Like a lot of people, I’d played poker for years. Well, if you can call it poker! When I was in the Army, I played poker 5 times a week, but it was the kind you play with your buddies with all kinds of wild cards and every stupid game you can think of. When I got out of the Army, I became a cook. Cooks love to play poker also, so I continued to play and do pretty well at winning these crazy games.

Then one day I saw the World Poker Tour on the television. I thought, how tough can this game be. I accidentally stumbled across an advertisement for poker on the Internet, so although I was very skeptical, I thought I’d give it a try. I had absolutely no intention of doing anything but killing some time and having some fun. I played the micro limit games since I had no idea what I was doing other than trying to hit some good hands. I had no idea whatsoever about pot odds, check raising, or anything else. I still won though because I was patient, and that was enough to beat the micro limit players.

I read a couple of books and started getting a little better. But I know now that I was clueless at that point. I can’t even believe how much I didn’t know back then! I was winning fairly consistently and so I knew that I was better then average, but I also knew that I was no where near actually being good. I knew I was winning not because I was great, but because the other players weren’t any good at all. Then I tried No Limit Holdem. I started very small again and worked my way gradually and slowly up to higher and higher stakes.

I’m now making more money playing poker than I do at my real job. I’m talking about hourly win rate, since I do not play full time and still have a real job. I do, however, consider myself to be a semi-pro poker player, which to me means that I could make a living playing poker if I needed or wanted to! I have now built my poker bankroll to the point where I can spend my winnings, and believe me, it’s more money than I ever thought possible!

I’ve played at just about every major poker site on the internet, but I now spend almost all of my time at either PartyPoker or William Hill. It is true that PartyPoker has some of the worst players around, but because of this your variance will be very high. You will win a lot some days and lose a lot some days because they will sometimes catch a miracle card with a hand they should have folded long ago. In the long run you will crush these players if you play well, but the highs and lows can be very frustrating.

The players at William Hill are also very weak, but they are also very passive which means your variance will be much lower. They do not bet enough or raise enough. A good player will tend to lose less on their bad hands but make much more on their good hands because these same players who do not raise or bet enough, will call large bets and raises when they have the 2nd best hand. I have played, and been successful at some of the largest games online, although I spend most of my time at middle stakes games because the risk/reward ratio is so much better. I have seen a couple horrible losing streaks that tested my resolve to continue playing, but if you persevere you overcome these obstacles and they make you a better player.

I learned many of the skills it takes to be a top no-limit player by reading websites and interacting with great players on poker forums. I hope this site helps you on your journey.

Hello, This is a guest post from my friend Paul Martin who runs learn2holdem. And yes it is in French!

En un mot, vous devez quasiment toujours jouer rapidement vos grosses mains. Nous expliquons pourquoi et montrons un exemple où vous pouvez jouer plus lentement, mais c’est juste une exception à la règle. Mais avant de commencer notez que vous pouvez utiliser un code parrainage full tilt si vous choisissez de jouer a Full Tilt Poker.

Un exemple va illustrer l’idée. Vous jouez à un jeu de No-Limit Texas Hold’em avec une petite paire comme des cinqs. Le flop est 995. Vous devez jouer rapidement cette main pour deux raisons.

D’abord comme vous avez une main monstre, vous voulez rendre le pot aussi grand que possible. Étant donné que le tableau est jumelé, les mains faibles se coucheront de toute façon. Donc, il n’est pas nécessaire de ralentir le jeu. Mais ce que vous espérez, c’est que quelqu’un ait connecté avec le tableau, avec une main comme A9. Il peut vous relancer avec son trip et kicker ace et vous pouvez le 3-bet et maximiser vos profits.

La deuxième raison d’être agressif, c’est que cette main est toujours vulnérable par une personne qui obtient un autre boat au turn ou river et qui vous bat.

Il serait en effet grave de simplement checker et de laisser vos adversaires inquiets obtenir une carte gratuite. Si l’un d’eux arrive à avoir une paire supérieure à la vôtre, comme 77 et un 7 est tiré à la turn, vous êtes frit.

Un scénario est un peu différent avec plus de cartes comme une pocket paire de reines avec un board QJJ. Il est peu probable que votre adversaire qui est derrière sur le flop vous rattrape plus tard, alors slow play est une option ici.

Juste une option, car il est généralement mieux de jouer cette main rapidement et nous espérons que l’un des autres joueurs a une prise ou, mieux encore QJ. De cette façon, il va relancer et vous êtes presque sûr d’obtenir la totalité de son stack au milieu.

Il existe un petit nombre de prémisses, où le jeu lent est le meilleur jeu. Disons que vous détenez AJ de diamants dans le cut off. Vous relancez et vous êtes suivi par le bouton et la petite blind. Le flop contient trois diamants RAG. Si la small blind check, vous devriez checker aussi. Et si le bouton parie, vous devriez le relancer.

Dans cet situation, il bluffe sans doute, dans ce cas, il se couchera. Ou bien il a touché le tableau, soit avec un set ou une quinte, auquel cas il suivra. Et s’il appelle votre relance au flop, il peut appeler un pari supplémentaire à la turn et un autre à la rivière.

