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Roulette: Basic Tips for Play

Don’t play on an “American” wheel. This may seem unpatriotic to the uninformed, but the difference between a “European” wheel, which does not include the 00 as a slot, and the “American” wheel, which has the 00 included, is an overall house edge for the casino of 5.26%, which is simply unbeatable in the short or long term. The edge the casino has with European wheels is smaller; take the opportunity to play those tables if they are available at your casino.

Don’t play the “basket” bet. Betting on the line between 0 and 1 is what is commonly referred to as a “basket” bet, which looks appealing due to the ability to hit 5 numbers for one bet. The casino’s edge – whether it’s a land-based casino or one of your favored online casinos – on this bet, however, is a staggering 7.29%, which is sure to cripple any bankroll after a few $50 bets go down the tubes on that bet: for every $100 you place on it, you should only expect $92.71 back!

Do be willing to play the even money bets. Even though the thrill of hitting your number when playing roulette online may be something to cheer for, it also comes with the common knowledge that the casino is not paying out 37:1 odds on your 37:1 shot. The red/black bet or even/odd bets, however, are the best edge that you can get on the table, offering any even money bet on a 18/37 shot, which is a much more negligible house edge than directly betting a number every time. It may seem like a boring way to play roulette; red, red, black, red instead of 34, 34, 17, 00, but in the long run, your gambling funds will decreases less on your time at the tables will increase; both positive side effects from playing smart roulette.

Gifts for Poker Players

Now that the holidays are upon us, there are no doubt a lot of parents or friends with poker players in their lives that are trying to figure out what to get them as a present for said holidays.

While there’s no sure-shot gift that any poker player would be thrilled to get, we do have a couple of suggestions that should at least server as a starting point for your gift-giving.

Gift Certificates: Yup, poker rooms offer these as well, not just Wal Mart and Best Buy.  The major rooms such as Full Tilt Poker offer gift certificates that allow you to provide a shot of funds into the bankroll of some one on your gift list.

Software: This is trickier, but Holdem Manager has a great suite of applications that are sure to be a hit with online poker players.  You might want to do some snooping to see what software they already have before making a purchase.

Gear: Shirts, hats, whatever –  live poker players and casual players tend to love to brodcast the fact that they play poker, and a funny poker shirt is just the thing to give them the billboard they’re asking for.

A final thought –  don’t discount the possibility that the poker player in your life is sick of poker and would prefer a nice sweater or six pack instead.

Maximising your poker bankroll

I have heard of online poker players who have started at very low levels of play and ended up playing relatively high stakes in a very short space of time through simply adhering to one thing……professional bankroll management. While having good control over your bankroll will not make you a great poker player, being a great poker player and having poor money management skills will leave you broke.

If you doubt what I say then there are plenty of high profile big named players who can fit that description perfectly. Having proper bankroll management can turn mediocre players into winning players and good players into very successful players. It can also turn very successful players into mega earners.

So lets say that you wanted to buy into a poker site for $1000 and play Texas Hold em online, what sort of level would be good enough? Well if your fancy was no-limit full-ring then $0.25-$0.50 (NL50) may be a good place to start. You are now starting with 20 buy-ins at that level! If you win say $1000 now your bankroll will be $2000.

Many players who win that $1000 either do one of two things, they cash the money out and stay at NL50 (no bad thing) or they leave the money and have a bigger bankroll at NL50 (no bad thing either). Some players may take out say half ($500) and have a bigger bankroll at NL50 (still not a bad thing).

There is absolutely nothing wrong at staying at a level that you know that you can beat. But you owe it to yourself to at least try a higher level at least once. You may find that you can beat NL100 but how will you know if you don’t try. If you took that $1000 profit and added it to your original bankroll then you have $2000.

That is still twenty buy-ins at NL100 but the point is that you don’t use twenty buy-ins as at this stage, you don’t know if NL100 is too tough for you. So you use the $1000 profit which is ten buy-ins and take a shot at the higher level. If you lose the $1000 then you simply drop back down to NL50 having only lost $1000 and a little time and earnings.

But your potential upside could have been enormous because had you been successful at NL100 then you would have experienced an increased earn rate for the rest of your playing career (hopefully) and that is what’s called speculation. When your upside is substantially in excess of any downside then you just have to take a calculated risk at some stage. This is what all of the worlds great investors have done down the years and people like Warren Buffet have made billions of dollars through this process.

Why stop there, what if you took to NL100 like a duck to water and immediately won another $3000? You now have $5000 behind you and $1000 of that could still be there in case you need to play NL50 again.

