Posts Tagged ‘Online Poker’

How Long should you Play Poker?

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

One of the biggest mistakes that many online poker players make is extending a session too long. For example, if you start to lose concentration after two hours of playing and you keep going, you’ve played too much online poker.

Now you may be wondering why somebody would keep playing when they’re no longer focusing on the game. And the answer is that many players don’t even think anything about it when they’ve been on the poker tables too long. In essence, it becomes somewhat of blur, kind of like when you’re playing a video game for hours.

The downside of extending online poker sessions past when you can reasonably concentrate is that you stop focusing on opponents’ tendencies. Furthermore, you begin making small mistakes such as calling when you shouldn’t or playing marginal hands past the flop. So basically, playing poker for lengthy hours decreases your profitability with the game.

This being the case, it’s crucial that you both know your limits for playing, and stick to this limit. The only way to truly find out how long you can play poker is to go until you feel yourself losing concentration. For instance, if you fall into a lull after two hours, this should be your limit for the time being.

Interestingly enough, most poker players can extend the amount of time they’re able to play eventually. A large part of this is just getting better at the game, and having the correct moves become automatic responses. As you become more comfortable with playing longer online poker sessions, a good way to increase your interest is by multi-tabling. By managing two tables or more, you increase the challenge, which in turns keeps you more focused on the game. Just make sure you’re a winning player before you start multi-tabling!

 

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Dealing with Calling Stations on your Left

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

For the most part, playing against calling stations in online poker is a blessing because they’re willing to call lots of raises and bets with marginal holdings. However, things can get a little trickier when this calling station is immediately to your left.

By having this kind of player to the left, your chances of successfully bluffing are diminished because there’s a good chance they will call any raise. Going further, you can’t really hope to check-raise them too often either because calling stations will also check to see free cards. Long story short, having a calling station sitting to your left can be annoying and bothersome.

Fortunately, it’s not too difficult to outplay these fish if you alter your game a little. The first thing you need to be aware of is that bluffs should be taken out of your arsenal. Now this sucks when you have late position because the ability to steal is essentially gone, but you can make up for this in other areas, which we’ll get to next.

The big bonus to having a calling station to your left is that you can open up your range of playable hands. Of course, doing so requires that you’ve played with this opponent long enough to see what their range is. But once you’ve accomplished this, you’ll be able to play a wider range of hands from late position, and value bet more effectively.

The whole key to beating a calling station is knowing just how far they’ll go to call a raise, and punishing them for this. Assuming you ever get stuck on a table full of calling stations, you can sit back and wait for premium hands because A) you know they won’t be re-raising you a lot, and B) once you do get a premium hand, you can get a lot more value because there’s a good chance at least one player will call your big raises.

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Absolute Poker $30m Tax Bill – The Final Scandal

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Absolute Poker has never been the most reputable site since they were entangled in one of the biggest poker scandals in history. An employee by the name of Allan Grimard (a.k.a. AJ Green) played under the superuser account “POTRIPPER,” and could see his opponents’ hole cards. After various complaints were lodged, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission investigated the matter, and discovered that Grimard essentially stole millions of dollars from players through seeing their hole cards.

With this little history lesson out of the way, it’s worth mentioning that Absolute’s mark on the poker world will soon come to a close because they’re reportedly ready to liquidate assets and pay players back. Now players won’t receive full payment back on their deposits since Absolute is apparently only going to deliver between 15 and 20 cents on the dollar; but it’s probably more than most players expected to get.

Speaking of liquidating their assets, it doesn’t look like Absolute will be paying the $30 million tax bill that the Norwegian government has sent their way. After a lengthy investigation done by Norway’s Tax Crimes unit, they concluded that Absolute Poker had been laundering money through the country via a holding company called Madeira Fjord.

Those who followed Absolute after Black Friday may remember Madeira Fjord because they filed bankruptcy when the poker site refused to pay them for services. And now it’s been revealed that these services included laundering money for AP when they were having trouble accepting US customer deposits.

In any case, it looks like Absolute Poker and their checkered past will soon be wiped off the map when everything is sold, and players receive fractions of what they’re owed. Furthermore, co-owner Brent Beckley is headed off to prison for 12-18 months, while colleague Scott Tom should be joining him in the near future.

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Spotting Bluffs in Poker

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

The most romanticized-about aspect of poker is no doubt bluffing. You see it in movies and TV shows, and all of the beginners want to discuss it. But in reality, bluffing isn’t as big of a part of online poker as everybody makes it out to be. That said, bluffs still happen enough to make them relevant though, so it’s worth discussing how to spot them.

The first thing you need to realize is exactly what we said to open the article in that bluffing isn’t as prevalent as people think. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you’ll get out of the mindset that players are constantly trying to bluff you; in turn, this prevents you from wasting unnecessary chips while calling players all of the time.

