Players should always lean towards decisions that can be classified as +EV (positive Expected Values) as opposed to decisions classified as –EV (negative Expected Values). The concept of EV is best defined as the expected value of a random variable is the sum of the probability of each potential outcome of the experiment multiplied by its concomitant payoff. Simply put, this is the amount that one expects to yield when identical odds are repeated over and over again.  So when you punt, this +EV is what you would typically expect.

A Classic Example of Expected Value

Poker players make use of the concept of Expected Value time and again. As an example of EV in action, a standard coin toss has an even or neutral EV. But a weighted coin toss has an unexpected EV outcome. A coin toss where the payoff on heads is +£10 and -£5 on tails would yield wins 50% of the time, but the EV is £2.50. So it would be worth making this bet because the probability of the outcome of winning £10 comes good 50% of the time and that is favorable than losing £5, 50% of the time.

In Poker Expected Values  Works in Much the Same Way

The notion of EV works well in poker because there are a set number of cards in play – 52. And with certain knowns and multiple unknowns, EV can be calculated.  Poker players simply calculate the number of cards required to hit a winning hand and the odds of not hitting the winning hand. The pot value should be known and the buy-in to win that pot should be known. If the value of placing the bet is worth the expected payoff, then the bet should be placed. Remember that it’s a long-term betting option and +EV bets are the dealmakers!

Poker Online

Face it, poker is the most popular online card game on the planet today. Few games come close to matching its popularity. While blackjack has been considered a close second, even blackjack players would admit that Texas Hold’em reigns supreme. So the best advice is the following: follow your heart to the most trusted and revered online poker sites. Credibility is everything. Reputations build trust and so do generous online bonuses. Remember that online poker sites offer terrific poker schools and strategies for players to make use of. Use them well and enhance your game no end.

Friends

Note that friends are a great resource to use to learn and play poker with. But they’re not mutually exclusive to poker online. So play with friends socially, online and at Vegas casinos because poker is most definitely about interaction, psychology and bluffing. Read the cards but play the player – that’s what makes Hold’em the great card game that it has become.

Books

Poker Books form part of an invaluable component of the top resources to learn the game of poker with. Poker books are structured, professional and didactic accounts of how best to go about learning the game, playing the game and mastering the game. But be careful to select books tailored to your way of playing. And it’s imperative that you understand the level at which the pro writer is explaining the concepts.  Highly mathematical books are not reader-friendly and they can become a bore. So select wisely and learn the game.

TV

There can be no doubt that television is a terrific medium to learn the game of poker from. And with the WSOP taking place and being screened virtually everywhere it’s easy to see why television ranks right up there. But it’s often glamorized so watch closely and follow the games through to the end. Poker is about patience and TV has precious little time for that!

Live Poker Tourneys

If you just happen to be at the Aussie Millions 2012 in January at the Crown Plaza, or the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino for the WSOP 2011, you’ll be able to see how poker pros play in real-time. This is the most exciting way to learn the game. It’s also the most inaccessible. But thankfully poker contests are a dime a dozen so getting to see one in action is not a faraway occurrence.

If you are able to stay the course, then nifty profits are yours to make.  There are several elements that aggravate poor poker performance. Included are the following:

• Impaired judgment including erratic behaviour, inability to stay the course and imbibing in excessive alcohol or other substances.
• Lack of knowledge owing to insufficient experience in the real-money poker realm.
• Poker greenhorn instinct which drives players to play 80% of the hands they are dealt, even if they are shockers.
• Inability to manage a poker bankroll effectively as a result of poor financial sense or desperate gambling behaviour.

Limited Alcohol Consumption

In today’s post we are going to focus exclusively on the 1^st component: consumption of alcohol and/or foods that may seriously undermine optimum poker performance. As in any activity where mental acuteness is required, alcohol and other stimulants should be used with considerable care.

It’s entirely personal when deciding precisely how much alcohol can be consumed before logical decision-making is impaired. But each and every poker player will have an idea as to how much can be consumed. Usually it’s safe to say that 2 pints of beer will be the limit for low tolerance drinkers while 4 or 5 may be the satiation point for higher tolerance players. With spirits (whiskey, brandy, vodka, tequila and gin, etcetera) the limits are not measured in pints, but in measured doses. And naturally these are considerably lower. The point is that poker players should perhaps slow down their alcohol consumption when going into higher stakes poker contests or even during a series of prolonged low-stakes poker games. Mental agility is paramount to winning more online and real life poker games. This particularly holds true for all forms of medication, narcotics, stimulants (Red Bull & Vodka; coffee & espresso) and other smoked substances.