Now you have twenty five potential buy-ins at NL200 but you are not risking twenty five buy-ins because NL200 may be too tough for you. You risk ten buy-ins which is $2000 safe in the knowledge that you have the $3000 to play NL100 with and the $1000 to play NL50 with.

It is amazing how far you can take this and if variance hits you favourably then you can spin relatively small amounts of money into very large amounts indeed but you have to give yourself a chance doing it and you won’t know until you try.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Online Poker Regulation Not on The Horizon?

Is online poker regulation in the cards in the US?  That’s not the view of many analysts, who believe that despite significant progress on the part of the online poker grassroots political movement, online poker regulation simply isn’t going to take place in 2010.

There’s no shortage of popular support for online poker, but it’s simply a matter of a lack of legislative movement.  The process of introducing a law in the US is a cumbersome one, and the political will to pass anything having to do with online gambling makes everything more complicated still.

While poker remains popular and accepted by mainstream America, there’s still the issue of online gambling that surrounds the conversation concerning online poker.  It’s difficult to talk about one without talking about that other, and that gives opponents of regulation significant ammo to work with in the popular and legislative debates surrounding online poker.

All of those factors mean one thing: it’s not going to be tomorrow.  Regulation in the US is going to continue to face an uphill battle, and that’s the way that it is.  The truth is online poker regulation is a complicated issue that’s going to take some time to sort out, both in the public and legislative arenas.

Visual Traits of Player Types

The rock. The rock is going to be dressed for a marathon session at the card table; generally reserved, plain clothes, with little to call attention to himself. The rock is not at the game to seek fame, just to sit back and wait for a few hours for a monster. They may bring a book or a headset with them to the game, something to keep them bust while they wait for a big hand. When in a hand, look for them to suddenly turn their attention to the hand in question; clicking the music player off, setting the book down, or coming out of their mini coma are all sure signs that the rock has came back to Earth and has an interest in the hand. You can get the rock to talk, but he generally won’t be apt to discuss much more than idle topics, and probably not for a long period of time; he doesn’t want to lose focus.

The super aggressive guy. Look for flash. Chains, jewelry, designer clothes, shades, gaudy hats, anything that screams, “LOOK AT ME” on his person is usually a sure sign that the person in question wants action and wants a lot of it. He’ll be the life of the party at the table, drinking, ordering cocktails for the table, making jokes, getting infuriated, and basically doing anything in his power to make players pay attention to him. When playing, he will tend to make his bets, raises, and folds exaggeratedly, with sweeping hand motions or loud verbal declarations. If you can hear the player as you’re walking into the poker room, chances are you’re looking at an aggro player.

The Internet pro. Logos are a dead giveaway; any hats, shirts, hoodies, or other sire related paraphernalia are sure signs of online players. The guy with a Party Poker hat or shirt is probably playing online poker at PartyPoker.com. The amount of live play they have can sometimes be determined by the way they handle chips; if they have trouble shuffling chips or seem to struggle remembering chip values, they’re probably not very versed in live play. Online players also like to bet curious amounts; instead of $10, $11, instead of t700, t725, and so on. The younger a player is, the more likely it is that they’re primarily a online player, as well. They generally are quiet, and won’t really engage the table much more than a friendly reply to any question asked to them.

The amateur. Will play their chips from a rack. Will cut out their profit they’ve earned at the table and set it to a separate stack to track how much they’ve won. Will look like a general tourist, most of the time; fanny packs, gambling guides, and other booklets may be in hand when they come to the table. Expect them to be very chatty, and very honest about their skill levels; they aren’t afraid to admit that it is their first attempt at playing poker. Will handle their chips awkwardly and make very curious bets; either betting less than the blinds or making obscene overbets.

Beginning Baccarat for Poker Players

Don’t ever bet on the tie! This is one of the casino’s biggest edges in any game in the casino, and is one of the only ways you can really screw up in betting on baccarat, so whatever you do, don’t choose to bet the tie! You can refrain from betting on any deal, although it’s frowned upon when done frequently. If you have to bet something, bet either dealer or player, then.

Don’t use the Fibonacci system without a proper bankroll. Many players use the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…) as a stop-loss method to ensure that, so long as their bankroll can cover the increasing bet sizes, they always will recover their losses and be able to grind out a profit in the long run. This system is used both live and at online sites such as www.casino.org. There are two fallacies with this logic; an infinite bankroll and ignoring the house cut on the dealer hand (5%) that, when making the bigger bets, can really cut into your profits.

