Royal Flush Poker

32Red is one of the top sites around when it comes to the choice of games available to players. No matter what your favoured game is, you are as likely to find it here as anywhere else online. As you would expect, the usual games of Omaha and Texas Holdem are offered, with the hi/lo format available with Omaha. The same applies for Seven Card Stud which is also offered here. 5 Card Stud and 5 Card Draw make up the rest of the games offered within the poker room itself, making for a very good array of games.

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32Red does offer much more than just these games however, but these are in the casino section. The casino card games are played against the computer and offer an extensive choice, with Blackjack, Three card Poker, Baccarat, Pai Gow, and several varieties of video poker. These casino games may not be to everybody’s tastes, but they certainly add something different. If you are happy to spend some money playing a new and exciting game, then you will find plenty of these in the casino.

As poker players, our preference of game variety is down to personal taste.Generally speaking though, the younger players will prefer Holdem and Omaha, whereas older players might be more familiar with games such as Seven Card stud which used to be the most popular. Personally, I like Omaha at the moment, probably more so than Holdem. I am always happy to play Five Card Draw too, so I suppose my weakness would be Seven Card Stud. Whichever of these is your chosen game, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a game at 32Red.

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Betfairpoker.com – For me, there is an important part of my poker playing schedule approaching in the form of an end of league deep stack tournament. Each week we all pay an entrance fee for the night and extra money into the league fund. This means that a nice prize pool builds up over 6 months, and then we have our deep stack tournament on the 24th of May.

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Last time around I managed 4th place in the event which was a very pleasing result, but this time around I would like to improve upon that. I shall hopefully be able to find some more time for Omaha in the coming weeks. Live games of Omaha are hard to find due to the popularity of Holdem Poker, but there is always online play to fall back on. Omaha affords some real possibilities to test your reading ability and throws out some strong hands very often, for this reason I feel it will grow in popularity, but for the moment I will be settling for online.

I could say much the same for Five Card Draw as Omaha, in that it is very difficult to find a live game nearby, despite it being a very enjoyable game. I feel it would be good to see more mixed games at tournaments, as even the most avid holdem fan must tire of the game eventually.  I know that I do, but only ever for a few days at a time.

My schedule will be relatively light in the next few weeks on the whole, with some small cash games puncuating my live tournaments, and hopefully I will feel very refreshed for the big game on the 24th.

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Usually when playing poker online at Party Poker, it will be much more than simply the texture of the board cards that defines whether you make a bet and how much, because different situations can call for very different actions sometimes. You may have heard people say that you play the person more than you do the cards, and this is the basis for one such situation. You might bluff against a tight player in a given scenario, but if you replaced that person with a wild reckless player, you might not feel so keen.

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The other well known situational aspect of the game is position at the table. We all know that being late to act is advantageous in poker, and also provides opporunity to make bets based solely on the perceived weakness your position has allowed you to observe. We all know that often, if one or two opposing players check the flop, there is a strong chance that they have missed. This then gives our chance to pick up the pot with a bet only made possible by that particular situation.

Another situation that might affect your willingness to make certain calls or raises, is the size of your chip stack. I see some players tighten up when they get low on chips to try and hang on for as long as possible, but personally, I feel it best to open up and start firing at pots.

As long as they are thought through correctly, bets made due to your situation rather than cards, can have a positive effect on your game.

There are lots of poker pro strategies you can use at Sky Poker. Slow playing is an issue that has appeared in recent years and involves players who are close friends choosing not to get into big confrontations with each other unless they have to.

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I think this is a difficult problem because every player has a right to play their cards as they wish in poker. You have to say though that it verges on players engaging in teamwork against the other players at the table, and that could be interpreted as collusion.

Not making large bluffs against a close friend is seen by some as being a good friend, especially when there is a lot of money on the table, but on a personal note, I do not agree with this type of play. I have a close friend who comes along to our live event some weeks, and whilst I know there are not vast amounts of money at stake, my principals are that I will play as well as I can at all times and try to win all his chips.