Playing well in poker is a direct derivative of being well nourished, mentally balanced and sufficiently hydrated. It’s always best to drink loads of OJ, water, juice or sodas over alcohol. And keep that belly well nourished – it’ll keep your mind off the fatty foods and squarely on the games at hand.

When the hottest Xbox 360 (and PS3) game meets one of the most popular card how to buy prescription drugs without a prescription games ever, people just seem to go crazy. If you search for “poker tips” on google.com (or UK), you can see that many of the recent searches are related to this game. The poker in RDR is Texas Hold ‘Em and believe me that the people at rockstar (who are also responsible to GTA) have chosen that particular game because they know how popular it is.

Some people such as Jonathan Ore (Bitmob) don’t like the idea of gambling inside a video game. In Jonathan’s opinion, the game “makes your play forever” just like on a real casino.

other people really like it and someone even wrote a beginner guide. He says that the best strategy is actually to cheat, but I want to remind you that you might get caught on the way and that would cost you 25$… (one of the most expensive crimes on the game).

The guys on the Gamespot’s forums have their own tips to offer – some say that bluffing works best, some say that the computer AI also bluffs a lot so it’s not a good idea.

Personally, I think that you should always remember that a video game is supposed to give you a good time. The poker mission on the game is only a submission and you don’t have to complete it in order to beat the game itself. We all remember LSL games wheres you had to win some cash on the casino , but almost every fan of the series knows that you can’t beat a larry game without visting a casino at least once (although I think that the special card game on “love for sail”, the sixth game is quite annoying).

When you add all that up, you have the perfect recipe to send a player who is already losing in to a tailspin that should involve spewing chips all over the table. And, if things go right, a large portion of them should be able to land in my stack!

To make sure that “Steve” won as few pots as possible, I loosened up considerably on my starting hand selection. I saw more than 90% of the flops. My whole goal was to be in any hand that “Steve” was going to be in. Having one more hand to beat every time would make it that much harder for “Steve” to win pots. I was willing to pay the $2 to see the flop in on the chance that I would hit a big hand or big draw that would keep me interested. Otherwise, I’d fold to any bet on the flop.

The strategy worked in so much that we were able to get “Steve” to pull another buy-in out of his wallet and was well on his way to losing it all when I finally had to head home. This was one time where I really wish I could have stayed longer to see the final result. I’m not sure if “Steve” would have dug further in to his wallet, or if we had tapped him at that point.

Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to capitalize on “Steve’s” shower of chips. I won a few small-ish pots online pharmacy without a prescription off him, but the big money was split between the rookie and another player. They spent most of their time stacking “Steve’s” chips in their own piles.

When you see a player who is dangling precariously on the edge of tilt, do not be afraid to apply a small amount of pressure to his backside in order to get him to dive in head first!

Think of each hand of poker as a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of information you have about the hand gets placed in the puzzle. The more information you have, the more pieces you can put in place and the better you are going to be able to play your hand. So at the end of a hand if 2 of your opponents each show their hands, this is valuable information that you can store up Viagra Without Prescription and use in future hands. Think about it, if you play the hand back in your head, you should be able to remember what position each player was playing from, who was betting, calling or raising, and you now have the benefit of knowing how strong each players hand was when they were doing it. Being able to recall that type of information is going to make it that much easier for you to play against these opponents in future hands.

Consider this scenario. You sit down at the poker table and quickly realize that most of the players are fairly passive. You take that that your cue to step up the aggression. You start raising every 2 or 3 hands and following up your pre-flop aggression with bets on the flop. After an hour of simply robbing the table blind, you haven’t had to show down any of the junk you have been stealing with. Everything is going your way. You are feeling invincible and you decide to show a big bluff. At that moment the tumblers all clicked in your opponents heads. You have just lost the element of mystery. You better be prepared to tighten up your game immediately or else you are going to find yourself getting called down by some mediocre hands. Of course this can work in your favor if you hit some decent hands immediately following. But you can expect to be called to the river the next few times you are in a pot.

