We all know how popular playing online poker has become over the years and especially playing Texas Hold ‘em online. As online poker players become more experienced and sophisticated they naturally seek to expand the repertoire of online games they play, meaning that both Omaha and Seven-Card Stud are also now quite common in the online casinos. So, needless to say, the game of Razz is also becoming a more common game offered online.

What is Razz?

Wanna play Razz?

In a nutshell Razz turns the regular poker hands upside down. You’d only expect to be offered a game of Razz when sitting at a poker table playing Seven-Card Stud, the same rules apply for the Seven-Card Stud in that two hole cards are dealt face down followed by four face up with the seventh again being dealt face down. The twist in a Razz game comes in the winning hands where what in other circumstances would be the worst hand – wins! This means that straights and flushes are ignored totally and the Ace – is always low; so, taking your five best cards from the seven dealt – the lowest card wins! Having just said ignore straights, a straight Ace through 5 would win – as the ace is still the lowest. In a Razz game, if you get three low cards of different rank at the first betting round – things should be looking good for you.

High/Low could be win-win

More common in Las Vegas style casinos is the Seven-Card Stud variation called High/Low. This combines a regular game of Seven-card Stud with a game of Razz. Accordingly the pot is split in two and the conventionally highest hand wins half the pot with the best Razz hand winning the other half. However, in this game if from your seven cards you can make a normal high hand and the best Razz hand, you could walk away with all of the pot – which is called scooping the pot! To scoop the pot you really do need Aces, as with aces you can bet on both a high and/or low hand winning.

If you’ve ever wanted to be able to play a true online poker tournament, just like a poker tournament in a bricks and mortar casino with cash prizes, then keep an eye out for online Sit ‘n’ Go poker tournaments. They could be advertised as SitnGo or just SNG – but they all add up to the same thing in that you’ll get a cash prize according to the tournament position you finish in, which typically means being one of the final three poker players.

Advantages of Sit ‘n’ Go Poker

You might prefer her to sit ‘n’ stay?

You can of course enter any one of the thousands of online poker tournaments to test your skills acquired from playing in straight cash poker games, but the new Sit ‘n’ Go poker tournaments have two advantages that might be particularly attractive, especially to any poker tournament novices. First they are invariably single poker table tournaments, meaning that there will typically be an absolute maximum of 10 players and that the event can be concluded in a relatively short space of time – this feature being highly desirable if you’re playing online poker on a mobile device whilst travelling or away from home. Secondly, buy-ins can be as low as $1 making them ideal for the rookie poker player or, for more experienced poker players can rise to several hundreds of dollars.

Sit n’ Go poker games

So, what can you expect in a typical Sit ‘n’ Go poker tournament? Regardless of how much the buy-in is, everyone will be given the same size stack of poker chips to play with. Thereafter, essentially, to win it you need to be the ‘last man standing’. Exactly how much of a cash prize you will win depends on how the organizers want to distribute the cash prizes. They could just award one single ‘100%’ prize to the winner, but will more typically hand out a 50% prize to the poker winner, 30% to the runner up and 20% to third place. Of course should the organizer decide to distribute prizes to the top 5 places or even for everyone that competes – expect those percentages to drop.

Feeling tired? Feeling old? Think you’re losing your memory? If any of those things describe you then perhaps it’s time you took to playing more poker, rather than just sitting in front of the fire with your slippers on and watching TV. Whilst the TV adverts would have us think that the only way to stave off dementia is to rush out and buy a Nintendo DS or whatever, think again as most surely all the skills required for such a device – little more than a bit of math and logic, are also what is required for playing poker.

Exercising your brain at poker

Hey Grandpa - looking good and ready to play some poker?

Unless you’ve actually never played poker at all – you’ll already know that poker really is far more of a game of skill, than the chance one that some US gambling regulators would have the population believe. I guess you could sit there, receiving cards and innocently and blindly play a few poker hands without understanding what’s really going on. However, the chances of you actually winning at poker are probably as remote as the ‘infinite monkey theorem’ – that a monkey sat at a typewriter could, by chance hitting of the keys, type a Shakespearean play! No, to stand any sort of chance of winning you actually need to have the skill and ability to understand and calculate the poker odds and know the poker bets worth making, not to mention the ability to concentrate possibly for hours on end, to keep your wits about you and, don’t ever forget, keep your sense of humour.

Does brain training work?

However, the fact of the matter is that none of these so called ‘brain trainers’; be it a Nintendo electronic gadget, cross-word puzzles, Scrabble or even playing the  poker table – can actually have any impact in protecting us from Alzheimer’s disease – if it’s in your genes, it’s in your genes! So, bearing that in mind what are you going to do? Cosy up in front of the TV after all or get yourself down to the local casino or hooked up to an online poker website and start having some fun? Even if you’re not actually exercising your brain by playing poker – you’ll surely be keeping it active, trying to both outwit your opponents and having a laugh with them too.