In regards to actually catching somebody in a bluff, you need to know their betting tendencies, what range of cards they typically play, and what the board looks like. For example, let’s say your opponent is extremely aggressive, they raise with 66/KJ/etc. from just about any position, and the board reads 5-8-3 rainbow; in this scenario, any raise could be construed as a bluff. But before you call or re-raise here, you need to have enough info on your opponent to make an informed decision.

Assuming you don’t have enough info on an opponent to spot their bluffs, just remember one thing: being bluffed isn’t the worst thing in the world. In fact, it might even be +EV in the long-run to simply fold rather than trying to sniff out a bluff when you’re not quite sure.

Lots of experience with reading opponents and studying their tendencies will definitely help you spot bluffs as well, so keep this in mind while you’re playing poker.

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Online Poker removed from Wire Act – Legal Now?

Monday, December 26th, 2011

In a surprise bit of news the other day, the US Department of Justice clarified the Wire Act of 1961, and stated that online poker is no longer considered in violation of this law.

This is a pretty big victory for online poker in the United States because the Wire Act outlaws gambling when it crosses from state to state. Seeing as how internet poker no longer falls under the Wire Act any longer, it’s not technically illegal.

Of course, it was never “illegal” for people to play online poker – except in the state of Washington – but it’s still good news that federal lawmakers no longer consider internet poker breaking the law. Instead, the only online wagering activity that the US government views as illegal now is online sports betting.

So does this mean that lawmakers are turning a blind eye towards online poker and chasing after sports betting operations instead? Absolutely not, and you can still expect the UIGEA to continue hampering US online poker until regulation and legalization is set in motion.

After all, the UIGEA prevents banks from dealing with gambling-related transactions, and this is the big reason why some poker sites have committed bank and wire fraud in order to service players. They need ways around the current laws, and unfortunately, these methods have turned out to be illegal in certain situations.

So while online poker may not fall under the Wire Act anymore, we still have a ways to go before those in the US are playing poker free and clear. With talk of regulation some time in 2012 or 2013, it may not be an eternity before the United States sees a better structure in place for online poker players. But we’ll have to wait until that day actually comes.

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Knowing when you’ve beaten an Online Poker Limit

Sunday, December 18th, 2011


Those who want to make more and more profits in online poker obviously have to move up the stakes. Of course, the smart thing to do is to wait until you’ve officially conquered a certain limit before moving on towards the next. That being said, many online poker players wonder when they’ve officially beaten a cash game limit.

After all, there is no set number of poker hands that will tell you when you’re a truly successful player at certain stakes. Some people say 5k hands or more, some people say you won’t know until you’ve played 100k hands or more. The reason why it’s so difficult to pinpoint an amount is because there’s so much variance involved with playing internet poker.

The reality is that you can never be absolutely sure about your win rate until you’ve played at least several hundred thousand poker hands at one limit. But you can take a look at your win rate vs. the amount of hands played to come up with a reasonable idea.

For example, let’s say that you’re playing at the $0.01/$0.02 stakes, and you are winning 2bb/per hour after 20,000 hands. Now this isn’t too bad for a recreational grinder who learns a little poker strategy on the side. However, if you truly want to be a winning player who makes money from the game, a win rate of 2bb ($0.04 total) at the smallest online poker stakes possible isn’t the greatest. Furthermore, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that you’ll crush the $0.02/$0.04 stakes and up.

So it’s also important to take into account the level of competition you’re facing along with win rate and hands played. For instance, if you were winning 2bb at the $1/$2 stakes after 20k hands, this might be cause for moving up since win rates are smaller as you advance.

In answer to the original question of how you truly tell when you’ve beaten certain stakes, it’s important to look at the hands played first, then win rate and competition secondly. Provided your win rate is good enough, 15k-20k hands should be enough to determine your success rate for a given limit.

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Does Phil Hellmuth know about Online Poker Legalization?

Friday, December 16th, 2011

2011 has been a very good year for Phil Hellmuth since he managed to finish second in three WSOP tournaments, and earn over $1.5 million with these three cashes alone. The only thing that seems to be missing from Hellmuth’s life right now is a good sponsorship deal. However, according to a recent Hellmuth interview, that may change along with the landscape of online poker in the United States.

Beginning with the latter, Hellmuth revealed his thoughts on online poker legalization to Short Stacked Radio by saying, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it passed before Feb. 1. I think there’s going to be the biggest explosion in poker history the minute (online poker) is legalized.”

These are certainly interesting thoughts on the matter since many people are still in the dark on how online poker legalization is faring in the US. Assuming the American government does legalize and regulate internet poker in the near future, plenty of people stand to benefit, including Hellmuth as he stated, “I happen to be in a pretty lucky position where we have had more than one discussion recently, you know, there’s some very big companies and some very big people that are starting to get ready for the legalization of online poker.”

The Poker Brat also hinted that it won’t be long before he picks up a new sponsorship deal by saying, “You may find me signing something in the next two weeks. You may find me signing with a company that no one’s ever heard of. Don’t be surprised if that happens.”

