People who have a familiarity with poker would consider Texas Hold’em strange at first. Most people would only be familiar with the Stud and Draw variations of poker mainly because of its portrayal in popular culture. Stud games deal hands that are a combination of cards that are known only to the holder and cards that are open for everyone to see. Cards are dealt and bets placed with the player the sole person who knows of his hand and other making guesses based on the partial knowledge provided by the exposed cards. Draw games, on the other hand, have no exposed cards. Only the betting patterns of the players and the number of cards drawn to improve their hand would give other players information about each other’s hands.

Texas Hold’em, on the other hand, is another variant called a flop game. Flop games draw elements from both stud and draw games. Like draw games, the cards dealt to players are only known to them. Like stud games, the hands are improved using exposed cards. The unique feature of this type of game at FullTilt.com though is that the exposed cards belong to everyone. The concept of community cards in completing a poker hand is the unique characteristic of flop games that distinguish it from stud and draw games. There are other flop game variants like Omaha, Omaha Eight, and Pineapple. But Texas Hold’em is by far the most intricate and most challenging to play.

Texas Hold’Em is actually fast gaining popularity in gaming rooms and card circles all over the world. Texas Hold’Em enjoys some distinctive advantages over other poker variations:

• More players can join a game. Seven-Card Stud, another popular poker variation, can only support up to seven players while in Texas Hold’em the deck can support up to 23 players. Although in practice, cardrooms seat up to 10 players at a Hold’em table.
• More hands per hour are dealt in a Hold’em game because fewer cards are needed to deal from the deck. In a 10-player game, no more than 25 cards will be dealt. Getting a fast dealer would also mean that it could be possible to play as many as 40 hands every hour.
• All the exposed cards in a Texas Hold’em are left on the table. A player does not need to remember the cards contained in previously folded cards.
• One of the unique features of Texas Hold’em is the use of shared cards in making up a hand. Because most of your cards are basically everybody else’s there is no great differences in the strength of the winning and losing hands.

Texas Hold’em is becoming a favorite among poker players of all skill levels because of the complexity, excitement and aggressive nature of the game. Mastering the game is both a source of enjoyment and an achievement for both recreational and serious players.

But it is also important to learn basic strategies that will help ensure that you can hold your own in any game even if you are playing with more experienced players.

Before really getting into any basic strategies in playing Texas Hold’em, you should remember two things: the two cards that you are holding are the only cards that will set you apart from your opponents, and; all the other cards are community cards, which you share with the other players. A good player must be able to discern the importance of the community cards (which are all faced up) to your opponents’ hands as well as your hand. Be especially observant about the possible straight or flush opportunities your opponents may form with the community cards.

Card evaluation

When looking at the two cards dealt to you make sure that you are not revealing anything with either your facial reaction or any mannerisms. These “tells” would reveal to your opponents if you have a good or bad hand. So be as emotionless as possible.

Knowing a good hand

A good hand on FullTiltPoker.com would in part depend on how many players are in the game because the odds are affected. But as a general rule you should consider folding before the flop if you get a two non-pair cards that are below 10. More conservative players will consider folding if just one of the cards is less than 10. More aggressive players, on the other hand, will stay in the game if they get an 8 and 9 of the same suit (the reason for this is that this hand gives you the possibility of forming a straight or a flush).

If the big blind (which is what a forced bet is called, and designed to make sure that there is always a pot in every hand) is quite low, it could be a good idea to pay in just so you can see the flop even if you don’t really have a strong hand. But don’t go overboard or you may just find yourself with very depleted funds before you know it.

Do not be impatient if you do get bad hands. Patience is part of the skills that Texas Hold’em players must learn. Just wait until you get a good hand as this will come to you eventually.
The Flop

Do not be afraid to fold, if after seeing the flop you cannot form a good hand. It is better to take some minor losses than to commit the rookie mistake of playing a bad hand just because you are already in the midst of the game.