You know how sometimes, when you’re out and about you really feel that ‘lady luck’ is with you and you suddenly get the urge to have a quick poker game – well if that describes you, then its time you started looking for some of the video poker games that you can play on your smart-phone. Particularly if you’re on the move – playing a video poker game will be ideal in terms of satisfying your curiosity as to whether or not the luck is with you, without distracting you from the task that you’re actually going about.
 

Jacks or Better – is always best

I don’t know about Royal Flush - but she’s giving me a hot flush!

Watch that bankroll

We started out by saying how satisfying it can be playing video poker when you’re out and about; and it can be – but your chances of hitting a jackpot Royal Flush on the move are slim. If you really want to chase that poker jackpot then you’ll need to put some serious playing into your video poker. Playing one machine regularly you can only reasonably expect to hit the Royal Flush jackpot once in every 80 hours or so of play. Now then let’s do the math – that’s 80 hours at a minimum of 50 hands an hour, even for a 25 cent game that’s over $1000. Sure you’ll pick up some poker winnings in that time, but you’ll really need to recycle them back into the video game. 

With over 120 variants of the poker game, you can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of three card poker. A relatively new addition to the list of poker games three card poker, with similarities to Caribbean Stud Poker, can be played in side-games, casinos or at online poker tables and basically pits you against the dealer, or possibly the odds.

Three card poker basics

A Three Card Poker table.

Three card poker is played with one 52 card deck with up to seven players and a dealer. All the players are dealt three cards face down – including the dealer. Your aim is simply to beat the dealers hand in terms of having the winning poker hand. The ranking hands in this game are three cards with either; a straight flush, three of a kind, a straight, a flush or a pair. Before the cards are dealt you bet in the Ante spot against the dealer’s hand on the assumption that yours will be better. If you think you’ll receive a pair – then the bet is placed on the Pair Plus spot. To stay in the game after viewing your cards you have to make another wager or fold by placing the cards face down. When all the betting is done the dealer reveals his/her cards, if the dealer has a Queen or better their hand is called a ‘qualifier’ and the dealer turns over the players cards to see if they’ve been beaten. If you beat the dealer you win even money for the antes and play bets, anything less and the dealer takes it all. However, the best bit in three card poker is if the dealer hasn’t at least a Queen – all the players still in get even money on the ante and the play wager becomes a push.

Three card poker strategy

When it comes to betting - play like the dealer. If you have a Queen or better then play other wise fold. Pair plus betting is risky, you only stand a 25% chance of winning. If pairs get thrown up a lot it might be worth it, otherwise best to skip it. Expect the dealer to get a Queen on about two thirds of the hands and forty percent of the ante hands will make an ante bonus. Bonus payouts are: Straight 1:1, for Three of a kind 4:1 and a Straight Flush 5:1.

Ever since the start of online poker back in 1998 with PlanetPoker, online poker security has been an important issue for many poker players over the internet. Of course online poker security isn’t just an issue for the poker player, but also the websites providing the online poker have vested interest in both ensuring their players financial details are kept safe and secure – and that everyone is enjoying a level playing field when sat at an online poker table.

Player’s security

As the computer technology that drives poker websites keeps on developing it is pretty well impossible to guarantee that a poker website will always be 100% safe and secure from determined criminals and hackers. So, in many respects playing poker online carries no more and no less a risk than carrying out any transaction online. However, it is in the poker websites own interests to make sure that at their end they employ security systems to protect all of their customers personal and financial details. To this end the best online poker websites use digital encryption methods that are exactly the same as those used by the best of the world’s banks and financial institutions.

What about the poker websites?

Hope she’s comes to make sure I’m secure!

Online poker security goes beyond protecting your data, as the poker websites are very sensitive to the possibility of online poker cheats. After all, just think how easy it could be, just using a cell phone let alone online communications, for two players that are apparently in two different places etc, to collaborate feeding each other details of their cards and bets – giving them an advantage over other players sat at the table! Needless to say it’s usually only the high stakes games that are targeted like this, but the more reputable poker websites will be monitoring all of their games, even if on a random basis. So, to counter these sort of risks online poker websites deploy sophisticated software to look for unusual betting and play patterns in their poker games – all to make sure that everyone can enjoy a fair game of poker.

The 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, at the Atlantis Resort & Casino on the exclusive Paradise Island, Bahamas, is now entering its closing stages. All the PokerStars satellite tournaments for online poker players have ended and the real action has moved on to a $25,000 High Roller game, which saw PokerStars professional, Dario Minieri forging an early lead with a stack of nearly 220,000.

Still playing at the poker tables

Last year’s winner, Elky (aka Bertrand Grospellier) is still in the poker game as too are the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Joe Cada and the currently second placed Lex Veldhuis. However, for me one of the best poker plays on day 1 of the High Roller event came from Greg Raymer. In danger of going out Greg went all-in with 21,800 on his pre-flop KS and 8C, with the opposition on 9S with an 8D. The flop brought 9D, 5C and 8H, so not looking too good for Raymer. The turn was 4C but the river turned over KD – changing his fortunes to a more respectable stack of 47,000 chips.