Vous devriez quand même parier, même si le tableau se paire plus tard. Il y a seulement une petite chance que vous êtes battu, mais d’autre part votre adversaire pourrait vous mettre sur de nombreuses mains. Si vous êtes appelé à la fin et fortement relancé à la rivière, en général, il a un bateau et il faut se coucher. Sauf s’il est un excellent bluffeur, il vous a battu. Ce n’est pas le scénario le plus fréquent, mais vous devez être prêt pour cela. Comme ils disent il n’y a pas de feu sans fumée. Sinon, vous êtes bon.

En résumé, c’est l’une des erreurs les débutants de ralentir le jeu avec leurs mains fortes, dans l’espoir de piéger leurs adversaires. Comme vous vous fâchez après avoir gagné un petit pot après l’autre avec vos mains monstre, vous pouvez être tenté de ralentir le jeu avec certaines de vos grosses mains. Controllez vous et evitez cette erreur.

The new year is almost there and I just had some random thoughts about online poker to share.

I haven’t done any rake analysis for a while. This is mainly because I’ve been playing at a level where the rake, while not negligible, is fairly easily beatable. However, I was poking around a Poker Tracker database of a friend of mine. He plays low limits, mostly $.5/$1 and $1/$2 NLHE. He does ok, nothing special. For him, the rake chews up about 67% of his win. That is to say, if there were no rake, he’d have made triple what he has so far.

Limp-reraises scare me. They scare me a lot. Who cares if there are only four people in the hand. I mean, what would you limp-reraise with on the button at a four handed table? As evidence of just how scared they make me just look at how I freeze up with QQ when I get limp-reraised. I not only fail to four-bet, but I can’t even bet a paired KK board till the joker goes passive.

On a different note, I’ve finally put some code up for hand analysis. It is very simple, and the driver program doesn’t do much. In fact, it’s just a clone of the rake example from learn2holdem. This code is written in C. It is a good illustration of the kinds of basic optimizations you can perform for computation intensive applications. There’s a fair amount of bit-twiddling and lookup tables used to run fast.

I stopped coding in Java four years ago because I came to really dislike it. After working in it for a couple of years I found that it just didn’t meet my needs at the time. In particular, the performance was horrid, especially when dealing with GUI applications. I now only develop in C. There may be bugs and strange semantic problems with the code, but it does it job.

I took a real real nice day off from poker yesterday.

I hung out with the future Mrs. badbeatbilly. I went to her little brother’s soccer game in the morning and then we went out for lunch. Unfortunately she had to go to work after that, but it was still a nice time. I had plans with a couple guy friends for the night and we went out to my favorite sushi place.

I then came home and read a little of ‘Ace on the River’ and found out about the UB reload going on right now.

I slept nice and late today I watched my pats and sox get clobbered. I then read some more of Ace on the River and read a bit of the reference book ‘The Theory of Poker’. I decided that after having such a good day yesterday my mind would be nice and clear. I deposited $1,750 on UB, giving me about $750 in total bonus, and hopped on a $10/$20 heads up table and $10/$20 Omaha/8 table.

I got no hands at the Omaha table and lost $40 before leaving to focus on the heads up table, where a poor gentleman made the big mistake of sitting down with me. Seriously, why would you play heads up limit with me? You might as well bang your head against the wall, punch yourself in the nuts, and give me 20 big bets. Anyway we played for a good while with some back and forth but eventually I got the best of him. He also did some fairly heavy tilting every once in a while.

He didn’t 3 bet from the big blind enough at the beginning and probably a bit too much at the end. He called too many flop check raises only to fold to my turn bets. I had a pretty good read on him and felt I had him completely outclassed. However after about 2 hours my dad and his wife came home (they were away for the weekend) and I figured I had already booked a nice win so I decided to leave the table and go greet them.

In retrospect it was probably a bad move, that guy was pretty bad and tilting, and kept reloading. I had a good read on him, I think I should have stayed and looked to make a bigger score, but that’s ok, I don’t mind missing out on profitable situations in an effort to balance other parts of my life. Poker is not my life, and I don’t want to let it become that. I want it to be my job, but a job I love, but not my whole life. I ended up taking him for $1149 and cleared $21 in bonus. Things are looking up.

What is no download poker?

No Download Poker means that you can play poker in your Internet browser, without the need to download any poker software. Browser based poker has many advantages over software based poker:
1) Compatible with Mac + mobile phones.
2) Fast Internet connection speed while playing.
3) Safer then traditional software poker.
The only main disadvantage to browser-based poker is that not all the poker rooms such as Full Tilt and PokerStar offer the service.

All of the poker rooms listed next can be played through your browser without the need to download the poker rooms software: Absolute Poker, Party Poker, 888, Bwin, Betsson, Hollywood Poker, PKR, PaddyPower, Ladbrokes, Bodog, RedKings, PokerRoom, HoldemPoker, EuroPoker.