The Turn and the River

The fourth and fifth community cards, called the Turn and the River, give you two more opportunities to either get out of the pot before you lose more money. Alternatively, it can also be a chance to increase your winnings.

The best advice at this point is to be cautious. Do not get committed into going too far into the pot with a weak hand.

Playing Texas Hold’em Poker heads up against a single opponent requires a completely different strategy than playing at a full table. Many players I have talked to tell me that they have the most difficulty adjusting to playing heads up play and are not very successful when put in that situation. The reason for this is that they are used to playing a very tight game. In a heads up situation you can’t play tight and expect to win.

When you are playing heads up you can’t afford to wait. Many times it comes down to who can steal the most blinds. Therefore you must loosen up and call more or you will go broke. Queen Seven is called the computer hand because computer simulations show this hand is will win 51.77 percent heads up against a random hand. So with this hand or any hand higher than this one you are almost forced to play. A small pair or even a single Ace or King can be a big favorite in heads up play.

Be the Aggressor

A player in the small blind can win by raising with every hand if the player in the big blind keeps folding to a raise. For example: The blinds are $50 and $100 which means there is $150 in the pot. The player on the button is the small blind and must act first before the flop. He raises by putting in an additional $150 bet. If you as the big blind fold, then the small blind has risked $150 to win $150. If you fold half the time the small blind will show a profit. He still will almost certainly profit in these situations since he will not only steal your blind, but will also sometimes win when you call as well.

If you only call in the big blind with a third of the hands that you are dealt. Then the small blind can raise every time and if you call, he can fold if you bet on the flop unless he flops a good hand. When this is the case, he’s going to win $150 two out of three times, plus he’s going to win more sometimes. He’s going to lose the $150 less than one out of three times.

If you find yourself against a player using this strategy you will need to counter it by calling more or raising him. You have to let him know that it could cost him more than $150 if he raises you every time.

Analyze Your Opponent

You need to judge your opponents. Poker at PokerStars.net is a game about making judgments. You need to test the waters by doing the raising and being the aggressor. If you find yourself in a game with a passive player you now know how to beat him. If on the other hand your opponent is also aggressive you will have to use some discretion and very your play. If your opponent is very aggressive you will be able to trap him when you have a good hand. If you check he will more than likely bet and you beat him when he bluffs.

Act First

Playing heads up poker is a lot like playing chicken. This means you will need to bluff more before the flop and sometimes fire away after the flop with nothing. With just two players there will be many times when the flop doesn’t hit either player. Many times it is the person that acts first who will win the pot. Just remember that occasionally your opponent will have a legitimate. Although you don’t want to be bluffed out of a pot on FullTiltPoker.net you will sometimes have to give it up to save your self from elimination.

Chip Stacks

The size of your chip stack makes a big difference in how you play. If you have a big stack you can be much more aggressive as you opponent might be inclined to fold more often waiting for a big hand. While this may work there will be a time when they are forced to make a stand. Although you want to keep the pressure on you also don’t want to double up your opponent too often or you will soon find yourself with the short stack. You have to use selective aggression.

Beware the Limper

Limping in at bodoglive, means to simply call the big blind when a player is in the small blind. Players limp in from the small blind for two reasons. They are either trying to see the flop cheaply or they are trying to trap an aggressive opponent who they hope will raise from the big blind. If you have a big hand in the small blind and know your opponent will raise then you can limp in and try for a check raise. If you know the big blind will always raise if you limp in from the small blind then you must raise first. Your objective in heads up play is to try and extract the most money from your opponent. To do this you will have to mix up your play to keep your opponent guessing.

Practice

Becoming a proficient heads up player requires practice. You can practice at one of the online poker sites, like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStar.net. Get together with a friend for some free practice or enter the small sit and go tournaments to hone your skills.

Until Next time remember: Luck comes and goes…Knowledge Stays Forever.

When you gamble online, position in the hand is marked by a dealer button, placed in front of a player to denote the theoretical dealer. The player on the button gets to act last in all betting rounds which provides him/her an advantage over the opponents. The button moves clockwise to the next active player after each hand is completed.

