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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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It was eventually left to Joe Commisso and Richard Lyndaker by the end, and their heads up came to an end when Lyndaker made a play with (9,7) preflop. Unfortunately he walked into (A,Q) and after the queen hit on the flop, there never seemed to be any way back for Lyndaker who still finishes a very respectable second place at cdpoker.co.uk. Joe Commisso wins this event along with the bracelet and a cool $911,855.

Event 47 at www.cdpoker.co.uk $1,500 Seven Card Stud hi/lo Ryan Hughes was the man who finally bested second place finisher Ron Long to win this event, after 544 players and 3 days of play were finished. Hughes takes home $183,368 in prize money for his first place finish, along with his first ever WSOP bracelet.

Event 48 $2,000 No Limit Holdem Alexandre Gomes and Marco Johnson were the final two left after the rest of this events large field of 2317 had fallen. Marco Johnson was unlucky you might say, having got Gomes all in and dominated with (A,A) against (A,10). Somehow however, Gomes managed to catch a set of tens on the turn and stay alive. Gomes went to finish the job a few hands later with (A,K) against Johnsons (Q,J), and picks up the gold bracelet and $770,540 for his first place.

Event 49 the $1,500 No Limit Holdem Event. This event started with a large field of 2718, but by the time the field had been cut down to the final two, it was Rasmus Nielsen and T.C Tran who were left. After a lengthy heads up duel between the two it was Tran who overpowered Nielsen to take home the bracelet and $631,170 in prize money after his (Q,K) held up against Nielsens (Q,J).

Event 50 $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship. This event saw 381 players enter, and some well known names amongst them too. Despite this it was a rather lesser known man who won the event. Full Tilt sponsored poker pro Peter Jetten could not get away from his final hand when he made the nut straight on the flop, Marty Smyth had made the same hand and all the chips went in the middle. Unfortunately for Jetten Smyth had four cards to a flush too, and promptly rivered a club to take the bracelet and $859,532 for first place.

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After downloading the software at doylesroom.com you are invited to an invitational ‘bounty hunt’ tournament where you get a chance to play against two poker pro legends of the game in either Doyle Brunson or Mike Caro.

If you wish to try things out with ‘play money’ before depositing any real money then Doylesroomcom caters for that too with numerous tournaments and tables which are just for fun. The lobby itself can be a little confusing at first glance but it shouldn’t take too long to get accustomed to.

There are many tournaments on at www.doylesroom.com which are suitable for all types of player, new and old. Many of these are Re-buy tournaments which aren’t to my particular tastes but there are enough tournaments for most people to find what they are looking for.

Live help and support are available and of an excellent standard at Doylesroom.com, so if there are any problems getting started that the troubleshooting sections can’t help with, you needn’t worry. If you are a first time depositor and worry about the safety aspect of online transactions, then Doylesroomcom should ease any fears you have in that department.

They have a great record of being completely secure on such matters and are run by the best known, professional names in poker. So if you like the sound of Doylesroom.com, you needn’t be concerned about getting started, this site ensures that it is a straightforward and simple process all round.

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They can’t have a made hand every time they are raising of course, so it is important to choose the right time to re-raise and hopefully win the pot from them.

You can of course end up thinking that such a player is always bluffing, but they are usually aware of the loose image they are creating and so can be prone to raising in the same way when they really do have a hand because they think someone will call having got fed up of their constant raising.

There are different types of serial raiser at www.poker.ladbrokes.com I feel, there are those that bet into flops looking to test the waters and pick up pots, and there are those who are raising heavily preflop and bluffing on the flop to a large degree.

Personally I would rather play against those that let you see the flop, this gives you an opportunity to hit the flop well, then set a trap.

In this instance and many others, there isn’t exactly a time to call a poker serial raiser, it’s more a case of when to re-raise a serial raiser. If you think your hand is stronger at a given point in a hand, then you want to fire back and force the issue there and then.