When it comes to poker, I feel that every player should be ruthless on the table. My friend took my out of the tournament once with (A,10) by rivering a ten against my (A,J). I bought him a beer later though and would never get annoyed about this.

It seems honourable and respectful to other players at the table if we treat even our friends as the enemy on the table, and both parties should accept this as just poker.

I play poker on PKR and found that poker is interwoven with probability as much as it is skill, and so it is important to understand how likely or unlikely any given occurrence may be. These occurances can be small scale, or indeed large scale. When you are looking to enter a tournament, often choosing the best tournament for you, entails looking at the probability you will cash in view of how many players are playing. I personally prefer MTT tournaments because I know my probability of making the final table or winning is not all that great, but I prefer to take the risk for a chance at one large cash.

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In the short term, we have to calculate probable outcomes in almost every hand we play, whether it is a case of thinking it improbable that our (7,2) will win and folding it, or raising with (A,A) because we think we will be called.

Probable outcomes become most prevalent in our minds when we are drawing to a strong hand, every player who aspires to be talented at the game should know exactly how many cards to a suit and number are in a standard deck of playing cards. It is not only these draws that are important though, because there will be many situations where you need to count certain outs and possible outs and weigh up the probable outcome of the hand, and that, is where much of the skill lies in poker.

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This was a hand that took place in my live event on Wednesday at Poker.Ladbrokes.com, and involved my opponent in the big blind with about 7,000 chips, and myself on the button with around 12,000 chips and (As,Ks). I had raised to 600 preflop, and my opponent called.

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The flop came down (10h,7s,5s) and I had picked up a Flush draw. I immediately felt certain that my opponent did not have an overpair (he would have reraised preflop) and had not connected with the flop.  It was perhaps possible that he had (A,10) but I thought most possibilities of a strong hand were pretty unlikely, unless he had a middle pair and had made a set. At this point, I felt that betting out would be exactly what he expected of me whether I had connected or not, and so any subsequent call or raise would be difficult to decipher.

With this in mind, I decided on something creative. I felt it very likely he had not connected at all, and I also thought the size of his raise would confirm my suspicions after I checked. Sure enough, I checked, and he raised it 1,200. This was obviously a strong bet and one which hinted he wanted to pick up the poker pot there and then. I think if he had the hand which I feared most in the flopped set, he would bet smaller.

My main concern aside from this was (A,10) and my feeling was that he would not call an all in raise with this hand.
I pushed it all in, and he began thinking for a long time.  I was very sure he was going to fold, but of course I had my plan B of the big Flush draw if he did call. This safety net, along with the fact that he didn’t have enough chips to critically damage my stack meant that this play wasn’t just reckless courage, it was very calculated.

He did indeed fold, and I picked up a couple more thousand chips.

When looking at this aspect of the game at Ladbrokes Poker, I do not mean literally telling your opponent what they wish to hear of course, rather, dropping false hints through your own play in order to help them make the wrong choice.

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Often you will find that players make raises for the purpose of gaining information about the hand they are up against, this gives you the chance to throw your opponent off the right track. If for instance you have a strong hand which you are certain is in front, you can sit there thinking for some time before calling. This shows uncertainty and weakness when in fact your hand is strong. You should not look to hint at the opposite of the truth in this way every time of course, or players catch on to what you are doing.

As well as telling your poker opponent what they want to hear when in fact the opposite is true, you can in fact play in such a way as to achieve the opposite effect. On certain flops, players will look to put out a bet just to get a feel for whether you have connected, and with the hope that they might win the pot uncontested. Regardless of what cards you have, you can choose to put out a reraise sometimes, hinting falsely that you have connected, and telling them what they do not wish to hear.

As with any tactical play you make, remember not to do it too often. Keep mixing your play up so that your opponent remains off balance, and unsure of where your hand is during any given moment.

