Archive for August, 2008

Tips for getting Lucky at Poker

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Tuesday Aug 26th, 2008

Getting lucky at poker often seems to be something which simply happens, and there is no way you can control it. Well in essence that is true, but there will always be many occasions when a player would have got lucky, but they have already folded their hand.

That is the dilemma that faces many players who are new to the game. How do you know when to fold a hand when you might be about to get lucky on the next card? The answer is you cannot sit and wait for cards unless the bet facing you is small enough for it to be a profitable call.

So as a player you will of course have times when you are not in a hand where you would have got lucky, but you cannot hope to control this aspect of poker. What you can do though is attempt to see cheap flops when your opponents allow you to. This is especially productive in terms of getting lucky, when you have a hand such as suited connectors.

Suited connectors are probably the hand that you are most likely to get very lucky with, in terms of making a straight or flush, although this does not really make them powerful cards. If you half hit the hand you can end up getting yourself into trouble, and the same applies to if you flop a flush or straight draw and fail to complete the hand.

On the whole though, if you want to get lucky, you should be trying to take flops with drawing hands like suited connectors, as long as it is not costing you much to call. Other than this, getting lucky is not somthing you really have much control over as a player.

Poker Online V Poker Offline

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Monday Aug 25th, 2008

Online poker has brought a number of benefits to poker players in recent years. Any players who are new to the game will not have to feel embarassed about sitting down to a game not knowing what they are doing, because most sites have explanations of all games and rules onsite.

Also many sites have play money tables to learn the ropes before you sit down at cash tables. Added to this is the sheer convenience online play brings to the player. You can turn a computer on in your home, sit down, and play whatever game you want, whenever you want, which has made poker a lot easier to play.

All these things make online play a great introduction to the world of poker, but if we are asking which is better out of online and live play, there is no contest. Live play is how the game has been played for countless decades and the very fabric of the game is woven into the act of sitting down to do battle with other players face to face. Studying the player opposite you and dissecting the information you can gain from them, coupled with previous betting patterns and the way the hand has played out, all help to formulate conclusions about a given hand.

You can say what you like about the enjoyment of playing online, but nothing beats playing real poker with real people across a real table. For this reason I hope that online poker never overtakes live poker entirely, and I wouldn’t think this will be the case.

Live poker for me, will always be the real thing. Online poker, despite it’s good points, will forever be an imitation of the game.

Poker - Skill Game - Luck or Both

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Monday Aug 25th, 2008

For me, you can only ever use your skill at poker to stem the tide of bad luck for so long. If you have consistently bad luck during a session of poker, your skill will only determine how long you survive, or how much you lose. Good play will always minimise losses, just as good play will always maximise profits when your luck is strong.

Decisions you make will always alter what happens in poker and so there is a great element of skill involved in the game for certain.

Whether luck outweighs skill or skill outweighs luck in the game is always under debate, but we can safely assume that the mixture of these things is what constitutes the game of poker. You certainly need some good luck to win a tournament, and we all experience bad luck and good in the course of a lengthy poker session. Because of this, I would have to say that skill is more important in my opinion. Unless you are already all in preflop, skill always gives you a chance to make a great fold or a call. Skill can mould good or average luck into a good chipstack, but relentless bad luck cannt be changed.

Therefore, I would have to say that poker is a mixture of both. But I feel the mixture is slightly more in favour of skill. The fact that all good and bad luck evens out over time supports this fact, because skill is a constant and will override the good and bad luck as it evens out in the course of time.

As players we can only play our best at all times, and if you don’t let bad luck affect your play, this should prove a profitable endeavour.

Best Days to Play Poker and Why

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Monday Aug 25th, 2008

It would be difficult to say that any particular day of the week is more favourable than another in terms of playing poker, but there are some circumstances to this effect that you should consider.

In terms of online play, you will often find more players who are being loose and reckless with their chips late on Saturday nights. If you enjoy playing with this type of player then Saturday night will always be a good time due to the increased number of drunk players on sites.

Similarly you should try not to play poker after you have been drinking yourself, as your judgement will often be affected. The same applies for any times you might be very tired. Sometimes it is tempting to enter a tournament at midnight, but you must consider that if you make it as far as the money, you may be extremely tired and not playing to your best.

In terms of setting up home games, the weekend will obviously be the best time, because most people are working and often tired on week nights.

These factors aside, there should be nothing to stop you playing poker whenever you feel like playing. The only restrictions might be that some excellent value online tournaments run on a particular day of the week or month, and the same applies to large freerolls online.

Overall though, any time you feel like playing poker, and are not overly tired, you should go ahead and play. That is one os the best aspects of having online poker at your fingertips after all, you can play at the best time to suit you.

skypoker.co.uk

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Tuesday Aug 12th, 2008

If we are being honest then Sky poker is probably not right with the top few online poker sites today, but it does have a lot to offer players, and if you are a beginner then this site may suit you more than many others.
Sky Poker is a fairly new site comparitively, and so only offers Texas Holdem, which is something they should look to change soon if they wish to grow further I feel.