If you are right and you put them all in at poker.ladbrokes.com, and they then decide to call with the worst of it, then you have to sit back and hope your hand holds up. In general though if you flat call a serial raiser they will lead out and bet on the next opportunity because of the hand due to the weakness shown by you not re-raising. Note the opportunity for slow playing a strong hand here.

If someone is raising heavily preflop at www.poker.ladbrokes.com, then all you can do is wait for what are probably the best hole cards, then go with them. The main thing to remember is that serial aggressors can be trapped, and that they don’t have a big hand every time, the rest is for your judgement to decide.

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The graphics on the whole at skypoker.co.uk are not what I would call the finest online, but many players feel such matters are trivial compared to the poker itself.

Skypoker offers games at varying stakes in Limit, Pot Limit, and No Limit formats, the only problem with variety I feel, is that the only game offered is Texas Holdem.

This is somthing www.skypoker.co.uk should look to improve soon if they wish to really compete with the best in online poker.

Skypoker.co.uk offers a start up bonus of 500 points which can be used to enter freerolls to boost the bankroll of a player starting out. Other tournaments which new players will find onsite are daily gaurantee tournaments with prize pools up to £25,000.

Another good feature for new players starting out are onsite tutorials to help improve a players game and meters whilst play goes on to let beginners know how strong their hole cards are. Skypoker is a relatively new site and as such their aspects of player traffic need time to improve, new players shouldn’t have any great trouble finding a game to play in though, and this is normal for new sites online.

On the whole I feel www.skypoker.co.uk is easy to find your way around and get started with, it offers a reasonably good poker playing experience too.

There are other sites which I feel offer a better all round package, as the lack of variety in types of available poker needs to be improved, and player traffic increased. These two issues of course walk hand in hand, and increased player traffic should follow a better variety of available games amongst other small improvements.

Sky Poker is overall a good site to get started out on, and should only improve with time.

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Every player in major live tournaments will have quite a period of time to make their decisions, due to the other players understanding this need for extra thought on important decisions.

There is no preset time allowance for any action as such, although others players can ask for a clock to be put on a player after a few minutes has elapsed. Once this clock has been called the player has 1 minute to act otherwise his hand is folded.

I feel it is right and fair that in a game where decisions can cost thousands, that there is no rigid timeframe in place in tournament play.

And the poker players are almost always very courteous about allowing several minutes before calling a clock.

One difference you will find in online play, on sites such as bluesquarepoker.com, is that no such rules exist and that is a shame I think.

Each player has their own clock, and on some sites, such as www.bluesquarepoker.com these can run down in a matter of 30 seconds - 1 minute depending on the site.

The sites should take notice of this, because it isn’t exactly a very strong incentive to play high stakes poker on their site. It simply isn’t worth the risk if you feel you are going to be bullied into making a bad decision, because you haven’t got sufficient time to contemplate everything fully.

Pokerstars is in my opinion, leading the way in combatting this to some degree with a ‘time bank’ where you can use extra time for important decisions. I still feel the feature could be improved however.

Other sites should look at this problem in more depth, it is of course also important not to inconvenience other players, as there is always a fine line with such matters.

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There are obvious differences between the two games, but if you are competent at one game then picking up the rules of the other should be relatively simple. Actually going on to master Omaha or Holdem at celebpoker.com after learning it’s basics though, is somewhat more difficult.

Holdem begins with two hole cards where as Omaha requires four hole cards to begin with. This paves the way for much stronger hands being made as the board cards are dealt and can see larger pots being built as a result. In Holdem poker strong starting hands are considered to be two very high cards such as (A,K) or (A,Q) and pairs too.

Suited cards are a bonus at www.celebpoker.com, but they hold much more weight in Omaha especially if you have two cards of one suit and two of another.

This greatly increases the chances of a flush being made, and numerically connected cards improve the chances of a straight being made.

Often in Holdem hole cards will be folded preflop, but in Omaha I feel there is much more benefit in seeing a cheap flop if possible.