The last comment definitely raises some eyebrows because there are a number of companies that could offer Hellmuth a lucrative deal provided internet poker does happen in America. Assuming it does, you can guarantee that a number of online poker sites will be clamoring for the services of an 11-time WSOP gold bracelet winner.

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Limping into an Unraised Pot

Monday, December 5th, 2011

One thing that many online poker players preach against is limping into an unraised pot – especially from early position. The reason why limping (calling the big blind) is highly frowned upon is because you are not only showing total weakness in your hand, but you’re most likely going to be raised by at least one other player. So if you’re limping with A-T from under the gun, just don’t bother.

Back to the original point, many online poker players wonder if there is ever a situation where it’s okay to limp into an unraised pot from early position. And the answer is ‘yes’, there are some rare instances where limping into an unraised pot can be profitable. But before we continue with the reasoning behind this thought, keep in mind that, as a beginning player, you should stick to raising or folding from early position until you’re more experienced.

One situation where profitable open limping arises is on tables full of calling stations who build great pot odds for suited connectors and other drawing hands. For example, let’s say that you’re holding QsJs under the gun, which is a fold for most players in this spot. However, you’re on a micro stakes table where everybody’s calling preflop just to see some cards; in this instance, you can open limp and hope that the table dynamic continues. Even if somebody does raise, there would be enough calling stations who’ll stay in the hand and give you solid pot odds on future streets.

One more scenario where open limping could work is if you’re holding a premium hand, and there’s a very aggressive player to your left who might shove just to steal the blinds and your open limp bet. Obviously this is a very specific scenario, but it’s another instance where open limping could work.

Looking at things from an overall perspective, it’s very rare that open limping is a good idea, and only experienced players will be able to spot these situations with consistency.

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Poker Strategy for Homes Games

Friday, November 25th, 2011

A lot of the strategy you see featured on the internet revolves around online poker. And what’s been lost in all of this is poker strategy for home games. Yes, people still gather with friends around home poker tables to play the game casually. Of course, nobody’s taking the money involved casually, so it’s definitely worth examining how you can beat your friends.

The first thing to understand with typical home poker game strategy is that you’ll see a lot of absolutes. For instance, some people will play overly-tight and totally disregard the blinds while waiting for premium hands. On the other hand, you’ll also see a lot of home game players make huge raises pre-flop with garbage hands in hopes of pulling off a bluff; many of these players will have a wide range of hands that makes it profitable to call or raise.

Whatever the case may be, home poker games usually present a lot of favorable situations because the players aren’t as experienced. So as long as you’re steadily learning poker strategy and observing your opponents, you have a solid chance to make money long-term. But you also have to consider the variance involved with poker, so don’t expect to win every time – no matter how bad your friends are.

One thing to consider is that a lot of players want to see the flop in home games. So if you have a great pre-flop hand (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK), protect it by trying to isolate one player so you can take advantage of them post-flop. If your pre-flop raises are too small, you’ll encourage 2 or 3 callers, which negates any advantage you have post-flop; if your raises are too big, nobody will call, and you’ve merely stolen a small pre-flop pot with the great hand. So try to size your pre-flop raise to where only one person will call your good hands.

Another thing to be aware of in home poker games are limpers, or those who call the big blind in hopes of seeing the flop. If you are in late position against limpers, you can steal their bets with a big raise no matter what cards you hold. Keep in mind that these players are saying ‘my hand is good enough to see the flop with, but not good enough to raise.’ When you raise though, make sure not to put your stack at serious risk by over-betting in order to steal a hand. After all, skilled home players might attempt a limp bluff.

Overall, just study your opponents’ playing styles, and try to counteract them with skilled play of your own.

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Full Tilt Poker seeking US Online Poker License

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Proving that anything is possible, Full Tilt Poker reportedly has a very good chance to get a US online poker license if the game is ever legalized and regulated in America.

Full Tilt’s lawyer Jeff Ifrah came out with this news after his dealings with Groupe Bernard Tapie and the US Department of Justice. He said that, in addition to the $80 million deal between GBT and the US DOJ, there is also a very good chance for Full Tilt Poker to be accepted for a US online poker license if America does pass favorable legislation within the next year or so.

Right now, Groupe Bernard Tapie and Full Tilt Poker are in the process of finalizing the aforementioned $80 million deal. As part of the deal, GBT will pay back the $300 million-plus that non-US online poker players are owed from Full Tilt, while the US DOJ will pay the estimated $160 million that Americans have wrapped up in the site.

For the time being, there’s no word on what will become of the current Full Tilt board members such as Chris Ferguson, Ray Bitar and Howard Lederer. This trio, along with other higher-ups at FTP, are blamed for players not being able to cash out money after the US DOJ came down on Full Tilt; they took too money from the player deposits for themselves, and didn’t leave nearly enough to cover cashouts.

This being said, it’s interesting that Full Tilt Poker would still be considered for licensing within the US. After all, many online poker players were inconvenienced by this dilemma because some of them had thousands or even millions stuck on FTP. Hopefully though, the Groupe Bernard Tapie deal can bring an end to this whole mess.

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