Poker News

The interest for Online Poker in France seem to continue booming without stop. A number of high profil trials made the french public aware of onlinne poker or Poker en Ligne as it is called in french. The French has earlier been a bit sceptical about online gaming and the french government is doing what they can to stop gambling on the Internet. They fail desperately though and it seems no matter what they do, the interest for poker keep increasing in France. Google trends can show you that the amount of searches for poker related keywords in France the last year is several times bigger than 2005 or 2006. It is reasonable to believe that the traffic levels will stabilize on a level as it has done in other booming countries. 

If you play online poker and don’t know about the different poker tools to use you are being ripped off. Most of the players online that do make money uses one or other online poker tool. The idea is that when you play online you can actually keep track of all that information that you want to know when you play. If you would remember how much every player usually bets on the flop when they hit something, wouldn’t you play better?There are several tools that present statistics in an amazing way today, you can find things like you’re own statistics (teaching you to be a better player) and all the history you have with all the other players. When you come to a table with people you have met before the poker tool will show you instantly who the tight players are, who is passive post flop and with a few clicks you can see how much money you picked them for. Want to read more? Check our review of PokerOffice. 

The poker network Ongame Network use the selling point “Rakeback free enviroment“as an important argument towards new poker operators to choose Ongame Network as a supplier of their poker software. Ongame Network has over the last year enforced harsh punishments for poker rooms in their network that do not obey by their rakeback-rules and continue to offer rakeback deals directly to players or through affiliates.We believe that rakeback can be both good and bad for a poker room or network. One of the primary reasons used for implementing a “no rakeback policy” is because rakeback has a tendency to move players within a network from the poker rooms that do a lot of advertising to the ones offering the best rakeback-deals. Rakeback-rooms steal high-value players from the poker rooms that actually get new players to the network. Getting new players to a poker network is very important to keep a good liquidity of players and ultimately the survival of the poker network. In most networks it is the bigger poker rooms that do all the advertising and some smaller ones that offer rakeback. The situation in Ongame Network is funnily the opposite.Despite Ongame Network’s “no rakeback policy”, Betsson (one of the biggest poker rooms in the Ongame Network) are continuing to offer rakeback through several of their affiliates. Even though Ongame are strict with the other poker rooms, Betsson is for some reason allowed to roam free as the single poker room offering Rakeback in the network.  Read the rest of this entry »

In every network there is at least one Cannibal Poker Room. It sounds scary, and that’s what it is. It’s the poker room in the network that does not market their room to players in general but to players in the other sites in the network. By targeting high rollers on the other sites in the network they manage to get players that will spend a lot of money without spending lots in marketing themselves.

As players tend to fell better about moving within the network than moving to a completely new one this is a stratey that works, and it works cheaply. The most common way of doing this is offering rakeback or really big bonuses for high rollers. If you compare this to advertising in TV and Magazines it becomes obvious. A magazine ad will bring a lot of new players to your room. Most of them are not very good players but a few of them will become good players in the future. A good player is much more profitable than a bad player so you can see the ad as a long term investment. You attract the players by paying a lot of money in advertising and hope that they will stay at your poker room long enough to become profitable.

If a site in te network starts offering rakeback and the word spreads what will happen is that players, when they reach a certain skill level, will find out. For the good amateurs Rakeback is the supreme bonus and moving to a poker room that offers rakeback will increase their profit a lot. This means that when players reach a certain level of skill they will move to the smaller room that offers rakeback. The big rooms doing a lot of advertising will attract the players to the network and then lose them as they start being profitable. The players have been cannibalized.

Rakeback is even nastier than this because it removes profit in general from the poker network. If you calculate the total revenue of the whole network (all rooms in the network) it is; The Rake - The percentage you pay to the network - The bonuses. Ok it’s rough but we don’t need anything more accurate. By offering Rakeback the Bonus part increases greatly without actually increasing the rake, it’s still the same players that play in the network as rakeback only rarely attract players from other networks. The Cannibal site destroyes a lot of the possible profit in the market to make a much smaller profit themselves.