This can be used to great advantage at celebpoker.com if you are strong at knowing when to get away from half made hands, and when the odds are right to call. For the most part I feel these are the most important things to bear in mind, although just with any new variant of poker, playing as much as you can to expand your understanding, is always the best way forward.

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When looking solely at PacificPoker.co.uk there are a few good points from the outset. The first time deposit bonuses are of a reasonable amount although they do have larger bonuses in other betting sections onsite.

A first time deposit bonus of 25% cash is offered for a deposit up to $100 in contrast to 100% in the casino section does appear to show that the site is not largely a poker orientated one and concentrates more broadly on other areas.

This however doesn’t necessarily mean that playing poker on www.pacificpoker.co.uk holds any less enjoyment, and in relation to bonuses and offers, Pacific Poker doesn‘t look too bad. There are often gauranteed multi tournaments onsite which can be as large as $20,000 on weekdays, and there are usually larger gaurantee tourneys of up to $80,000 over the weekend too.

Players with a slightly smaller poker bankroll can win their seats in such events through satellite tournaments if they feel the buy in is a little above their means.

After making the first deposit at Pacificpoker.co.uk, a player is offered one beginners tournament per day for a week which contributes towards a better all round first time bonus package than it first appears. So although the first time starting bonus may not be the most competitive on the net, if you feel yourself to be amongst the stronger players around you should be able to bump up your bonus package in this weeks worth of tournaments.

The layout of the site looks quite good too, and there are ongoing ‘bad beat’ and Royal Flush jackpots in operation. All in all this adds up to a good poker playing experience at www.pacificpoker.co.uk

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Despite this being the case Joe Hachem managed to win a World Series main event with (7,3) off suit and Doyle Brunson did the same thing on two separate occassions whilst holding (10,2). So do these type of seemingly weak hands really lose as often as you might think against a strong hand such as (A,K)? I decided to deal out one hundred boards with (7,2) off suit against (A,K) off suit, twice over, and averaged the two results to find out.

The Ladbrokes Poker odds calculators in these circumstances will tell you that (7,2) should win around 32.2% of the time, (A,K) should win 67.3% of the time, and the other 0.5% resulting in a tie. My results read as folows: (2,7) wins 35% of the time, (A,K) wins 64% of the time and 1% results in a tie. Although these results don’t conclusively prove or disprove anything, they do show a slightly higher trend of (2,7) winning and (A,K) losing, than you might expect, but this isn’t enough of a difference in percentages to warrant closer inspection I don’t think, we can safely say that the expected odds do work out the way they should, when it comes to real ladbrokespoker hands being played out. Ladbrokespoker.com

The key point to remember as a poker player is that (2,7) does have a chance against most hands if you have two live cards, but it certainly isn’t a hand you want to be involved in an all in showdown with if you can help it. The more you stick to the stronger hands the higher the percentage of the time that you will be victorious over your opponent.

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He started learning poker at a fairly early age from his father and went on to begin competing in the World Series some years later, gaining his first bracelet at the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event in 1992. A really good place to practice poker is at pkr.com.

Afterwards Hoyt underwent some personal turmoil with divorce proceedings and retreated from the spotlight of the poker circuit for over a decade.

He reappeared in 2003, immediately winning over a million dollars at the World Poker Tour, this was followed by a second place finish in 2004 which earnt him almost $300,000 in prize money too.

2005 saw Hoyt take second place in the WSOP "Tournament of Champions Freeroll" and another $325,000 and 2006 saw some good tournament results also, but it was last year at the World Series that Hoyt matched his achievement from all those years ago and picked up his second bracelet and over half a million dollars.

Already Hoyt has begun the year well in 2008, finishing second in the WPT world poker open to take his live tournament earnings in total to around the $3.7 million mark. www.pkr.com

Hoyt is a man of a very quiet demeanour but has a very strong style of play and likes to go into pots raising, as you can tell by his results since his return to the circuit, he is a formidable opponent in any tournament he chooses to play in.

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