Keeping track

It is always a good idea to keep tabs on your money and where/how you spend it, if you want to avoid getting into debt and having to worry about saving to get out of it. In Poker, it's no different. If you're serious about the game, you will want to approach it like a business, seeking indicators to improve. Records of money and other vital factors are fundamental.

So, why keep records in Poker? First of all, how else would you know if you're succeeding or not? You should keep track of your win/loss rates: how much you're making or breaking, divided by how many hours you're playing. You should also keep notes on other people you play against; this can not only help you if you play them again, but it can also allow you to capture the best traits and techniques that you encounter throughout your poker career.

Even in those bad times when you lose a lot, and you may not feel like recording a game... do it anyway. It's only for your benefit, for you to be able to identify specific aspects of your gameplay that you need to work on. Everytime you improve, as a consequence of those times where you picked up your notebook and wrote, you'll be glad you did.

It's Poker Halloween

What kind of poker player are you, when it comes to your tells? Perhaps you've noticed: lots of players sit at the table wearing hats, caps, sunglasses, you name it.

Ever wonder why? Nope, it's not just Vegas fever. It isn't Fashion Week either. Those items are a strategy, employed by players of various levels, to avoid being "read" by experienced players.

Theory has it that some talented players can pick up on the slightest signs from opponent's faces and body language in general, your "tells", in order to unmask the worth of their hands and leave them vulnerable. So, if you're not sure about how cool you can be at the poker table, about how well you can keep a poker face (no connection with Lady Gaga), then by all means, wear hat and glasses. If you're very unsure, heck, wrap yourself in bandages like the invisible man.

Be creative. But above all, be on your best game with all the strategies you can muster. And if someone bothers you about it, you'll at least have the comfort of knowing you're doing it to improve your odds at the table, where the action really is.

George Danzer wins a braclet at WCOOP

The World Championship Of Online Poker 2009 at Poker Stars reached the end with George Danzer winning the final table.

Danzer , who had some problems on the beginning,  won a great pot with a marvelous all in hand, winning with a straight against a two pairs. This proved to be the recovery point of  a tought final. He left kunkku out on the last hand and winning the championship braclet. The prize pool of this championship was $654K , there where almost 1000 players and the buy in was $320. 

The final board was:

1. George Danzer - $109,545
2. kunkku - $81,750
3. Shawn “buck21” Buchanan - $62,130
4. TheTaker - $42,510
5. badbanker70 - $28,056.60
6. Kevin “parksy1066” Parkes - $19,620

Hands and Combinations

Here are the possible Hands you can have, in a game of Poker. They are presented from most valuable (royal flush) to least valuable (high card).

Royal Flush: Ace, King, Queen, Jack and 10, all of the same suit
Straight Flush: any five card sequence, all in the same suit
Four of a Kind (a.k.a. Poker): all four cards of the same rank
Full House: three of a kind combined with a pair
Flush: any five cards of the same suit, but not in sequence
Straight: five cards in sequence, but not in the same suit
Three of a Kind: three cards of the same rank
Two Pairs: two separate pairs
Pair: two cards of the same rank
High Card: otherwise unrelated cards ranked by the highest single card

And did you ever wonder what the possible combinations were for each, on any single deck? Poker is all about numbers.

Royal Flush: 4
Straight Flush: 36
Four of a Kind (a.k.a. Poker): 624
Full House: 3.744
Flush: 5.108
Straight: 10.200
Three of a Kind: 54.912
Two Pairs: 123.552
Pair: 1.098.240
High Card: 1.302.540

Online Poker Rigged

This picture can be quite funny(check is hand). But some people are deceiving others on online poker.Has you all know, we as humans have feelings which mess in ourdecisions. A computer doesn't depend on that , it decides mainly using mathematics, huge history hands and a good coding of AI.

We all we use windows clients for online poker, and it is very easy to create a program to read and interact with those windows applications.

You can parse a keyboard and mouse actions to those poker client applications. And read directly from the window the pixels and detect which cards they are using, this way the bot makes a decision.

There are some blogs of bots being sold or built for poker online. This bots with neural networks and a huge collection of history hands, can suppress any player. Remember the Deep Blue against Kasparov? When money isn't involved this is quite fun, but in this case you might have a human enjoying the wealth of poker bots. For best online poker experience , please tend to only depend with your own brain. This poker strategy is quite lame.

Luck In Poker

In poker it is really necessary to have a some luck. Top players need luck as well, and that "odd-Breaker" card, the famous "save by the river" can sometimes be a necessity. Well not even Gus Hansen doesn't enjoy those moments. As you can see in this moment , Gus is on a tough spot. Those Pocket Snowmen or those Two Fat Ladies on the hand of Seidel , are very difficult to imagine when you have two pairs.

Normally betting on two pairs is a tough choice, especially all-in, you can have two underpairs or face a three of a kind. Two pairs don't have good odds.  

But back at the game, as it unfolds Gus Hansen gets the lucky river card. Of  couse the Pot goes to Gus with a stunned Seidel. But this situations don't happen very often ,  try to avoid counting on them. Read well the table to see if you aren't in Seidel position as well.

Poker Strategy Beginner Tips

This goes out to all the beginners out there. These are a few poker strategy tips that you should take into consideration:

1- Don't fall in love with any hand. Don't think that after getting an AA that follows through successfully, you can go all in a second time it shows up. Don't ever think you have a lucky hand. In poker it is all about odds. Instead of going all in on the second time you get an AA , go easy, because if you had a great hand with an AA you can just as easily get Muck with a different Flop.

2-Don't think you are getting better than what you truly are. If you want to know what others do and will do, you need to know yourself first. After that, in poker, you should check and learn your opponents and the odds you have at the poker table. Don't get imaginative and try to create new ways of playing. This sometimes leads to youtube videos of stupid plays.

3- Don't be stupid and try to do bluffs. In Poker, you must be sure that the players around you are not confident enough. Again, you get great movies out of these ones.

4- READ THE TABLE. If you can't read the poker table, you will probably lose. This is one of the worst beginner's flaws in poker strategy.

5- Concentrate. In Poker, concentration in the game is essential. Be sure that experienced opponents will try to take your concentration out. You should improve your concentration to a point where you can be multitasking.


These are my begginer's Poker strategy tips. Hope you enjoy them.