Month: May 2020

If you’re new to the poker online world and check out any poker forum, you’re sure to see a bunch of topics with ridiculous ideas and statements about online poker. This is horrible for the new players, because they feel like they’re out of touch with the game, and might decide to not try out a poker site because of it. This post will look at some of the more popular myths regarding online poker, and we’ll prove why each is false and why it is an incorrect statement.

Myth #1 – Aces Flop too Often

This is definitely the most common online poker real money myth. Players think that Aces are on every flop, and because of that, they feel. The reason this one always pops up is that players will take a few bad beats with a big pair vs. Ax, and all of a sudden decide that Aces are way too common on flops. Then, they’ll talk to a few friends, everyone will agree, and they’ll post it online to let the world know about the travesty. In all actuality, they’re simply wrong.

Myth #2 – Pocket Aces are No Good

This one is in direct contrast with the first myth and was likely started by the same foolish players. A lot of people feel like pocket Aces are rigged, and are dealt out all the time just to increase the best online poker site’s rake. Once again, various studies have been done and have determined that it’s a ridiculous notion and that Aces win online just as often as they do at a live poker game.

This myth is always started by people who have a bad run with aces and lose a few consecutive hands with pocket aces. They get upset and decide to post about how Aces are rigged online and the poker sites must be cheating.

Myth #3 – Deposit Bonuses are Awesome

Every poker online site has a huge banner on their homepage bragging about their big poker sign up bonus. You actually have to clear the bonus by depositing your own money and playing a large number of hands. The way they’re marketed, you might think bonuses are just free money, but in fact, they’re far from it. They’re nice if you were going to deposit either way, but I wouldn’t make a deposit at a poker site just for a bonus.

Myth #4 – Too Many Big Hands are Dealt with Simultaneously

One myth that gets a lot of players fired up is as follows: they think that poker sites deal with multiple players big hands simply to increase the rake by causing huge pots to play out. This is the only myth that would have some motive to it because this would make the poker site a lot of extra money. However, once again, tests have been done, and it’s perfectly normal. The only reason it seems more common online is that you’re seeing more hands per hour, so you’ll see crazier hands more often.

Myth #5 – Some Players can See Everyone’s Hole Cards

This myth is the only one that actually has some merit to it. There are always forum threads where players post a hand history and claim that “the other player MUST have been able to see my cards.” Possible, but not likely.

Happy playing!

 

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Calculate Pot Outs in Online Poker & Know their Importance
Playing Against a Maniac in No Limit Online Poker Hold’em

A basic but important skill for any serious online poker player is the capability to calculate how many outs you have to win a hand in a quick and useful manner. Once you grasp the concept, like many poker strategy techniques, you’ll have to practice it consistently to get really good at using it in your game efficiently. With practice, calculating outs during play can become an instinctive part of your thought process.

The first thing to realize is that we don’t always get dealt an ideal hand in poker online. In fact, we are more likely to be dealt a hand that is not necessarily anything to get excited about, but we’ll put money on it anyway in hopes that it becomes a better hand on a later street. And then we really hope it become at least good enough to beat the other player and score the pot. The cards that will give you that hand is called outs.

Hand Range

Being able to factor in the best online poker hand range of your opponents’ cards into your out calculations will ultimately make it easier for you to calculate your outs. While you won’t be able to know the exact cards other players hold, in order for your out calculations to be more accurate, you’ll have to hypothesize the hand range you could potentially be up against.

Assume you do not know what your opponents’ hole cards are. Giving him a possible J Spades J Hearts will decrease your outs significantly. You would lose the three Aces and three Kings as outs in this situation, and more so, you could still lose if the river puts a pair on the board. Furthermore, you should always keep in mind that not all possible outs will produce the best and winning hand.

Half-Outs

You’ll also want to take into account half-outs, which are those outs that will only count as half an out. For example, say your hole cards are 8 Spades 9 Spades, the board shows T Hearts J Hearts 3 Diamonds. There are four 7s and four Queens that would produce a straight, which you can assume would give you eight outs. However, hitting the straight might give your opponent a flush, which would not win you the hand. Therefore, the Q Hearts and the 7 Hearts should not be considered full outs and should only be counted as half-outs, giving you only seven outs in total and making up for the times that your opponent’s flush will beat your straight.

Hidden Outs

Hidden outs are those cards that might not directly improve your hand, but will actually hurt the other player’s hand. For example, say you have A Hearts A Clubs with 5Spades 6Clubs 9Diamonds K Hearts on the board. Your opponent has 6 Spades 5 Hearts which will give him two pairs. A Diamonds or A Spades on the river would be great, but a 9 or a King would also give you the better hand by devaluing your opponent’s hand and giving you a higher two pair; thus, a 9 or a King would be considered hidden outs.

