Professional tips on football games – English Premier League, UEFA Champions League or other European football.  Maybe, its other sports that you are into like basketball or the NHL, tennis, cycling whatever – here is a blog that is updated daily with fresh content and information.

We all like a side bet once in a while, so think about the odds and read as much background info as you can, so that you make knowledgeable decisions and the rest is easy…

Its back to the everyday slog, back to trying to make it big by entering my online poker tournaments.  Facing the disappointment of getting bad beats and getting blown out in the first round.  But one day, just you watch.  Take a good close look at my name, because it is going to appear in a hall of fame!!

You have to keep trying.  Climb back on your bike and have another go, otherwise you are never going to learn how to ride… or become the next Lance Armstrong!

The smaller Baltic countries are also getting in on the act.  PokerStars has obviously recognised the growth in the online player base and in the demographics of their European players, because they are now sponsoring a big poker tournament in Estonia.  In fact the national Estonian basketball team is sponsored by PokerStars.

When you play poker online look at where the players are from, or ask them and you will be surprised to see all the places where the players live.  Need an atlas just to find where they are.

But in the UK if you mention football, then straight away its which team do you support and do you think they are going to win?… and what do you think of this transfer?  .. and can you believe they have signed up so.. so?

Personally I dont car so much about it, but when its the big games like in the World Cup, then I might watch… aint nothing gonna get in the way of my poker!

At the end of the day you still have to watch the same fundamentals.  Which starting hands to play and which to leave.  Reading players and working out what they may have, depending on how they have managed the betting.  How much have the raises been relative to the pot?  Is it worth the risk? And all this you have to calculate in a short time, thats why I enjoy poker, the game changes every hand.

Obviously the four cards make a difference in omaha… but apart from different possibilities you can make with four cards in your hand, its the same really.

My first reaction is that I want to beat them, bury them and get them off the table as soon as possible.  Problem is when it gets personal then you can make mistakes.  Its best to leave the ego at home!  Although its damn hard.  My competitive spirit comes out, or maybe its some deep seated aggression that has been suppressed and needs to come out…

So I end up grinding my teeth, going really quiet and playing hands that I would never usually play… its a sure tell!

Its worth calling them a few times to check what they have and to establish any patterns of play.  Look around your table and classify the players, aggressive vs conservative, loose vs tight.

When you start out playing freerolls and at the low tables, you will find many overly aggressive players with not much to lose, so they throw their chips around without a care in the world.  Sure it happens higher limits too, but it is more common at the lower tables.  Its good to pick up on the signs of a loose player and squeeze them for chips when it counts.

Woman are much better at multi-tasking, they should be excellent at multi-tabling on poker sites or in poker tourneys.

Then you hear about the maniacs that will enter more than one poker tourney at once.  Apart from the fact that you have to spend hours and hours concentrating online, with a colostomy bag in place so that no breaks are required…

Now multi-tasking bingo I could handle, but not live poker tourneys!  Maybe I should check out a few Bingo sites and get a bit of multi-tasking going, need to work on my skills.

Eric had been driving into town to play poker at a casino with his friends, because they lived out of town this drive had been getting him down.  So he looked around at online poker sites.  We all have our preferences of online poker rooms, depending on what the sites offer etc..  But he dragged me aside and said come and look at this…

He plays poker online at pkr.com and I have to say their 3D poker room is quite impressive.  Eric likes it because it is the most life like poker room and instead of him having to drive into town to play, he can play poker at home.  Their 3d graphics and animation create an amazing online poker room that looks very realistic.

You can build your character into however you want to be.  And, he even showed me his character’s hotel room.  Although his character looks just like him, I did laugh because his online poker character was a lot slimmer than him in reality…  Eric showed me how you can change your characters waist profile.

In conclusion, the pot belongs to all those who put money into it either via the rake (or some other type of compulsory bet) or via a voluntary bet.

All this means is that if you play, you will pay rake, regardless of what you do. You will be forced to pay antes or blinds and thus you will end up generating rake. So much for the myth of the winner paying the rake…

Now then, poker rooms use various ways to determine players’ individual rake contributions. Take Full Tilt Poker for instance. Full Tilt uses the dealt rake method. What this means is that if you’re dealt into a hand, you’ll be allotted rake contribution, whether or not you contribute any money tot the pot. The resulting rake is simply divided with the number of players who are dealt into the hand and thus the rake contributions are determined.

This is why there’s so much value in the Full Tilt rakeback.

Other poker rooms use the contributed rake method. They only allocate rake contribution to players who contribute money to the pot, and only these players will be eligible to receive rakeback. This rake calculation method is obviously much fairer than the dealt one towards aggressive players who won’t end up generating rakeback money for tight players. They will still end up generating rakeback for those who are active but are stingy with the amount of money they put into the pot.

The most accurate rake calculation method is the weighted contributed method. This method takes individual contribution amounts into account. If you shove a lot of money into the pot, you’ll be officially responsible for a larger amount of rake. That means you’ll also be entitled for more rakeback.

As you can see, rake contribution is a tad more complicated than the winner paying it all. In theory, a player who doesn’t win a single hand can actually actively influence the amount of resulting rake.