Some people will tell you that it’s a bad idea to ever show your hands unless you absolutely have to, for example, at the showdown when you have to show your hand to win the pot. While you certainly don’t want to make a habit of it, there are certainly times when it’s not a bad idea to do some advertising. If you’ve raised 2 or 3 pots in a row and then pick up a huge hand like A/A or K/K, I’ll often show this hand before mucking to reinforce the idea that I’m only raising with “the goods.” It is typically a bad idea to ever show your bluffs. Very little positive effect can be gained by it. Sure, you get to bask in the moment as you are stacking up your stolen chips, but the likelihood that you are going to get away with another bluff in the near future his gone way down.

Use the power of information in your favor. Think twice before showing your hands when you don’t have to. If you do show hands, use it to reinforce the notion that you are always holding the winning hand. Unless you are ready to start gambling, don’t show your bluffs.

Small Blind (3%) – This is the worst position at the table. You are going to be first to act on every round of betting. You should be folding pre-flop with weak hands that have little chance of making a 5 card hand (flush/straight) even in an unraised pot. Consider re-raising with big hands to avoid playing out of position.

Big Blind (3%) – Your position hasn’t improved much. Again, try re-raising with big hands or calling only with hands like A/Q, A/J or medium sized pocket pairs. Also, based on the position of the pre-flop raiser, you can elect to play a wider range of starting hands, but not by much.

First position (5%) – You have 9 player to get past, your hand better be strong. Also, you should be coming in for a raise 95% of the time when you plan to play from first position. If you get re-raised from a player in later position, before you call, remember that you are going to be out of position the rest of the hand.

Second position (10%) – Your position is still pretty poor. This is another raise or fold position. By limping in you are inviting players in later position to punish you and raise you out of the pot pre-flop.

Third position (15%) – You should still be playing pretty close to the vest from here. Don’t play unless you plan to come in for a raise.

Fourth position (20%) – At a full table, you are now in middle position. Your starting hand range can start to open up. It may sound redundant, but you should be coming in for a raise from here.

Fifth position (25%) – Time to start getting more active. You are going to have position on most of the table. By coming in for a raise you are going to most likely isolate yourself against a single opponent giving you the best chance to win the hand.

Sixth position (30%) – One spot away from the cut-off position. Time to start thinking about stealing the blinds. Starting hand range opens up even further and calling a pre-flop raise from here should yield you position for the rest of the hand (with only 2 players left to have better position than you)

The Cut-off (40%) – I consider buy drugs the cut-off position to be the sweet spot. Time to start raising with a much wider variety of hands. If you are going to be the first to enter the pot from the cut-off position, suited connectors, any pair, any two face cards all become raising hands.

The Button (50%) – Having the button in front of you is like a license to steal. If all players have folded to me while I’m on the button, I’m going to raise to put pressure on the blinds about half the time. Most any two cards will work in this position. If you are called by one of the blinds, you can continue to apply pressure by betting the flop no matter if you hit or not. Remember, your opponent is only going to improve his hand on the flop 1/3 of the time. So you should win 2/3rds of these pots.

Avoid playing marginal hands from early position and apply pressure from late position. These two simple tips will improve your winning percentage immediately.

I consider a micro-limit tournament to be anything under $5.00. In tournaments with this low of a buy-in, you can expect to see some extremely loose play. Many players will play any two cards in an effort to either win a large pot or get knocked out early to avoid wasting time in a tournament where the payout is going to be relatively low.

For the sake of this article, we’re going to assume that your goal is to win the tournament. This means you aren’t going to play like a maniac while trying to get lucky in order to accumulate chips or get knocked out trying.

Your first task is to make it past the first three levels. Here are some tips to do this:

• Play tight and fold all but the premium starting hands.
• Try to avoid race situations for all your chips
• Don’t overvalue hands like A/Q, A/J, A/10, K/Q or pocket pairs 9s or lower
• Don’t try to steal the blinds (during the first few levels, they are so low, they aren’t worth stealing)
• Identify the overly aggressive players and avoid them early on

Getting dealt some premium hands in the first few rounds can be a large benefit. Since many players are playing really loose, it’s not usually a problem to get paid off by lesser hands. Of course there is always the chance that you will get unlucky and have somebody draw out on you. This is a part of poker and there is nothing you can do about that.