Effectively and efficiently calculating outs during play poker games online must be practiced, like any poker technique, but once it is mastered, it can dramatically improve your game. When working on this skill, though, you should also keep in mind the number of players at the table, as the more players you have, the less outs you actually have. Furthermore, you must also consider the burn cards when processing your outs. This post is for beginners, and as you become a more seasoned outs counter. You will likely start to make your own inferences which will dictate your perception of the strength of a hand.

Happy playing!

 

Read more:
Playing Against a Maniac in No Limit Online Poker Hold’em
Online Poker Tips for Surviving Downswings

The need for you as a learner of poker online, to observe and take notes on your opponents, cannot be stressed enough. If you have good starting hand requirements, you will fold a great majority of your hands. This will give you plenty of time to study your opponents and see how they play.

During the course of a game, you can fill up a huge amount of space. This can become cumbersome, and make the notes almost not worth reading, as they become a jumbled ream of random thoughts. We think the reader would agree then, that a good way to organize these notes would be most helpful!

Many experts classify poker online players in 5 general categories, only 4 of which most of us will ever get the chance to play against. They are the mouse, jackal, elephant, lion, and eagle. Their poker characteristics are as follows:

The Mouse

The mouse is an ultra-conservative player who plays very strict starting hand requirements. It will bet, but rarely ever raises a bet or re-raise. The mouse almost never bluffs. The mouse’s weakness is that he or she is simply too predictable. When the mouse starts to raise, good players typically fold their hands, and in the mouse loses out on some chips they may have won, had they not earned themselves such a stodgy reputation. This character type is also referred to as a rock.

The Jackal

Jackals are pretty common animals in low limit best online poker. This type of player plays a lot of cards, and bets and raises with abandon. You can make a lot of money off a player like this. Do not ever be afraid to call a jackal, because since they play loose, you will catch them bluffing with trash often. A jackal is destined to lose his money. Good players see him for the loose player that he is and take advantage of his weaknesses.

The Elephant

The elephant is what most online poker real money players refer to as a “calling station.” The elephant has loose starting hand requirements, and so he plays in a lot of pots. As a result, he ends up in a lot of hands that he or she has no chance of winning. This type of player does not lose all of his chips at once since he generally prefers calling to raising, but over time, the elephant contributes most of his chip stack to the other players.

The Lion

The lion is rare in low limit games. The lion is an excellent poker player and makes his living taking chips from the mouse, elephant, and jackal. A tight player who takes the occasional risk or bluff to keep from getting labeled a “rock” would be a good example of a lion.

The Eagle

The eagle is a character that most of us will never reach or even play against. The eagle represents the pinnacle of the poker world. He or she has studied the game for years and is now in the upper ranks of the poker world.

Happy playing!

 

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Many online poker players have gone through never-ending downswing playing the game. Nothing seems to be going right whatever they try. Their dominating hands don’t stand up and the river seems to kill them if they turn doesn’t.

When nothing is going right and your bankroll is in freefall the single most important thing to do when your drowning in the depths of a downswing is to:

There are two simple possibilities why you’ve found yourself in a bad streak or a downswing.

1) Your actually not that good a player

In reality, you’ve either ridden a combination of good luck and reasonable play to build a decent bankroll that you’re now seeing disappear – restoring you to at best a break-even player.

Or you’ve really ridden your luck and briefly defied the poker online odds and not much more and you now going to pay back for your lucky play in buckets in the “downswing” when in reality it’s just your total lack of skill and the better players winning their money back from you.

2) You’re actually a good or at worst a better than break-even player

You’ve either genuinely gone “card dead” and/or you’re genuinely getting sucked out while selectively playing the best online poker hands seemingly consistently losing to worse hands.

Even though you might be a genuine winning player the “luck” factor of other players is winning out against you for the moment. You could have previously had both the “rub of the green” with a good portion of luck AS WELL as a fundamentally sound game.

Interestingly the solution whichever type of player you are is to for essentially bad players who have got lucky and now they’re poor play is earning them what it’s worth the solution is simple.

Luck is temporary but class is permanent

So, work on your game, read as much online poker real money strategy as you can, and develop at the very least a solid tight-aggressive game and understand the rank & poker hand odds … stop relying on luck & see it doesn’t last. However, for the essentially winning profitable player with at least an above break-even game – dealing with a downswing can be more tricky

If you’ve honestly looked at your game and you know its fundamentally solid then you need to look at why this isn’t working anymore.