The poker rooms listed above offer a no download poker platform. This browser poker based software allows you to play free online java or flash poker. There is no need to download the poker software to play no download poker. That is the first main advantage of no download poker over conventional method of downloading the poker rooms software. The other main advantage of no download poker is the fact that the browser based poker is compatible with not only windows but also Mac OS, Linux, mobile phones and palm pilot’s poker.

So if your using a public computer, university computer or a work computer and there is a firewall preventing you from downloading and playing poker at your favorite sites, you now have a excellent alternative in no download poker. It does not matter how much the administrators don’t want you to play poker on their computers, you now can without downloading the poker software.

Not all poker rooms offer the no download poker alternative, such as the poker room giants of Full Tilt and PokerStars. You may find this annoying but above we have listed many excellent poker rooms that do provide no download poker. If you are a US based poker player, Absolute poker is the only poker room that accepts us players and has the no download poker software. Absolute poker is an excellent poker room and they should meet all your browser playing poker needs.

A common question and worry that many online poker players have about no download poker is about the connection speed and will the browser based poker play as fast as downloaded poker room software. The answer is no download poker plays as fast if not faster then conventional downloaded software. The reason for this is the fact that the java or flash poker software that you are playing is stored and running off the poker rooms servers instead of the downloaded software running of your computer, and believe me their servers are faster then your run of the mill average computer. No download poker runs so fast that even households with a 56k dial-up modem can play browser flash poker without any problems with the speed of the poker action.

Security of playing a no download poker based game may also be a worry of yours, well once again the browser based poker game is as safe if not safer then your conventional downloaded software as the java or flash software is run off the poker rooms beefed up secure poker servers. A final advantage to no download poker is the fact that is almost impossible to be infected by any nasty viruses, as you don’t have to download any poker software.

It is a no-brainer, no download poker has massive advantages over downloaded poker software platforms.

Players use many ploys to win at poke.

From the novices sighing when they are holding a monster, to the top players who seem to just get into your head and make you do things. No matter what it is, if you can perfect the art of rocking your opponent back on his heels, you will win more money.

I know a guy who will take really subtle jabs at you with his table talk. At first is seems all in good fun, but a few comments later, and this guy can get anyone to start steaming. I just can’t figure out how he does it, and he can’t really explain it, but it sure does work.

Some guys are much easier to tilt than others. Less tilt happens at the higher limits, but it still runs rampant. The worst part about tilting, is that you can’t see it coming. Someone just keeps jawing at you the whole session, eventually your mind is going to focus on how annoying it is, and the second your mind strays from the task at hand i.e. winning at poker, is when you start making mistakes.

Poker is war. Chips are your ammunition. You have probably heard this many times, because it is absolutely true. Protect your ammo because when you run out, you are toast. You must find a way to beat each opponent. Annoy them, befriend them, push them around, make them hate you, make them like you. Do something. The best players all formulate a plan throughout the game of how they will win the most chips from each of their opponents.

It is all about money. That nice old lady who is down 3 buy-ins bets into you on the river, and you have the nuts you’d better be raising. Even if she reminds you of your grandmother, raise. If you see a guy buy in for a third time and he mutters under his breath “there goes the rent money…” Hammer on him, he is playing on scared money.

When someone is not emotionally stable in a poker game or is playing on short money, he is often susceptible to being bluffed out before he hits his breaking point where he gets desperate.

Don’t soft play anyone. If you think this is wrong, you should be playing at one of the online poker sites for play money. It doesn’t make you a bad person to want to extract every bit of value from a hand, no matter how nice, or stuck your opponent is. It makes you a smart poker player.

Good luck at the tables

If you have a gambling addiction problem, you’d better curtail that gambling streak in you, and you better do it fast.

I know I’ve been there. Right now I’m playing ” lousy” 1/2 NL, but I am making $80 an hour. While some players may almost be doubling my hourly rate, I have almost no risk of ruin and I am really enjoying life. I plan on moving up to 2/4 soon. I know I can beat that limit pretty easily, but I just want to be ultra comfortable with my bankroll.

I’ll probably move up to 5/10 NL when I have 30k behind me and 2 or 3 months of bills paid in advance. I am not going to be Stu Ungar. Hell no.

There’s a quote I always think of whenever I have a bad day, maybe it will help you. Hell, if you’re a Calvin and Hobbes fan here it is: “You know Hobbes, even my lucky rocket ship underpants didn’t help me today.”

What? Are you playing below 7bb/100 nowadays?! if you do, you should not call yourself a card player, you have some nerve. In my humble opinion, 3bb/100 is about the maximum sustainable win rate in the 10/20 6 max games. I think anything upwards of 4bb/100 is pretty much impossible over the long term. I think the 2+2 posters that play the game feel the same, although its been awhile since i read their forum.

So if you are nowhere near this level, this is what you should be shooting for. Do not feel happy about yourself unless you make at least 2bb/100, this is where the good online poker players reside. Anyone below is a fish. So go back to the blackboard, study your leaks and your opponents’ strengths to determine what it is that you should change in your game in order to achieve a higher win rate.

It may sound tough, but it is possible if you put the effort. Good luck.