After these first few rounds are over, it’s buy prescription drugs without prescription now time to change gears and accumulate some chips. Since you have been playing tight, you should now be able to use the tight image that you have portrayed to your advantage. When you enter a pot with a raise, other players, if they are paying attention, should take notice and give you credit for having a big hand. I would still suggest you avoid playing against the overly aggressive players, especially if they have accumulated a sizable stack. Many times these players will choose to play back at tight players thinking that they can get them to lay down most hands with a large bet on the flop. Unless you start with a monster hand or flop a big hand, you are going to be hard-pressed to play back at a player with a much larger stack than your own.

The number one most important rule for playing micro-limit tournaments is to remain patient. By picking your spots, getting your money in with the best hand and with a little bit of luck, you are going to find that these small buy-in tournaments can produce a profit for you on a consistent basis.

There are several ways to set traps for an opponent, and they all require you to take some sort of risk. A great example is when you are in early position and you are dealt a hand like A/A or K/K. By limping in with a monster hand from early position, you are inviting an aggressive player behind you to raise the pot allowing you to re-raise when it gets back to you. However, the danger in limping in is that you are making it more inviting for sub-par hands to enter the pot because of the extra money you have added to it. If nobody raises after you and you are forced to see the flop against several opponents, you need to proceed with caution as it’s going to be difficult to determine the strength of an opponents hand. If you are willing to limp in, you are going to need to be ready to fold your premium hand if the flop misses you and the betting dictates that you no longer have the best hand.

While it may seem like setting a trap would always mean slow playing a big hand, that’s not always the case. In some cases, I prefer to bet my big hands depending on the situation. For example, here’s a hand from a recent online tournament. An aggressive player raised roughly 3x the BB from middle position, the player on the button called and I was in the BB with 4/4. The SB folds and I call. The flop came out A/9/4 rainbow. Being first to act with 2 players behind me, my first instinct was to check and let the pre-flop raiser do the betting for me. But, given the players aggression in previous hands, I decide to make a small-ish bet (about 1/3 the pot) which would invite the original raiser to re-raise me. As expected, he did exactly that. He made a healthy raise and I pushed all-in and he eventually folded his hand. After the hand, he claimed to have had K/K and felt unlucky that the Ace hit the board However it was me that was unlucky that the Ace Buy Viagra hit as I would have won more chips if the flop had been Q/9/4 instead. Regardless, I made more money on the hand by betting out and letting him raise me than if I had checked and called the flop as he would have bet far less than the amount of his raise of my flop bet.

Setting traps depends greatly on how well you know your opponents. Keep your eyes open for spots where you can play a hand differently than you might normally play it in order to set up an opponent to pay you off.

There are many types of reputations to have: gambler, a rock, a bluffer, tight, loose, aggressive, maniac, passive and many more. For the sake of this article, I’ll focus solely on my current reputation.

In my circle of friends I have picked up a reputation to always be bluffing. While this makes it much more difficult for me to pull off a bluff since I will get called down with really weak hands, it provides me with an excellent weapon that I can use against my opponents. Since I’m never given credit for a hand, I simply value-bet my hands on the flop, turn and river. There is no value in slow playing big hands in this circumstance since my opponents will not likely bet their weak hands, but will feel compelled to call me down with 3rd or 4th pair.

When in this situation, it’s very important to pay attention to the texture of the board. Since I am likely going to have to show down my hand, I need to be sure I have the best hand. If any sort of draw is filled with the turn or river card, I’m more apt to check/call or simply fold and wait for a better spot than I am to try and win the hand against an opponent who has a hard time laying down a hand, especially to a guy that he thinks is bluffing anyway.

I will usually try to control the size of the pot by being the person doing the betting. Like I said, they aren’t going to give me credit for a hand anyway, so I may as well bet my strong hands the same way I would if I were trying to bluff them out of a pot. This opens up several possibilities. Re-raising right away or smooth calling to set up a check-raise on the turn are both strong plays but need to be used based on the strength of your hand mixed with the likelihood your hand can be drawn out on.

If you don’t already know what your reputation is, pay attention to the types of hands that are showing down against you. If you are being called down with relatively weak hands, you are probably perceived as loose buy drugs online or even a maniac. If you are getting no action on your raises, you are perceived to be tight and will only enter a pot with solid hands.

Once you have figured out your reputation, use it to punish your opponents. They already think you play one way. Switch it up on them and you are bound to be rewarded.