The end of the downswing

It’s really important to recognize that there really isn’t any reason why luck / bad luck or good cards and bad cards have to run in short evenly distributed runs … so a downswing could be a genuine run of bad cards and bad luck and it doesn’t have to follow the rules of probability over the short or medium-term despite what your poker odds calculators tell you, after all, how can we define the short or long term?

That doesn’t mean probability is nonsense – it just means you can’t set it a fixed short-term boundary.

Don’t give up, pull yourself together

Nobody knows what cards are coming, you could have a run of 6 months of bad cards & bad luck but one thing is for sure no amount of getting tilted and negative about it, allowing your previously reasonable game to get all beaten out of shape will change the cards or bad luck.

The good player will check their game, stick to it & ride the downswing out to the other side ready to make hay when then cards come back. The most important thing in a downswing is to make sure your game is at its best and not suffering compounding the downswing and making it seem to last long then it has to.

Happy playing!

 

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6 Lessons to Learn from Online Poker Rules

For many play poker online players, nothing comes close to the feeling that you get when you pull the trigger and attempt to bluff your opponent out of their pants. Nothing will get your heart beating faster or get you trembling harder than watching your opponent contemplate whether to call your bet or not.

And of course, while they are trying to make their decision you are just simply screaming in the back of your mind, “Please fold. Do it this one time.” But as fast as your heart may be beating, it will simply stop if you hear the words, “I call.”

This will happen to everyone at one point in their poker online career, but it is important to take those situations and learn from your mistakes.

When should you bluff?

To pull off a successful online poker real money bluff, it is important to consider many different factors, as this will help prevent a bluff from blowing up in your face.

What is your image?

If you are portrayed as a loose aggressive best online poker player or a maniac, then it is possible that your opponent just simply does not believe you. At this point, they are willing to call with a wide range of hands because they feel as if it is possible for you to have nothing but two high cards or an Ace and any other card. And if you are a maniac or just a very loose player, then this may very well be true.

On the other hand, you could pull off a successful bluff if you were a tighter player and not involved in every other pot.

It is important to remember that your opponents are watching you, so if you are aggressive then a bluff is going to look normal. When you are considering a bluff just put yourself in your opponent’s position and figure out what you look like to them.

What is your opponent’s image?

This is just as important to factor in as knowing what your image is. If your opponents are calling stations, does it really make sense to bluff them? They will simply call your bet regardless of what they may have.

Loose, aggressive, or maniacal opponents will be similar. It will be difficult to try to push these guys off a hand and if you do, you will probably have to fire several shells to do so.

The ideal opponent to bluff against is someone ‘smart’ enough to fold a hand if they feel that they are beaten. These players are generally tight-aggressive or just plain rocks. In either case, they will know how to fold and are more willing to do so if they are facing pressure and do not have the nuts or close to it.

What are you representing?

In other words, what hand are you trying to represent? The whole idea behind a bluff is to tell your opponent, “I have something and it is better than your hand.” If you just call pre-flop, check the flop, check the turn, and then fire a river bet, that is going to look awfully suspicious. Sure, it is possible that you have something but any decent player will be looking to get some value out of their hand before the river, so that of course will stand out.

On the other hand, if you raise pre-flop, c-bet the flop, and fire a bet on the turn, then you have shown nothing but aggression and have told your opponents that you have a hand and do not plan to go anywhere. Depending on your image, you are more than likely to get a fold here then if you were to act weak or uninterested until the last moment.

Another thing is to consider what the cards are on each street. If you try to make a large raise when a deuce comes up on the turn or river, it really will not make a lot of sense, especially if it does not coordinate well with any of the other cards on the board.

What does the board texture look like?

The board texture is going to be a huge factor when deciding whether to bluff or not. If your opponent is a rather decent player, they are going to have something. So, what could they have, and does it look like they caught a piece of the flop?

Depending on your opponents and the stakes you play poker, many times it will be difficult to bluff on a draw heavy board. Many times, players are willing to push it in on a draw of some kind or even top pair.

It is a good idea to bluff on very dry boards where your opponents are likely to have nothing or very little at best. This way there is a lot of pressure in a situation where they may have nothing more than pair.

How many players are in the pot?

Simply put, if there is more than one other player in the pot besides yourself. It would be virtually pointless to try to attempt a bluff. Why is that? Well, the more players that are in the pot the more likely it is that someone has made a hand of some kind. It is hard enough at times to push one player off a hand much less trying to push two, three, or even four players off a hand.

Bluffing in Poker

As fun and as thrilling as bluffing can be, it is no different than any other strategy. If it is abused then it can become quite costly. However, if the factors above are considered when making the decision to bluff. It is possible to run a successful bluff and come out with a nice pot. The bottom line to making a successful bluff is to just make sure that they make sense.

Happy playing!

 

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