What does this do for the players then? At the first look it seems as the winners in all this are the players. Well, to start with of course, it decreases the cost to play but in long term the bigger poker rooms that do the advertising actually need to make more money to stay profitable. The result of this can only be high rake. Rakeback increases the rake, maybe not for the players that have it but for players in general.

One of our readers asked us about Redirector3.Valueactive.com. You can find it in your browser history and similar. It’s easy to think it’s some sort of spyware or virus but the answer is simpler than that. If you have redirector3.valueactive.com in your history you are a poker player in the microgaming network. This redirector is the cashier in the microgaming network, if you have been winning or depositing money you will see it.

This is part 4 of a 4 part beginners series on how to effectively play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. In Part 3 of this series we saw how holding a premium hand does not guarantee you a win. In this final part of the series we’re going to go over some of the most common pitfalls that often plague the beginner texas hold ‘em poker player.

Despite knowing which hands you should play pre-flop and how you should play them once the flop comes some beginner poker players still make some crucial mistakes that end up either costing them their entire chip stack or drastically crippling them.

Pitfall #1 - Moving all-in pre-flop with a premium hand

This is a very common mistake and while most often times it’s committed by a beginner poker player, several pros are also guilty of committing this error.

You’re holding A♥ K♦ in the BB and the SB decided to raise three times the big blind in the early rounds of a tournament. You figure your opponent has a strong hand but he’s still an underdog to your A-K if he calls. So you move all-in, everyone folds to the SB who calls and he shows you

A♠-J♠.
A♥ K♦
Odds of winning 67.24%
vs.
A♠-J♠
Odds of winning 28.36%

The 4.40% discrepancy is in the unlikely event of a tie. For instance if the flop came 2♦ 3♥ 4♠ and the turn came 5♥ would make both players a straight resulting in a tie.

So in this case you’re slightly higher than 2 to 1 favorite to win the hand.

The flop comes

4♠ 7♠ K♥

Turn

Q♥

Only one more card to dodge

K♠

What a heart breaker, you just made a set but your opponent caught the flush on the river. Now you’re out of the tournament 76th out of 80 and you’re going home empty handed.

The point that needs to be stressed here is that regardless of whether you’re a favorite going to the flop it doesn’t mean that your opponent isn’t going to hit his 2% chance of catching the card he needs to beat your pair.

There are some instances in which it is conceivable to move all-in pre-flop with a strong hand like A♥ K♦ which is either when you are on the verge of elimination and you only have enough chips for a few big blinds or when the player against who you would be all-in has less than 20% of your chip stack. In all other circumstances the idea of moving all-in should not enter your mind and instead you should opt to outplay your opponent on the flop.

Pitfall #2 - Checking the flop with the best hand.

Aside from slow playing the absolute best hand, checking with the best hand on the flop is simply asking for trouble.

You’re holding A♠ Q♥ and you simply call the big blind to see the flop.

The flop comes

10♥ 8♠ Q♦
You check, perhaps because you don’t want to scare away your opponent.
He in turn calls you all-in. Now you start to think that you’re A♠ Q♥ is probably trailing either a set or two pairs and you decide to fold. Your opponent smiles at you and flips over Q♣-2♦.

Did your opponent make the right move? Perhaps it was rash to move all-in in an attempted bluff, but you not betting your Q with the A kicker was an even bigger mistake that allowed your opponent to take control of the betting and made you doubt your hand.

This concludes the 4 part series on the beginner’s play of Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. Hopefully by now you feel more confident in your abilities as a poker player and you’ll be ready to crush the low limit cash games and tournaments. Be sure to come back to read the intermediate series on selecting your pre-flop hands which will cover suited and non-suited connectors as well as A-x and K-x hands.

The pokeriot crew has been testing out Googles Lively and this is what we came up with:

Want so se more of the High Rollers Lounge please go to the official page.

This is part 3 of a 4 part beginners series on how to effectively play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. In Part 2 of this series we expanded a little more on which hands are suitable to play before the flop according to your odds of connecting on the flop. In part three of this series we will talk more about how to play these hands on the flop.

