Poker Talk

Poker bonus is the free cash which the poker sites deposit in your account when you sign up with them. All rooms have bonus on deposits when you sign up with them either in form of “deposit bonus” or in form of “no deposit bonus”. Either way you tend to gain free cash which are being offered by the poker rooms. Some of the poker rooms offer “reload bonus” when they are satisfied that you are going to be a regular player. So when you make additional deposit they will offer you a poker bonus.

1) As it is free money many people feel that they can just take it and clear out. This is a big misconception. All the poker bonuses that are offered by the poker sites have some requirements. You have to play in the poker room before you get your hands on the money.

2) Another fact you have to be clear about is that it is very rare that you will have the poker bonus money to play with in your initial rounds. Some poker rooms will give you the poker bonus in one go but you have to play for some time and earn points. Some poker sites will give you in increments but you still have to complete the requirements. However you may get to play with some of the poker bonus money. Other poker rooms will deposit the money initially but you have to again fulfill the requirements before you can cash your poker bonus.

3) The requirements that you have to fulfill to get the poker bonus cash is to get enough loyalty or points which the poker rooms device. As you start playing, for each hand minimum amount of rake is obtained from the pot which constitutes as your poker point. To receive your poker bonus you have to collect specified amount of points.

4) It is relevant to mention here that some poker rooms like actually needs you to play cash in every hand to give you points. Some other poker rooms may not be that strict and allow you to have cards dealt to give credit for a raked hand.

5) The amounts of points that you have to collect are specified by the poker room’s terms and conditions. For instance a poker room specifies that you have to collect 8 points to earn $1 of the free money. So to earn $50 bonus money you have to collect 400 points. You can keep track of your points by the help of the poker website or it is built in the software itself.

6) As far as withdrawal is concerned the poker rooms specify the time limit-usually 30 to 60 days. Also you may not withdraw it till you collect required amount of points. Otherwise there is a chance that you may forfeit your initial deposit.

For amateurs in poker game, attempting small pocket pairs in an early position is not the right thing to do because they generally tend to lose their money in the attempt. Playing small pocket pairs in the medium position is slightly better because it offers you a little more opportunities of winning the pot as well as protecting your stack.

Playing in the Middle Position:

In the middle position, you have a fair chance of gaining from some of the pots and making limper money. You can make a lot of money from defenseless early position players.

The cards are dealt and you find that you have 99, which is neither a good nor a bad status. There is a great deal of action that awaits you and you have to be very cautious of likely tricks that your opponents are setting up against you. The most common action under the gun with an Ace-Ace or King-King is to limp in and hang around for the raise. When another player does the same, he comes to the top and tries to make you bet your stack. Be very careful of what you do here before you blindly decide to play aggressively and put in a good amount of your stack into the pot. You would only be doing what your opponent wants you to do.

The first round sees many of the contestants limping in and it is now time for you to place your bet. You are in a good position at the moment and can play aggressively and can try to get the pot down straightaway. You could try a six or seven times the blind raise and linger on for the result. If another player happens to come on top, you are beat and must let go of that hand. In case they are just multiplying your stake, you may call them and watch for the outcome at the flop. You could very well be seeing the last of the money here.

If you are called, be alert towards the board. You have to be loyal to a consecutive bet until you find 2 – 3 face cards out there. Supposing your opponents bet out, you might have to forego the hand, as there are chances that they may have hit the set. In case they decide to call you and you cannot see the chances of a draw, you are certainly beat and can only hope that they will check to you so that you can check down with an expectation of improvement when you get to the river. If a draw is at the table, you will need to play it aggressively and in turn dole out a good amount of your money. Players with flush draws will stake a lot of their money here but you must be careful that you are not sucked out in the procedure.

Another instance is when you have a small raise. This is just the appropriate time for you to camouflage your hand and observe the cards that hit the board. If it happens to be a low board, the following continuation bet can get you to the top again. In case they bet out on a high board, you can let go and cut your losses to the least.

The last instance is where the bet folds around you making you the first player in. This is the time to stand for and have a go at the blinds. You can dole out five or six times the blind bet and characterize a bigger hand than you really hold. You should not look out for callers at this stage since the board can be very risky. Here again you are committed to an extended bet but for a precarious board that happens to hit you.

An important fact that you must bear in mind is that the money that you intend to bet on small pocket pairs is an amount that you must be ready to say goodbye to at any time in the game. Trying to keep your stand even in a weak position will lead to a loss of money. Your aim is to dig big blinds and hit sets by playing with small pocket pairs and if you know how to play your middle position well, you can expect some good returns from it. Do not hang on to them; fold, as they are only poor calls.

Anyone who has played poker in both a real world casino and on the Internet knows that there are a few key differences between both playing experiences. The fact of the matter is that most people tend to act in different ways online and in the real world. It therefore follows that most people will also tend to play differently depending on where they are playing.

If it is at all possible, observe a player in both settings or even examine your own playing methods in both scenarios. You will likely see number of subtle differences in the way you bet, the way you bluff, and the way you play in general. This realization gives rise to a slightly different set of techniques, styles and strategies that you would adopt for online poker as opposed to playing in a real world casino. What this article will cover are a few strategies and techniques that are more applicable to playing poker in an online setting. Most online poker web sites generally tend to be the same in their approach, so you can probably use these tips successfully in most of them.