In a brick or mortar set-up, as opposed to playing poker on FullTilt.net, Texas Hold’em is a form of poker that is generally played with at most 10 opponents at a table. Each player is dealt 2 cards known as their “hole cards” and 5 cards are placed on the table designated as “community cards”. All players share the 5 cards on the table and try to make the best 5 card poker hand using any combination of their cards and the community cards. A player has the option to use all, one or none of their cards to make the best hand possible. The person with the best hand at the end of the round takes the pot.

Winning poker hands are ranked from highest to the lowest which consists of the Royal Flush, Straight Flush, 4 of a Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, 3 of a Kind, 2 Pairs, 1 Pair and High Card. In case of a tie, the holder of the next-highest card wins. If two players have the same combination of cards such as two straights, the player with the highest ranking card wins. If two players have exactly the same cards in different suits, they divide the winnings as suits have no rank in poker home games.

The dealer button in the actual scenario is a white puck that is moved clockwise to the next player after each hand. As it represents where the dealer would be, this is where the deal begins. The cards will be dealt starting with the player to the immediate left and going around the circle twice giving one card at each pass.

There are two players called “the blinds” who must post a certain amount of money before anyone is given cards. The player to the immediate left of the dealer is known as the “small blind”, while the player to the left of the small blind is known as the “big blind”. This forces at least 2 players to be in the pot and will guarantee action on every hand. The amount of money which these players must post will depend on the type of Hold’ em game. In a $5 to $10 No Limit Hold’ em game, the $5 refers to how much the small blind pays and the $10 refers to how much the big blind pay. The big blind is usually double the small blind.

After the players receive two cards, a round of betting will occur. The 3 cards known as the “flop” will be placed face-up on the table. This will be followed by another round of betting and then 1 more card known as the “turn card” or “4th Street” will be placed face up on the table. Another round of betting follows after which, the 5th and last card known as the “river card” is placed face up on the table. One final round of betting occurs before the remaining players reveal their hands.

Since the blinds are considered to be bets, the first person to act before the flop would be the person to the left of the big blind. This person must put in at least the big blind if he/she wishes to play. The action goes around the circle until the bets are finished. When the game comes down to 2 players left, it is called heads up play. The blind position reverses putting the small blind on the dealer button and the big blind on the role of the other player. This is to prevent giving the dealer an overly unfair advantage preflop and postflop.

Blackjack

1. How hard is it to count cards at blackjack?

Once you learn to do it, it’s the simplest thing in the world. At first thought, counting cards seems extremely difficult, but then you do it and you discover that once you get the hang of it, it isn’t really hard.

2. How much time does it take to learn to count card at blackjack?

Here are the steps you must take. First, get a good blackjack book and learn basic strategy. It will probably take you a week or two of memorizing to get it down pat. This is the toughest part of the process. You will have to memorize what to do with every hand you get against every dealer upcard. Break it up over a couple of weeks and you’ll master it. Then go to a casino and play for small stakes and when you are perfect in your decision-making, you can learn a count system. It will take you all of five minutes to learn the basics of counting. However, it will take you weeks to do it proficiently enough to go into a casino and do it. Figure two months for the whole process.

3. Is one basic strategy good for every type of blackjack game?

Actually, there are different basic strategies for different games. The single-deck strategy is a little different from the multiple-deck strategy; the strategy for games where a dealer hits soft 17 (ace-6) is slightly different from a game where the dealer stands on soft 17, and on and on it goes. But you don’t have to go crazy memorizing six or seven different basic strategies. The differences in the strategies are not great enough to warrant panic. Memorize one and play it perfectly. After you learn to count and after you become proficient, then begin to incorporate the changes in basic strategy for the various types of games.

Slots

4. Does it really matter which slot machines I play?

Actually, it matters very much which machines you play. The fact that a machine can’t be beaten doesn’t mean there aren’t better or worse machines to play and better or worse ways to play them.