For Poker CLICK HERE

On the upside Sky Poker has good customer support and setting up an account is very simple. These things can certainly help Sky poker lay the foundations of a high quality poker site. The fact that they have their own channel on television dedicated to a nightly poker tournament is great to see too, and can only help them move forward.

Sky Poker has made great efforts to help new players start out and even has a meter available for use on hole cards to indicate their strength. This influx of new players could quite possibly cause more experienced players to follow them, and help build player traffic at onsite.

One thing I do not like about Sky poker is that fact that it’s first time deposit bonus is weaker than most, and they need to try and bring this up to an industy wide average I feel. This will always be an instant lure to players looking to join a new poker site.

Overall I have to say that Sky Poker has it’s good points and would do well to build on them. There are a few other small improvements which could be made too, but all in all, the site is good fun to play, and a great starting point for new poker players.

Playing at partypoker.com

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Friday Aug 8th, 2008

If you are playing at PartyPoker at the moment you will know that they have a lot on in terms of tournaments and promotions. If you are a new player finding your way around the site you will see several beneficial bonuses at your disposal. $50,000 worth of freerolls are played every month with beginner only entries, this gives a great chance for bankroll building in the early stages of your online gaming.

For Poker CLICK HERE

if you are unsure of the game and the rules, don’t worry as there is a poker school available to help you along.

There is also a great points loyalty system in place regarding regular players on a monthly basis. The same can be said to the reload bonuses which are on offer at PartyPoker.

You will also find many other eye catching promotions going on such as huge weekly gaurantee tournaments, the Sit n Go step challenge, and a week long birthday party for PartyPoker for the completion of it’s seventh year. This will involve $1 million dollars worth of prizes being payed out over the week in some great offers and tournaments.

As you can tell, playing poker at PartyPoker is as good as it has ever been, with the ongoing promotions and bonuses keeping players coming back for more.

PartyPoker is a well established site and you can tell that they have used this time well to develop a site which is enjoyable to play on and offers most things a player would hope for. Feel free to check out their site as the aforementioned recent promotions look very good indeed.

www.pkr.com

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Tuesday Aug 5th, 2008

PKR has done a great deal for online poker and the way in which it is progressing. Many of todays online sites seem to use the same kind of software and the same avatars to end up with a very similar looking package. The only real differences are promotions and bonuses, and for the most part this doesn’t seem to bother the companies much. As long as what they offer is par for the course, they will always get a slice of the available custom that’s out there, and will always make money.

For Poker CLICK HERE

What PKR have done though is completely different. They seem to always be striving to stand out and try new things in the creation of their site. The graphics involved on PKR are the obvious difference, as they are much more creative, 3D, and bring a realistic feel to online play like no site has achieved before.

Having avatars which move and display emotions for example, is somthing which should have been put into practice some time ago in my opinion, as I am sure the basic technology has been there to do it. How long could this complacency on the part of other companies have gone on I wonder? Perhaps in five years we would still have had tables with a dimly lit carpet as the background, or avatars of about 6 different types, all frozen in their expressions. PKR I think has awoken the sleeping innovation of online poker, and hopefully their following will continue to expand until other companies simply have to try and go one better in order to compete. that is where the best aspects of development occur in my opinion, when people are competing to better one another, hopefully this has begun in online poker now due to PKR’s creative thinking.

Multi Table Tournaments at www.32redpoker.com

Posted by Royal Flush Poker @ 12:00 AM, Friday Aug 1st, 2008

There are a variety of things you need in Multi Table Tournaments (MTT’s) at www.32redpoker.com to be successful.

It differs greatly from Ring Games where you can decide to take your money and leave the table whenever you choose.

When it comes to MTT’s at 32redpoker.com you are in there for the long haul, and that can often take a lot out of you as a poker pro player. I just finished an MTT myself a moment ago, which lasted over four and a half hours, It certainly left me feeling a little bit psychologically fatigued by the end.

In these sort of situations at www.32redpoker.com there is an ever present danger of one mistake being your last and so the concentration levels you need to succeed are obviously high. There are other things you need of course, luck when you need it most will always help you get far. After all, it is unlikely you will play an entire tournament without being all in more than once.

Alongside these things I feel that having experience in MTT tournaments at 32redpoker.com can help you go further, as you should always be keeping an eye on what the approximate tournament average is. As well as this, where the money paying positions start and increase can sometimes play a part in your decisions, as this can affect your opponents play too.

The main points when considering successful MTT’s at www.32redpoker.com are, in my opinion, allowing ample time to complete the whole tournament and not having made other plans, also being aware of the tournament information as it changes. Be patient and concentrated on what you are doing and why, and always sit down to the tournament fully expecting to endure a lengthy and thorough test of your poker skills.

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