It seems to be a quiet period for poker tournaments in bricks and mortar casinos - but the opportunities to enter online poker satellites for future tournaments are as strong as ever. Playing in online satellite tournaments is a great way to find out if you really are ready to take on the big boys at poker, as only the winner will be invited to attend the actual poker tournament – usually at the expense of the poker website running the satellite.

What are poker satellites?

No dear - sending your cards into orbit is nothing to do with poker satellites!

Originally a poker satellite was just one poker table giving the winner a seat at a big championship like the WSOP. Nowadays, especially for online poker satellites, they are multi-table poker games creating a super satellite poker environment that will draw in really inexperienced players who, if you’ve been reading our articles carefully, should be easy pickings for you. Poker satellites are an ideal way to get into those bigger tournaments as although your aim is to play tournament poker, you can play the satellite exactly the same as you play your regular poker game. The only thing you’ve got to remember is you’re playing to win the satellite, so play the long game. Most poker websites will give you a fixed amount of chips to play with and you have to build a winning stack from that, you can’t buy extra chips during the satellite – a big incentive to avoid betting when you can call!

Poker website generosity.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the terms “poker website” and “generosity” go together, especially if you’re only breaking even with them at the moment. But the fact is that when it comes to poker satellites – poker website generosity becomes a reality. Not only do they give you chips to start playing in the satellite but they’ll also offer a range of other bonuses for you. OK, so you get to a poker tournament or championship – but what about the buy-ins, no worries the poker website will give you cash for the buy-ins. What about travel and accommodation – again no worries the poker website will also take care of those.

With a very welcome break over the Christmas period comes the opportunity for even more rookie poker players to start enjoying the delights of online poker games. So, for those rookies out there, what tips and advice can we give them to make sure they get the most out of their Christmas holiday poker?

Who knows - you might even get to play with one of Santa’s helpers?

Keep your cool.

Perhaps the first thing to remember is, the same as when you’re doing anything online, to always keep your cool. Playing poker online is pretty well the same as playing poker in a casino and you can expect to get a run of bad hands, that’s just the way the cards and dealt and not some internet conspiracy to rip you off. Similarly, if you think the poker game is running slow – before blaming the poker website you might want to check your computer settings and broadband speed, as the poker websites are rarely at fault here. After all they want to keep you playing and not going off to some other online poker game.

Know your game!

Presuming you already know the basics of playing poker and making poker bets, then you should already be familiar with the terms loose and tight play. You should try and avoid becoming a predictably loose or tight player, as the opposition will soon be able to predict what you’re going to do in certain situations and win that pot from you. So it is vital that you have a game plan that allows you to move between being a loose or tight player. However, that’s not to say you can’t also try the occasional bluff – just do make sure it is an occasional bluff.

The cost of poker.

It’s especially important as a rookie not to get too carried away too quickly with what you think you can achieve at poker. So, to remind yourself you’re still a rookie set yourself a daily cash limit and when you’ve got up to that limit, that’s enough for one day – the online poker tables will still be there tomorrow. Also, remember, you can get just as much enjoyment out of playing $1/$2 games as you can out of $100/$200 ones – the winning cards are always the same regardless of the betting stakes or pot.

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.

Just over a week ago the poker blogosphere was awash with excited comments about Barney Frank’s Bill to license and regulate internet poker finally being approved. Alas, but if you were thinking “alleluia” and “about time too” – well sorry, but again the state of play regarding the legality of playing online poker is yet again back in limbo.

Some progress made

It is true and fair to say that last week the Barney Frank Bill did make some progress through the House of Representatives, but the speed of that progress is truly glacial. One report that I read last week boldly stated that the Barney Frank Bill had been “voted on and approved by the senate”. Now whilst that statement was true, some further digging reveals that unfortunately it does not tell the whole story, so you still can’t be that fully 100% sure that the law won’t come knocking on your door if you start betting in your favorite online poker cash game - even in the privacy of your own home! The reason is that – yes, the Bill was voted on and did secure enough votes to be passed (approved if you will) but the vote only referred to it passing through the committee stage, of the House Financial Services Committee. Sadly even that doesn’t mean it will now be voted on by the House as Jim McDermott’s separate Bill to tax internet gambling is stuck in the Ways and Means committee. Yes, you guessed it, until that Bill passes through its Congress committee as well – legalized poker online is held in limbo.