One thing that you will quickly notice even if you have only been playing poker on online poker sites for a short period of time is that on the whole, players tend to call a lot more on the Internet than in real life playing situations. There are various reasons for this occurrence, some of which range from the psychological to the technical. For one thing, the ready availability of a convenient “call” button in online poker sites presents a tempting prospect for the average player. It is simply a lot easier to click the mouse on the “call” button than calling in a real world poker game, the process of which involves reaching into your stack of chips, counting them up and placing them on the table in front of you. The fact that playing poker online generally assures you of a level of anonymity also makes players a lot more confident in making calls, since there is no one else around them to question their actions or to criticize them for making the wrong move. In fact, a player who might be quite hesitant to outdraw another player in a real world poker playing scenario will generally be far more bold and daring in an online setting.

So how does a poker player protect himself against these increased incidences of calls? The fact is that there is simply no to safeguard against these callers. You simply have to accept the fact that with more callers in online poker games, the variance or “swings” that you can expect will be greater as well, particularly in poker games with a low-limit. It may be beneficial for you to defend against these occurrences by playing correct poker as much as you can, and act accordingly to the other players in the game.

One more stepping stone you need to climb on your way out of poker “suckerdom” is to recognize the need to keep detailed records of your table antics. Regardless of how objective you think you are, simply keeping a mental track of what you do at the table is not enough, because you’ll always remember things in a slightly distorted way: from your own perspective, exaggerating the good moves you’ve made and forgetting about the bad ones.

The first thing you need to cover when deciding to keep serious track of how you’re performing at the green felt is the issue of the bankroll. Very few players keep a separate bankroll for poker purposes only. Most of us commit the mistake of mixing our everyday finances with the money we take to the poker tables and that’s just plain wrong.

Your primary objective at the poker table is to make money. Sure, some people play it for the fun and the kicks, but I’ll assume you’re in it for the money as much as for the fun aspect.

If your goal is to make money, you need to know exactly how much you’re making, and I’m not talking about keeping track of how much you take to the tables and how much you walk away with. For a serious player, that’s just not going to cut it. You need to know exactly what limits you play and how you do on each and every one of these limits. If you’re dominating a certain limit and you move on to a higher limit where you still win but you only make like $15 an hour, obviously, you shouldn’t hang around there just because it’s a higher limit and you’re aiming for the boasting rights. You should also sign up for rakeback too. Rake rebate deals like the Full Tilt rakeback or the Ultimate Bet rakeback offer you a very nice edge bankroll-wise. Leaving an edge like this unexploited is a sin for every serious poker player.

These factors don’t really have anything to do with actual hands-on poker strategy, but they will help you discover your strengths and weaknesses and ultimately they will help you become a better poker player.

How you keep track of your poker performance is up to you really. You can use the low tech approach of pen and paper, you can use Excel or another similar spread-sheet application, you can use the stats provided by your poker room or you can go really high tech and purchase an application like PokerTracker.

The basic information that you need to keep track of, should include the current date, the start time of the session and its end time (it’s quite easy to lose track of time amid all the excitement, so you need this information to be able to tell exactly how long you play), the total amount of buy-ins (all the money that you take to the tables) and the total amount of your cash outs. This basic information will help you determine your hourly rate, which will offer you a precious clue regarding the EV+ in the hands that you play.

Other information that you should also track: the limits at which you play and the location. Location is not only important for live play. Different online poker rooms throw different levels of competition at you, and if you have accounts in tens of poker rooms, you’ll eventually find it difficult to track what you did and where. The bottom line is, you need to know where you played, because you may dominate a certain limit in one poker room and struggle at the same limit in another.

The most important result is of course your hourly rate, but putting together monthly statistics as well as overall ones is also helpful.

I know it may seem like a lot of effort should go into these statistics but it isn’t exactly so. Once you start doing it, you’ll see it’s easy and the rewards it’ll offer you will be more then worth the effort you put into it.

Keeping records of your poker shenanigans may not give you a direct help at the table, but it will definitely help you identify and eliminate your weaknesses which will translate into a better overall table performance over time.

This is probably one of the biggest tells that people have in their games and they don’t even realize it. Think about how you play your hands before the flop and you will quickly understand what we are talking about here. How much do you raise pre-flop when you are sitting on AA? How much when you only have a small pocket pair?

A lot of players will make a huge raise on one or the other and then play the opposite with the opposite hands. When you do this, you are telling anyone that is paying attention exactly what you have. For instance, you are a player that gets overly aggressive or and raised 10x the blinds with a small pocket pair or you push all in every time when someone raises in front of you with the same hand. When you have AA or KK, you tend to make a small raise of 3x and possibly just call a big raise in front of you hoping for action.

Any decent player is going to be watching you and all you need is a few showdowns for them to know exactly how you play. Forget about trying to vary your raises pre-flop to keep people off balance because it is very easy to lose track of where you are in your raises and actually outsmart yourself here. The trick to being a successful pre-flop raiser is to bet the same amount every time regardless of what your hand is. If you are the first to raise, pick your number and stick with it every time you jump into a hand. If you raise someone who has raised, raise their bet the same amount as you would raise the blinds.

Let’s assume that the blinds are $10/$20. When the action gets to you, you want to raise so regardless of what you are holding, you will make it $120 to go. If someone had made it $60 to go before the flop, you can raise their raise 6x so you can make it $300 to go here. If players are paying attention, they are going to see that no matter what you have, you are pumping the pot by a 6x raise each and every time.

All you are going to need is a handful of showdowns to have everyone confused when they get into a hand with you. You need to do this early and often at the beginning of the session and show a variety of hands. If you are heads up and folding, show those weak hands that you raised 6x the blinds with just like you had to show the KK in a showdown.

The purpose of showing here is make sure that everyone knows you are capable of playing poker 450 the same way you will play AA. Once you are in their head, you can back of showing your cards and play normally. Now when you are in the pot, they have no idea what you have and will tread very carefully around you. This is going to enable you to pull off some major bluffs and also create a lot of action when you really do land some nice hands.