If the minimum bet at your table is $10, you’re looking at a $10/$10/$20/$30/$50 progression that, if you miss a fifth bet, starts escalating into the triple digit category. Most players don’t bring bankrolls that can cover the swings of such steep losing streaks; if you lose 7 in a row, you’re betting $210 on your next hand in hopes of recovering back to even, and if the dealer wins, you lose $10 of that in commission! In the long run, players without healthy bankrolls find themselves broke after a terrible run of cards; be willing to step up to that 7 or 8 tier of the sequence if you want to properly use it as your method of playing baccarat!

Team Tournaments: A Brief Overview

The Poker Room Tournaments have finally arrived. In this latest and the most awaited innovation and the breakthrough in the internet poker business for years, the Poker Rooms have announced the arrival of the Team Tournaments. To read more about these and similar tournament formats, visit www.pokersites.com for complete reviews. You can now join your preferred team of 10 years, or even create new poker friends.

The Poker Room teams comprise of minimum 5 players and maximum 10 players, and they compete in the Team Leagues or in the Team Eliminators for cash prizes as well. They are generally created by a Team Manager who can invite the payers into their team or even accept players in who want to be a part of their team.

The basic role of a team manager is to assign players for playing in matches and for signing the teams up for various activities. Each individual poker player will be responsible for his own buy-in matches he is participating in.

The game of poker has different interesting levels of the games, and the Team Eliminator Competitions are just a part of this wonderful game that draws in thousands and thousands of players from all parts of the world.

In these Team Eliminator Competitions, the teams battle against each other in the heads-up match. A player will be nominated for representing a particular team in each of the rounds involved and they will play against an opponent from the other teams involved in the game.

The winning player’s team will march on to the higher level of the game while the losing team will have to leave the game from the moment they have lost their hand. Following this method, more than half of the teams will be eliminated at the end of each round, and that will finally leave you with two of the strongest contending teams in the game of Poker.

A Guide to Blackjack: Doubling Down

Some players play blackjack all their life and never take the chance of doubling down when offered. They came to only play the minimum bet, every time, and enjoy themselves and their $5 bets until the money runs out. What they don’t realize, however, is that doubling down is the opportunity to press the biggest edge you can get at the blackjack table! The opportunity to double your bet when presented with incredibly favorable situations is a gold mine to the advanced blackjack player. When you have an 11 and the dealer is showing a 5, how can you not want to put more money on the table against such an incredibly good situation such as this?

Now, different casinos have different rules as far as the double down is concerned. Some of them, you may only double on 10 or 11. Others will not allow you to double if you split your hands; if you split into two 11’s, for example, the edge you would have over the casino would be massive. Most casinos also allow you to double for less than your original wager; if you’re going to double down, you’re pushing an edge, so double for the full amount, every time.

You should be doubling anytime you have 10 or 11 and the dealer is showing a 2-6. The odds that the dealer will bust, regardless of the card you draw, is between 35-42%! Now, remember, when you double down, you only get one card, but with the dealer busting out 35-42% of the time before you even look at your card, you can already see what kind of edge you have in the long run over the dealer. With 10/11, your odds of hitting 20-21 are significantly improved as well, and you cannot bust; this combination of good situations makes doubling down ideal for a up and coming blackjack player.

League Tournament Structures for Online Poker

Poker league tournaments are now played in some of the leading Poker Rooms. These tournaments are made up of a number of rounds, and each of these rounds has several players who have been playing simultaneously. The team often pays a buy-in for entering into the league. This usually varies according to the total number of teams in the leagues, the number of rounds being played, and whether or not these rounds are paid on a daily or weekly basis.

For instance, a usual Poker Room Team Tournament 20 team league will have total 10 rounds with each of these rounds composing of 5 simultaneous matches. Each of these poker matches would be the multi-table games with one single play from each of the 20 teams playing the game.

The winning prize money of this game will normally be made up of the total buy-ins paid by individual teams and will be paid out after all the 10 rounds have been completed. This is the basic system of the League Tournaments played in some of the leading Poker Rooms.

Tactics Used to Handle Expert Poker Players

When you are laying a poker hand and your opponent is an expert, there’s no way you can take a risk. If not an expert, you must definitely have some idea about your moves so that you can at least give the opponent a tough fight.
In order to excel in the game of poker, you will need:

Confidence
The key to success in poker is confidence- not over confidence. Most of the pro poker players are what they are today because of the fact that they know how to play an aggressive game. Sometimes, doing the same is necessary.

Short Stacking Tips
Short-stacking is the best idea for people who are actually worried about being run over by their opponents in the no-limit games. It is basically the act of buying into this game for smaller amounts. The giant players are ever hungry for money, and if you give them that, they may forget their target. That would make it easier for you.

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