The PCA Main Event

Way to go Harrison - PCA Main Event 2010 winner!

Earlier on the PCA Main Event had been won by 19 year old Harrison Gimbel from Florida. Harrison becomes the youngest ever poker winner at the PCA Main Event, having beaten the 1529 strong field, changing his $1000 entry, via a satellite the night before, into a very cool $2.2 million. Harrison is no stranger to winning at poker, even at his young and tender age – having previously won $70k in his State poker championship and $45k in a recent PokerStars Sunday Million. However, with this big win Harrison’s first thought was to go “car shopping” for that dream set of wheels. The runner-up in the PCA Main Event was Tyler Reiman with veteran Barry Shulman in third place – these two places carried prize money of $1.73 and $1.35 million, so not a bad poker pay day for them either.

For many poker players one of the reasons they play the game is for the social interaction they get with, and against, the other players. Indeed for many non-professional poker players, getting dressed up and going out in the evening to a casino has become their favorite way to socialize. However, is it possible to also get that same sense of being sociable in an online poker game?

The poker purists of a few years ago

There can be no doubt that poker purists a few years ago thought that internet poker was the invention of the devil. It would make people slovenly in their approach to the game, it would kill casino poker, casino poker is the only way for a ‘man’ to play poker … etc; I’m sure you’ve heard all the arguments before. However, I believe that the professional poker players, especially in say the last three or four years, have embraced online poker making many other poker players review their stance regarding online poker. So what caused this shift in their, and the majority of poker players, attitudes toward online poker?

Online poker does present socializing opportunities

Who knows who might want to play with you online?

Quite simply, using modern Web 2.0 technologies, online poker websites can provide a social context for players – which in a virtual way is every bit the same as at a casino poker table. You could of course pick any of the excellent online poker websites to play at and, using their chat and interaction functions, quickly start to socialize with other players just as you would when meeting strangers at a casino poker table. However, the best poker sites will also have specific search functions to help you find players you might regularly enjoy playing and socializing with, where you can immediately interact with them – just as if they were in the room with you. Another point worth making here is that online poker may well prove to have been of benefit to casino poker, rather than as was feared causing its downfall. Online satellite tournaments are giving players a taste for the big casino games that they otherwise might never have even dreamed about. Finally, and even better, at this time of year you can enjoy a game of poker from the comfort of your own home – without having to go out in the cold and wet!

As you get more experienced player in online poker or at regular poker tables there’ll come a time when you fancy trying your hand at a tournament. The problem with tournaments is that we’re all so used to seeing and reading about the big tournaments worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars – that finding one we can actually afford to compete in can be quite a challenge.

That first tournament buy-in

Going to your first poker tournament you might fancy some comapny?

How much you want to spend on that first poker tournament buy-in is, of course, a matter of personal preference. However, the higher the buy-in the more experienced most of the players there are likely to be. You’re just starting out on the tournament trail so, like most things in life, don’t try to run before you can walk. Look for a local tournament with buy-ins around the $1000 to $1500 mark. How local you choose to go is again a matter of personal choice, for some players that could be in their county/state or it just could mean in their own country. One thing to remember here is that if you choose a tournament a long way from home you’ll need to add travel and accommodation costs into your overall expenditure for the tournament, not to mention taking someone with you, meaning your buy-in could easily end up being just half of the total outlay!

Online tournament entries

One way to keep the cost of entering a poker tournament down is, of course, to enter it via one of the many online poker competitions. Getting a free roll of winning one of the numerous and relatively cheap online satellites is a great way to get into your first casino/poker room tournament. Even better, if you’ve won your place through an online poker satellite then you’ve the bonus of having added confidence from your online winning position.

Many rookie internet poker players will also enjoy playing poker machines; however that enjoyment could soon take a dive for the worse if US gambling legislators are watching developments down under, in Australia; where moves are afoot to limit bets on poker machines to $1. A report on Australian gambling claims that of the $18 billion spent on gambling in Australia, $12billion of that is estimated to be annually played on poker, with anything up to $5 billion being fed into poker machines themselves.

Limiting poker player’s winnings

That news seems to have given rise to the concern that Australians are simply spending too much on their poker machines. Whilst, unwelcome as it may be, imposing a limit of $1 per bet on the machines would be workable some of their other proposals for limiting poker playing on machines seems more problematic. One suggestion is that ATMs located near, or in, places where poker machines can be played should limit cash withdrawals to $200 per card per day – easily circumvented with more than one card. Another idea is to limit the cash a player can win from a poker machine to $20 for any one game – this can, of course, be easily incorporated into the machines program, but it could pretty well pour cold water on the enjoyment of playing machine poker as poker jackpot opportunities would be few and far between.

Killing the joy of playing poker

Look, there he is - the Wizard of Oz has appeared to deliver a poker machine's winning check for $20- you lucky lady!