It is very common to have half a hand in poker, where you are looking to catch a certain card to complete a potentially big hand. These are often referred to as ‘drawing hands’, and they can win you a lot of money if you play them correctly. It is easy enough to work out the odds we have to win the hand by comparing the number of outs to the cards left in the deck along with the bet and pot size, but there is another additional factor that we should be included when deciding whether or not to make the call. Read the rest of this entry »

With all the advertising campaigns and promotions from the online poker rooms, which one out of them all is currently attracting the most players? At the moment, PokerStars receives the highest player volume, with Full-Tilt Poker not too far behind. Party Poker is hanging on in 3rd, which is a big drop from holding the top position for so many years up until a few months ago. The player traffic standings have changed many times over the years, and there are numerous ways in which a poker room will gain or lose traffic over periods of time. Read the rest of this entry »

The check-raise is a very powerful move in poker. It is a very popular move amongst advanced players, but there is no reason why it cannot be successfully employed at the lower limits and against weaker players. However, some players can actually consider the move unfair, but this is only because they know they are being outplayed when they come up against a check-raise. Some card rooms have actually banned the move, but the real fact of the matter is check-raising is a perfectly legal move and can potentially win you much larger pots if used correctly. Read the rest of this entry »

Through all the problems that have taken place over the last few months regarding NETeller and US customers, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel for the players with seized funds. It has been expected for some time that NETeller would be paying out the seized funds fairly soon, but now the wheels are in motion and a definite date has been set. Read the rest of this entry »

Two high stakes online players had a great session the other day, with big pots being won by both players. Ziigmund and Gus Hansen have been playing against each other quite frequently over the past few months, and it appears that a bit of a rivalry has started to develop between the two. There were 3 or 4 big hands in this particular $200/$400 NL Omaha session, with Hansen winning the biggest pots making him up $167K by the end of the 3-hour long session. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few months there have been a number of troubles concerning NETeller accounts and US citizens. This has made people a little wary about using them to fund their poker accounts, despite the fact that and players outside of the US should never have any problems at all. Regardless of this however, how good is NETeller as an online wallet? Here is an un-biased review as NETeller solely as an online wallet… Read the rest of this entry »

Details have recently been released about 4 poker players that were arrested for scamming high stakes poker players out of their money. The cheating took place in the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City in one of the hotel rooms. All 4 of the arrested players are currently free on bail after being charged with attempted theft by deception and conspiracy, and using a computer and cheating devices to commit theft. Read the rest of this entry »

If you like to play poker regularly, there is no doubt that you will encounter a number of bad beats on your way to winning money form the game. There are the common small beats where you were hoping for your hand to hold up, such as having top two pair against your opponent’s flush draw, to the much rarer one-outers that leave you in a complete state of shock. If you play the game, then you will definitely be taking a few bad beats from time to time, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago, we brought you news that two top poker pros would be battling it out against a limit Holdem poker-playing robot in the first ever “Man-Machine Poker Championship”. Hopes were high for the team working behind ‘Polaris’, the poker robot, but these hopes were dashed on the final day of play at the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Vancouver, Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

Small pocket pairs can be very tricky to play in the game of Texas Holdem. It is great to have an already made hand before the flop with a pair, but all sorts of problems will arise when you see the next 3 cards come down on the flop. A lot of the time, small pocket pairs are overplayed, and end up getting the person playing them into a bit of a hole. However, with good sound strategy, you can turn your small pocket pairs into big winners. Read the rest of this entry »

The poker player known as ‘5902838181’ (catchy isn’t it) has won the PokerStars Sunday million, picking up a staggering $196,244 for his efforts. The Sunday million is a very popular online multi-table tournament that attracts numerous online players from across the globe with its high monetary prizes on offer. A number of other large online rooms offer similar tournaments with big prizes for the winners, but nothing quite compares to the Sunday million held at PokerStars. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the best aspects about online poker is the wide selection of tables that are available for you to choose from. Whatever game you might enjoy playing, you can be very sure that there will be a multitude of tables available for you to sit down at within your specific limit. With all these tables to choose from, it is possible to make an educated choice and choose the most profitable tables from the list depending on your individual style of play. Read the rest of this entry »

There will always be times in poker where you hit long stretches of bad runs of cards. There is very little that you can do about them, and they will often leave quite a large dent in your bankroll. You can play the best poker in the world, but if the cards are out to get you then there is no way to stop yourself from losing money. Over time, the aim soon shifts from trying to earn your money back, to trying and reduce the damage that the cards are causing to your ‘roll. In these sorts of circumstances, a short break away from the game is the best plan of action. Read the rest of this entry »

The action heated up on the $300/$600 No Limit Texas Holdem tables on Full Tilt the other night, as the high stakes regular Brian Townsend known as ‘sbrugby’ matched up against famous poker pro Phil Ivey. The pair battled it out for over 600 hands in the space of 4 hours, exchanging huge six-figure pots along the way. Both players chipped at each other’s stacks throughout the night, but Ivey came out on top, lifting $411K from Townsend’s bankroll. Read the rest of this entry »

The professional poker player Phil Laak, also known as “The Unabomber”, will be playing against a poker-playing robot today and tomorrow. Also joining him will be fellow pro Ali Eslami as they attempt to outsmart the robot named ‘Polaris’. The brains behind the robot are the research team at the University of Alberta, and they are fairly confident that their computing skills will help Polaris come out on top against these seasoned pros. Read the rest of this entry »