Legalized online poker in 2010 – no way?

They all look like legal poker players to me.

With the summer recess rapidly approaching then mid-term elections further delaying proceedings the chances of McDermott’s Bill clearing it’s committee, both Bills being voted through by Congress and then their equivalent Bills passing through Senate by the end of 2010 is, at best, fanciful. In fact, despite having made some real progress this year, the whole prospect of legalized online poker could be sunk for a couple of years at least, if the Republicans end up with a majority in both houses come November. So, whilst progress is undoubtedly being made in terms of being able to play online casino games legally, it is hard to see that online poker will be legalized and poker players protected by the law until next year at the very earliest.

No point playing poker when you’re about to fall asleep!

Here at pokertipsbook.com we’re aware of an article, emanating from the UK, about their perceived unfairness over the transatlantic time difference when it comes to playing online poker tournaments. Now before we all jump up and down shouting “whingeing limeys” and other such good humored insults – what about a west coast poker tournament and east coast poker players participating in it?

So, with regard to things like the recent Spring Championship of Online Poker, where a buy-in of just $22 could have net you $55k – can anything be done to equalize things out time wise.

Time just doesn’t stand still

First of all you need to remember that regardless of where you are in the USA, let alone the world, the fact that online poker tournaments are open to anyone and anywhere – inevitably means that somewhere someone will feel aggrieved by the time difference. This is true for say a Las Vegas online tournament starting at 8pm local time when it will be 11 pm in New York, 4am in London (UK) and even 1pm the next day in Sydney (Australia). You can extrapolate those times backwards and forwards for a tournament based in London, New York etc – but the same is always true, someone somewhere will shout foul, especially if they’re losing at poker. Add into this equation the confusion caused by various time zones adopting daylight saving schemes and you could easily completely miss out on tournament.

The simple answer

There is, of course, a simple answer. If you truly want to play for serious money in an online poker tournament do some homework. Find out in advance what the local start time will be and what the time will be that you’ll need to sit at your computer to play the poker game. Presuming you have a day-job and can’t lead the life of a poker pro, rising when most folk are just getting home form work and then playing cards ‘til dawn the next day … If it is something like a 4am start for you sitting at home, then you can’t expect to have worked all day, stay awake and still stand any sort of chance of making any money playing poker before falling asleep by 5am. So prepare yourself! Get home early from work, have a meal and get some seep for a few hours then, on getting up, shower and change your clothes and then you’ll feel ready to hit those poker tables.

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.

In our recent poker blog posting “Super Euro Online Poker”, on this poker website, we informed you that PartyGaming was looking to merge with the Austrian online betting and poker site BWIN. Well it now looks like that deal has been sealed and is heading for completion sometime this summer, which is little wonder having seen the latest figures for PartyGaming.

USA online poker return

Looks like they know how to have some real Party Poker fun.

Late last week PartyGaming published its first quarter figures for 2010 which show a very nice increase on last year; and will surely have PartyGaming eyeing up a return to the poker in the USA. Q1 returns show PartyGaming revenues up by 27% to $127 million – despite PartyGaming currently not offering its PartyPoker website in the USA, having voluntarily withdrawn it in the wake of the 2006 anti online poker legislation of 2006. Having had time to see how well the other online poker sites that stayed operating in the USA have done – they are now looking for at least an online partner in the USA to resurrect their American poker tables; ahead of the long-hoped for overturning of the punitive anti-poker laws – when poker is finally accepted by the US legislators as a game of skill every bit as much as Bridge, another popular card game.

Share’s gambling

Despite all this good news for PartyGaming their share price has actually fallen by the odd percentage point during the early weeks of Q2; something that PartyGaming puts down to it simply being a quieter time of the year for them. With BWIN shares still available, and at an eighth the price of PartyGaming ones, you’ve got to ask yourself – “do you feel lucky today”? If you do then how about applying some of those poker skills to figuring out if buying some BWIN shares could pay a handsome dividend when PartyGaming finally moves all in for BWIN?

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.