how to chose them.

Discover Hold’em POSITION Power

In Hold’em poker, the importance of your position in relation to the dealer can not be stressed enough.

The reason for learning position is that the later your position is the more information you will have about the other players. If you are in the last, or dealer position, you have the most information of all the other players, because they all have to act before you have to make a decision.

There are hands that you would throw away, without a second thought, in one position and raise with in another. The problem is learning which position is best for each action.

The first point that you must learn is where the positions are at the table.

• Early position: any one of the first four places to the left of the dealer button;
• 
  Middle position: any one of the next three places to the left of the dealer; and
• 
  Late position: any one of the next two or three positions including the dealer position.

The starting hand requirements for each position are quite different.

• 
  Early position: You want to play only premium hands such as high pairs, high suited connectors, or high cards. This is because you don’t know what is going to happen after you have bet or called. For this reason only cards that can stand a raise should be played.
• 
  Middle position: You still need quality hands. Because the chances of raises are less, you can play more marginal cards. In this position you can start to play drawing hands and medium pairs.
• 
  Late position: You can play lower pairs and smaller drawing hands, if the conditions are right.

Play before the flop

• 
  Early position: Play only high pairs such as AA, KK, QQ, and JJ. Play high cards such as AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, and KJ suited or unsuited. With AA, KK, QQ, AK, and AQ you need to raise or reraise to drive out drawing hands that may beat you later.
• 
  Middle position: In this location you can start to play weaker hands like medium pairs such as 10’s thru 7’s and drawing hands such as A10, K10, QJ, Q10, Q9, J10, and J9, suited or unsuited.
• 
  Late position: Here you can play small pairs and suited high cards such as Ax, Kx, Qx, even Jx if there hasn’t been a raise before you. If there has been a raise, before the action gets to you, you should fold all of these hands. High cards (AK, AQ) should be played without raising, in this position, because you aren’t likely to drive anyone out and they are still drawing hands after all.

Play after the flop

When you have seen the flop, you have seen over 70% of your hand. This means that you must decide whether to bet your hand or to fold.

• 
  Early position: If you do not have a strong hand, and you are pretty sure that the other players will call, it is best to check and see what the others are going to do. If you have top pair, it is best to bet or raise to take away the drawing odds (covered in another article) for those players on a draw. Also this is the time to consider a check raise if you are sure someone will bet and you have a very strong hand.
• 
  Middle position: Here you should think about being more aggressive with your marginal hands, if no one has bet before you. A bet here may drive out hands that could beat you later on or may already have you beat. Again bet your top pairs and made hands. This is not a position to go for a check raise as you may end up giving someone a free card.
• 
  Late position: This is where you want to play your middle pairs and semi bluffs aggressively. If no one has bet or raised before you, the chances are that no one has a hand they are that proud of, and you may be able to take the pot right now.

By the time you have reached the turn and the river you should know how strong your hand is in relation to the other players. With a little study and experience you will know how to play your hand. For the most part, try studying your opponents and act in ways they don’t expect.

In the beginning try to concentrate on what position you are in at all times. As you gain more experience at the tables, you will find that knowing your position will become automatic and you won’t even have to think about it.

Good Luck

Limit vs No Limit Poker-2

I've been playing a lot of limit poker lately and have come up with some interesting figures. For one thing, I've found that limit poker gives me a ROI of about 50%. This is quite a bit higher than no-limit poker. For the same amount of buy-in, a limit game returns a much larger profit than a no-limit game. I think this is because the buy-in requirement in a limit game is so much lower and therefore alows you to play in lager games.

I find that a limit game buy-in should be about 10 times the big bet. A no-limit game should require at least 100 times the big blind. So that a $200 buy-in gets you into a $10-$20 limit game and the same buy-in only gets you into a $1&$2 blind no-limit game.

But again this depends on your temperament and style of play. For some of us, I think limit play is the most comfortable and profitable.

WEBSTER

Limit vs No Limit Poker

I have been playing no limit poker for about the last year. Last night I decided to play in a limit game and found out some interesting things.

Although the pros tell us to go to no limit as soon as posible, I wonder if this is true for all players. I found that ROI (return on investment) is much higher as a % of the amount you need to buy in with in a limit game.

I think that the mind set and playing style of some players is better suited to limit play than to no limit. I only played in three limit games last night but I think it deserves a closer look.

To this end I am going to be playing in more limit games to get a larger sample and better comparison. I'll let you know what I find out.

Webster

Video Poker

I went to a local casino today to play some video poker, which I do quite often. And one thing that struck me about it was the way you have to make your bet before every hand. Unlike live poker or online poker where you can make a judgement before you bet.

In a live game what has happened, before it is your turn to act, greatly affects what you are going to do. In video poker you are limited to that one bet before the hand is dealt and you can't raise,call, or fold. There isn't much leeway to use any strategy other than what cards to draw to.
So I wondered why I play the game, when I know I can't control the outcome. The only thing I can think of, is that the game is addictive and once I start I can't control myself.

If anyone else sees this differently please let me know!

Webster

WSOP

Hi;
Yesterday I went over to the RIO to see what was going on at the WSOP(World Series of Poker). I saw many of the top pros in the business like Mike Sexton of WPT, Chris Ferguson, Annie Duke, and many others.
Jack Binion was also walking around. Since he's the one who invented the tournament, I guess he wanted to see how the new guys were running it.
If you want to keep up to date on what is happening over there just click onto WSOP Blog. This is a report that I do on my web site for my visitors and I hope you enjoy it.
Well that's it for now but I'll be back.
WEBSTER

Introduction

Hi;
This is Webster and I am new to Blogging so I'll just intro myself for now.
I'll be back with more later.