5. Which machines should I play? You have to judge your temperament. If you want to go for the big score such as Megabucks and you don’t mind bucking odds of around 50 million to one, then be my guest. You will lose almost every time you go to a casino when you exclusively play those progressives because they are holding from

10-15% of the money put in them.

6. Where are they?

Where would you put the best-paying machines in a casino if you owned the casino?

Of course, you would put them in areas that would encourage other slot players to continue playing or to play at a faster pace. You would not put them in areas where people would get annoyed with hearing slot players yelling and screaming — like around the table game area. Those machines are usually tight because astute slot managers realize that table-game players aren’t interested in hearing coins being pumped into slots and these same managers know that if the table-game player is going to dump a few coins in a machine, he or she isn’t expecting to win. So why give a table-game player a loose machine? Why give him anything? Keep those few coins for yourself. Anyway, no one knows where every loose or tight machine is in every casino but as a general rule of thumb, the areas where slot players will be encouraged to play will be loose, and the areas where solitary players might put in a few coins before going here or there to do this or that will be tight.

7. What does hit frequency mean on a slot machine?

How many times the player receives some kind of payout from the machine. Most slot machines have hit frequencies around the 15 percent mark. That means about one in six spins will result in the player getting money back. Note that I said “player getting money back” as opposed to “winning money.”

It is theoretically possible to have a 100 percent hit frequency with a machine that takes all your money. Just program it to constantly return one or two coins on a three-coin bet or one to four coins on a five-coin bet. You would have a 100 percent hit frequency and lose every time. The change machine is a 100 percent hit frequency machine with no house edge.

8. Do slot machines have cycles?

No. When you hear casino personnel talk about cycles, what you are actually dealing with is the theoretical number of spins for all the possible combinations to come up based on the program involved. In the actual playing of the machines, everything is randomly selected based on the RNG — the random number generator. There are streaks but these streaks are not predictable.

So if I say this is the best thing, that is just my not-so-humble opinion.

1. Can a person really beat the casinos?

Yes, a person can really beat the casinos — if that person plays the right games the right ways. Unfortunately, most people won’t be that person who beats the casinos because most people play games that give the casino the edge. You can — with expert play — beat the following games: blackjack, video poker, and regular poker. Here I am saying that you can actually beat the math of the game and get the edge.

2. How much of a [mathematical] edge can you get on these games?

A good card counter at blackjack playing games with good penetration and good rules can get between a 0.5 percent and a 1.5 percent edge. I’d guess most card counters are playing with a one percent edge. Good single-deck players are probably closer to the 1.5 percent, while good shoe players are probably closer to the 0.5 percent. A lot of the percentage advantage that a card counter has depends on how much money he can get on the table when the game favors him. On select full pay or more-than-full pay video poker machines you can probably play even with the house to realizing about a two percent edge on some machines. On regular poker, it is much harder to estimate an advantage but some people can and do make a living playing poker. A good dice controller can probably get a 5 percent to 10 percent edge when he shoots. That edge will be reduced if he plays the other shooters, which he must to do be allowed to shoot in the first place.

3. What are your favorite games?

Craps first, blackjack second.

4. What are your least favorite games?

Any game that gives the casino a huge edge over the player is out. So the Big Wheel and Sic Bo are out. I also don’t enjoy playing Caribbean Stud — too many frustrating hands and a pretty high house edge to boot. I am also not a video poker lover — even though some of the best games in the casino are in video poker. I spend a tremendous amount of time in front of my computer screen so that when I go to a casino I want to play games where I get to see people in action with me.

5. Which games make the most money for the casinos?

The most overall money is made from slots, followed by blackjack, with craps and roulette right behind. More people play those games than any others. However, there is another way to figure what the casinos make and that is on a per game per $100 bet ratio. This is called the win rate. Here are the some real-world win rates for the various games in both Atlantic City and Las Vegas. My guess is that other gambling jurisdictions such as Mississippi and Illinois are probably consistent with these results as well.