Your pre-flop hand selection is undoubtedly the most important factor to your overall success playing Texas Hold ‘Em poker, but that’s not to say you will win them all based solely on your pre-flop judgment. At the average online poker table a flop will be dealt approximately 30%-35% of the time, meaning that the other ~70% of the time the hand will be won pre-flop. The problem with that is a pre-flop pot will only be a few blinds and perhaps a raise, and if you are to going to win a poker tournament or make a considerable amount of money at a cash game you will need to learn how to play your cards right on the flop as well.

Remember that the odds of winning with a particular hand we discussed in the first part of this series is based on a heads-up all-in situation with a flop-turn-river showdown. These odds don’t take into consideration the fact that your opponent will most likely bet on the flop forcing you to either call, raise or fold.

With that being said let’s go through a few scenarios.

Scenario #1

Your hand 9♣ 9♦

Odds of winning heads up 72.1%

Odds of winning against 9 players 15.6%

Odds of flopping a set 11.76%

4 players call the big blind and now it’s up to you.

You raise 3 times the big blind

The big blind calls and two players call, the other two fold.

So now you’re 4 to the flop

A quick calculation reveals that you are now a 32.6% favorite to win the hand assuming everyone checks to the river.

The flop comes

K♦ 7♣ 6♣

The BB checks, Player 2 checks, Player 3 bets the minimum, and now it’s up to you. Let’s take a second and do a quick analysis of the board.

Q: How does your hand relate to the board?

A: Middle pair, only one overcard.

 

Q: Is it possible someone is holding a K in their hand?

A: The BB and player 2 checked which potentially rules them out. Player 3 bet the minimum which is generally a fishing bet and not representative of a K.

 

Q: Is it possible someone is holding 7-7 or 6-6?

A: Same as with the possibility of a K if someone was holding trips they would have bet out on the flop and more than the minimum amount.

 

Q: Are there any possible draws?

A: A club flush draw is possible.

 

Q: Are my pocket 9s good?

A: Only one way to find out: raise.

You raise half the pot.

The BB folds, player 2 fold. Player 3 thinks about it for a second and says those words you didn’t want to hear “I’m all-in”.

You fold immediately.

Chances are that player 3 was in fact holding either A-K or made a set on the flop.

Keep in mind that while you may have lost a small portion of your chip stack by raising a fractional amount of the pot you were able to determine that you were behind and most likely beat by an opponent who was bent on slow playing a stronger hand. In texas hold ‘em poker, a good laydown is often more valuable than a good win. Had your opponent been holding 6♦ or 7♦ he would have laid it down immediately following your raise.

Continue Reading… 

This is part 2 of a 4 part beginners series on how to effectively play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. In Part 1 of this series you learned the odds of winning pre-flop with the top 10 best starting hands in Texas Hold ‘Em Poker in a heads up situation as well as in a 10 player situation. Part 2 of this series will focus on expanding your starting hand selection based on the probabilities of connecting your hand on the flop.

As you saw in the first part of this series the odds of flipping over one of the top 10 hands in Texas Hold ‘Em are fairly slim. While playing conservatively and waiting to be dealt one of these hands is a good beginner strategy in a cash game where the blinds always remain the same, in a tournament with increasing blinds and antes this strategy will result in your being blinded and lead to an eventual early exit. Let’s take a look at some more odds to illustrate this logic:

Odds of being dealt either A-A or K-K 1 in 110.5, or 0.905%

This means that for every 110 hands dealt you will be dealt the pocket rockets or american airlines only once.

Odds of being dealt 7-7 or better 1 in 27.6, or 3.62%

Granted your odds are improving but you are still looking at very marginal odds.

Odds of being dealt ANY pocket pair 1 in 17, or 5.88%

Now you’re getting some slightly better odds but remember a pocket pair doesn’t always make you the favorite in a 10 way pot.

Let’s take a look now at the odds of improving your hand on the flop;

Flopping a set with ANY pocket pair 1 in 9.51, or 11.76%

Those odds make a lot of starting hands look more attractive. Your 2-2 which had coin flip 50% of winning pre-flop now has an extra 11.76% chance of winning on the flop.

