Think about what you will do if certain cards come on the flop, turn and river.  Set it up from the beginning.  If you are playing someone who is a little tight, show your strength and they will mostly shy away.  Its important to get aggressive from the beginning and keep to your plan.  One little sign of weakness and the table will come back at you.

Think about what you will do if certain cards come up on the river or turn.  Plan the street. Am I going to fold, raise or call? What kind of flop is there?  And, go through the options for each situation, am I going to fold, raise or call?  What did I do pre-flop and what sort of message am I giving to my opponents?  If I call and then fold, what was the point of calling in the first place?  Maybe just to stay in the game and see what everyone else would do, or to see the next card.

By planning ahead you know whether you will bet or not, and what size bet, therefore you shouldn’t leak value.  You are either in the hand or out.

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.

If you have a mediocre hand but want to show strength, then plan pre-flop to show that strength and don’t just call.  As soon as you check or call, your opponent is going to suspect weakness and exploit the situation.

Its all about thinking of the various scenarios that could happen ahead.  If I raise, is my aggressive opponent going to re-raise?  And, will you handle the pressure and see through his aggressive tactics?  Is he trying his luck with nothing in his hand again?  What did he bet pre-flop and is he sticking to his story? How does the flop change things?  Does the flop favor him or me?

There’s a lot of things to consider in such a short time, but once you have played a lot of poker, these thoughts will become automatic.

Think ahead and if you have a plan, then make sure you stick to your story… unless of course you are intentionally confusing them…. but then thats a whole different story…

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.

But then again I was reading Alan Schoonmaker’s column in the CardPlayer magazine, “Winners are Selectively Aggressive”.  And it is so true.  He talks about three sentences that stuck in his head when he read a poker book by John Scarne.  And these were:

When you have nothing, get out.
When you are beat, get out.
When you have the best hand, make your opponents pay!

Now it doesn’t get more simple than that!!!  The complication comes in knowing when you have the best hand or knowing that you are beat… ha!

But still keep it simple, is a good motto to follow and those three sentences are worth remembering for basic poker strategy.

Suppose thats what internet poker has done to the poker tourneys.  People have been learning the game and improving their poker skills.  Then they enter online poker tournaments and learn how to play at tourneys, developing the winning poker strategy.

Poker online seems the way to go if you want to win the big money in the tourneys.   And we are talking some real good prize money here!  That would keep me going nicely!

How was the Easter weekend?  Crushed eggs, hunted for eggs, got sick on chocolate… all the usual crazy things we do at Easter.  It was quite nice catching up with family again.  If you only have to put up with their nonsense a few times a year, then they aren’t too bad…

Cracked open an enormous poker bonus by trying a few new things online and experimenting with some new poker rooms that I haven’t tried before.  The bonuses kept me going all weekend, I eventually blew all my money, but I had a lot of fun doing it.  I decided to go big and take some chances, had some big swings, sometimes I was up by a lot, other times I kept getting beat.

It was fun, but I wouldn’t recommend this type of poker play, it doesn’t pay off in the long run.  As they all say – you have to play slow, steady and consistent – if you want to win at poker.

Online poker players often have a tough time deciding between going for the bonus or rakeback – which one is the most lucrative deal?  The answer to that is simple: why choose one or the other, when you can have them both?

There are numerous poker rooms out there which do not deduct bonuses from rakeback, which means that you’ll be able to sign up for a rakeback deal and receive a regular sign up bonus as well.  Not all poker rooms are like this though and some of them will deduct your sign-up bonus from the rakeback you earn.  In such cases, you should know exactly how the rakeback and the sign-up bonus works, so that you can make the correct decision.

Rakeback and sign up bonuses are both different forms of rake rebate.  At a closer look, you’ll realize they’re not all that different at all.

A sign up bonus has to be redeemed.  You redeem your bonus by playing real money hands at cash or tourney tables and by generating rake or by paying tournament fees.  The bonus that you get is always a percentage of the rake you generate, which means that by unlocking your sign-up bonus, you’re basically earning rake back.  Now then, what that tells is that bonus redemption and rakeback are technically the same: they give you a percentage of your rake back.

There is one significant difference between a bonus deal and rakeback tough: while bonuses either expire or don’t get unlocked entirely, rakeback lasts for as long as you play.  Bonuses do tend to give you a better return over the short-run compared to your average (around 30%) rakeback deal.

When choosing between rakeback and a sign-up bonus, you need to have your objectives in sight: how long do you intend to stick around at the poker room in question?  If you do not plan on staying a loyal customer, then you should probably pick the sign-up bonus over rakeback and be on your way as soon as you pocket your bonus.

If you plan on hanging out at the poker room for a while and playing lots of online poker, rakeback is the right choice for you.

There are special rakeback deals called poker prop deals, that no bonus offer can ever beat – there are restrictions but you basically get paid to play poker at certain tables.  Poker propping is done to attract poker players and boost the number of players at tables.

Its always nice to see how the poker pros handle certain situations and then you learn what to do in that given situation.

You can of course pick up tips with online gambling guides and poker websites that teach you how to play poker online, how to fine tune your poker strategy and master some of the more subtle points.

Personally I like to search for poker videos on the net, you would be amazed what you can find and what you pick up from them.  Get onto Google and YouTube… check it out!  Poker TV Network is not bad..

Or just get a TV Channel that has poker on it and glue yourself to the screen!

Ok so today I’ll give you a Texas holdem tip, well actually its a tip that can be applied to any poker variation… in fact now that I think about it can be applied to any game or any sport for that matter.

Have you spotted the weak player?  If not, then maybe its you and maybe you should not be playing poker in this league at this table?   they’ll gladly take your money… why don’t you just hand it over now and be done with or are you trying to prove something?

Seriously though it is always wise to spot the player that plays weak hands that they shouldn’t play.  That way you can challenge them, call their bluff and take their chips.

So, actually there are two tips for the price of one here… what a bonus!  1. Spot the weak player and 2. Never play weak hands.