This hand was one of the first of a few at Bet Fair Poker which went badly wrong on the final table. I started the hand with a chiplead of 30,000 and my opponent had around 9,000.

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From the big blind I already had 1,600 invested and so I wasn’t overly happy to see my opponent who is usually a very solid player raise it to 3,200 preflop. I was holding (Ac,Jc) and figured that it was probably just about enough to get me into trouble, but I had to call. The flop came down a very interesting (Ah,Qc,10c). I knew the chips were going in one way or another and was putting my opponent on a hand like (A,Q) or (A,K). I checked on the off chance he might be holding an underpair and would check back, but he moved the rest of his chips in and I couldn’t convince myself to get away.
I had the nut Flush draw, top pair, and an inside Straight draw and so I called. He turned over his (A,K) and with no club or King to save me, I wondered if there was any way I could have simply folded the hand in the first place. In all honesty though, I think in that position I would do the same again. When the flop came down, I pretty much picked up every draw and connected enough to leave me strong, but still behind in the hand.
Preflop I couldn’t fold (Ac,Jc) when I already had 1,600 invested even if I did feel I was going in behind, so I cannot feel too bad. In poker there will always be times when you are dragged into a pot that almost plays itself out, and you just have to go with your best option at the time I feel.

This hand at PacificPoker.co.uk involved myself picking up (Ad,8d) in fairly late position. The players in the blinds were fairly shortstacked, and I decided to make a loose raise to try and pick up the pot.

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Both blinds called however, and the flop came down (10c,Qs,4h) Both players checked, and so I decided to make a small bet in the hope that they would perceive this to mean I wanted a call. My feeling was that they had both missed, but the big blind player decided to call. Then, an (As) came off on the turn. Now I was certain I was in front and began to feel my opponent had a hand containing a Queen. We had already built a reasonable sized pot and what I should have done was bet out strongly to try and take the pot down there and then. What I did was bet small to try and lure my opponent into putting more chips into the pot.

There is a lesson here to be learnt, and I should have known better than to raise small and risk losing a nice pot. Another (4) came off on the river and I bet quite strongly. My poker opponent quickly called showing (J,4) for a set. You might say that it was rather loose play for him to call preflop and throughout the hand, but I had to recognise that I was making it cheap enough for him to do so. I should have closed the hand down and been happy with what was already in the pot, but I got greedy and took the risk to try and get an extra 2,000 into the pot.

This was the second big hand which went astray for me on the final table, but I managed to steady the ship at 15,000 chips soon after. I can say though that I was entirely at fault in this hand, and so I cannot have any real complaints.

This hand at 32RedPoker.com was the final one in a string of hands which caused the collapse of my chiplead, and tournament.

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Letting such a dominant position slip away from you in a tournament is hurtful enough, but this was a particularly painful way to be eliminated. I found myself in the big blind with 15,000 of my previous 30,000 chips left, and looked down at (A,K). My opponent had 15,300 chips and had been the same player who I had clashed with in two pots shortly beforehand.

My opponent raised, making it 4,000 to go, and I decided I should move all in. This would give me the best chance of forcing him off a middle to low pair, but I might still get a call if he was holding a hand such as (A,Q) or (A,J) due to my loose image. He swiftly called, giving my the chance I needed to get my chips back to 30,000 and leave the nightmare of the previous few hands behind me. My opponent turned over (9,9) which was surprising, but I was delighted to see the first card on the flop was a King. This immediately made me feel relaxed as a meaningless looking (8) and (10) followed to make up the flop. The turn card was a (6) and you can imagine my horror as the (7h) hit on the river, completing his Straight.

I would probably play the hand the same way if I had the chance again, as I knew his range of calling hands included hands I had dominated as well as coin flips, and I wouldn’t think he would have raised as heavily as he did preflop if he had (A,A) or (K,K). I had played to my best standards all night, and this was the final and most painful hand, to unravel all that hard work. Poker can be ruthless though, and I at least had an exciting and memorable game.