However, these jurisdictions do not release their figures based on individual games.

The percent means that for every $100 bet, the casino kept that percentage.

Remember that the casino win rate is really the player loss rate! Hold your breath.

	Atlantic City	Las Vegas
Blackjack	12.4%	14.2%
Craps	14.5%	14.1%
Baccarat	12.5%	14.4%
Let It Ride	16.3%	20.2%
Big Wheel	n/a	45.2%
Mini-Baccarat	13.8%	15.6%
Pai Gow Poker	21.9%	21.9%
Roulette	25%	22.6%
Keno	26.7%	27.8%
Caribbean Stud	21.1%	25%

6. How much money should you bring to a casino?

Always bring enough money to last you for the amount of time you want to play. As a rule of thumb for every session of blackjack have at least 40 times your bet. If you are a five-dollar bettor then have $200. For craps, always have 10 times your bet spread. If you are up on three numbers at the height of your betting, then have 10 times the amount of the three combined wagers. In roulette and all other games, use the blackjack formula. Bring enough money to play all the sessions you plan to play. So the five-dollar bettor in blackjack who wants to play six sessions in two days should bring $1,200. Never use a win — or any leftover money — from one session in another session. Put it away. This will almost guarantee that you will go home with some money.

7. What games have some of the highest win percentages for the players?

If you lay against the four or 10 in craps, you have 66 percent win ratio while laying the five or nine has a 60 percent win rate. Of course, you have to put up more money than the bet is worth, so you will still lose even with this win rate. In baccarat, the bank wins about 50.5 percent of the time if you exclude ties. So you will actually win more than half your bets if you play this proposition exclusively at baccarat. That’s why the casino takes a commission from the winning bets. The pass line at craps has a 49.3 percent player win ratio. Blackjack has around a 48 percent win rate if we exclude ties. The even-money bets at roulette (red/black, odd/even, high/low) have a 47.4 percent player win ratio.

8. What is the probability of the same number coming up four times in a row in roulette?

Once in 2,085,136 spins.

9. What are the odds of a Royal Flush in video poker?

Around 40,000 to one.

10. What are the odds of a royal flush in Caribbean Stud?

In a five-card hand, the odds are 649,739 to one to get a royal flush. These are the same odds for Let It Ride, as well.

11. What are the odds of getting a blackjack?

About 20 to one.

12. W hat skills do you need to play poker?

First, you have to realize that even though you are competing against other people, you not only have to overcome them but you have to overcome the house rake on the pots. Poker requires two skills: a killer instinct and knowledge, whether intuitive or actual, of the probabilities inherent in the hand you’re working on. Most people can learn the latter information with study and practice, but very few have the goods in the killer-instinct department. Like a fighter who is technically perfect but just can’t “pull the trigger” in a real fight, most poker players just don’t have the full array of talents needed to be pros or even winning players.

13. Is Spanish 21 a good game?

Yes. If you use the new Armada basic strategy, you can reduce the house edge to 0.82 percent. If you use the Armada ruse, you can get a slight “monetary” advantage over the house, as well. However, if you use the basic strategy for traditional blackjack, the game will bury you as you’ll face a house edge of three percent or more. People who play Spanish 21 say it is a much more exciting version of blackjack than the traditional one.

14. What percent of the time does the dealer qualify in Caribbean Stud?

The dealer will qualify approximately 56.32 percent of the time. That’s what makes the game so frustrating — you have a good hand and the dealer doesn’t qualify!

15. I love Three-Card Poker. What is the best strategy?

Play queen high, six or better. Don’t make the Pairs Plus bet.

16. Do you think that casino gambling should be allowed everywhere?

Yes. The more competition between casinos, the better it is for the players. The only problem with the spread of gambling is with problem gamblers. But that’s always the way, isn’t it? The few who can’t handle something make it difficult for the rest of us to be able to enjoy that something.