What’s important to remember with low pocket pairs such as 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, and 6-6 is that they are vulnerable to a lot of overcards that can come on the flop. While the odds of hitting a set on the flop are 1 in 9.5 which gives you great odds and justify a raise pre-flop if the flop doesn’t make you a set you need to be ready to throw your cards in the muck as soon as an opponent raises. Let’s look at an example:

Your hand: 3♥ 3♦

Odds of winning heads up 53.7%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.0%

Odds of making a set on the flop 11.76%

With any pocket pair you should always put in a raise pre-flop to knock-off as many players as possible to improve your odds.

You raise the standard 3 times the BB and you only have 1 caller.

Let’s look at two different flops to analyze how to act accordingly:

Flop #1

3♠ 5♠ 9♦

Great flop, you hit your 1 in 9.51 odds and made a set. You move all-in and your opponent folds.

*** Normally in this situation you would slow play your set to extract the most chips as possible from your opponents but we’ll save that for a more advanced lesson.

Flop #2

A♠ 9♣ Q♣

Now you’ve completely missed the flop and there are 3 overcards to your pocket 3s. Make a small continuation to see whether your opponent connected with that flop and if you are faced with a raise fold immediately.

The more advanced strategy in this situation would be to make a sizable continuation bet to represent a big hand and take down the pot but playing an underpair on the turn and river requires a deeper understanding of the game.

We’ve now expanded the starting hand selection to include lower pocket pairs. Here’s a quick reference guide of your odds of winning with these pocket pairs.

66

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 63.3%

Odds of winning against 9 players 13.1%

55

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 60.3 %

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.3%

44

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 57.0%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.1%

33

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 53.7%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.0%

22

Odds of being dealt 0.45%

Odds of winning heads up 50.3%

Odds of winning against 9 players 12.0%

Part 3 

You are of course interested in knowing how much traffic the poker rooms have on their sites. We have compiled a list with a little help from Google Trends who derive information from, among other sources, Google Analytics. There are a few flaws in the data, one is that sub-domains are not counted, sites that are split up in sub-domains as Bwin shows less traffic than they actually have. The data is in no way 100% but this is the best data available for all of us that don’t work in the poker rooms themselves. We have tested the tool a lot and the data seems pretty sound for a tool like this.

Please note that this is the data for the traffic on the site itself, the client is not included. Pokerstars for example doesn’t look so big but they are.

Site

Unique

Biggest country

Biggest Keyword

Partypoker.com

1 500 000

Germany

Poker

888.com

700 000

UK

Pacific poker

Pacificpoker.com

200 000

UK

Poker, 888

Fulltiltpoker.com

100 000

US

Poker Edge

Pokerstars.com

100 000

US

Intelli

Ladbrokes.com

70 000

UK

William hill

Bwin.com

70 000

France

Unibet

PKR.com

60 000

UK

Poker

svenskaspel.se

60 000

Sweden

Bingolotto

CDPoker.com

50 000

Germany

Poker

titanpoker.com

40 000

France

Poker Gratuit

Bodoglife.com

35 000

US

Free online blackjack

everestpoker.com

30 000

France

Poker en ligne gratuit

Pokerroom.com

30 000

US

Poker Games

sportsbook.com

25 000

US

Sports Betting

Betus.com

10 000

US

Niki Cox

Betway.com

10 000

Spain

Sportingbet

Betsson.com

10 000

Sweden

Unibet

Absolutepoker.com

10 000

US

Ultimate bet

myBet.com

10 000

Germany

Sportwetten

UltimateBet.com

7 000

US

Poker Tracker

Ultimatebet.com

7 000

US

Poker Tracker

mansionpoker.com

5 000

UK

Poker Strategy

celebpoker.com

5 000

India

Free online poker

CarbonPoker.com

3 000

US

Poker

Pokerloco.com

3 000

Brazil

Regras Poker

PAF.fi

2 000

Finland

Veikkaus

Hollywoodpoker.com

2 000

US

Poker

Sportbet.com

2 000

US

Belmont odds

Doylesroom.com

1 000

US

Poker

interpoker.com

1 000

UK

Poker

LuckyAcePoker.com

1 000

Spain

none

ChiliPoker.com

1 000

France

Winamax

EmpirePoker.com

1 000

US

none

The unique stands for unique visitors each day, Biggest country is the country from where the site gets most traffic and biggest keyword is the word that in searches give most traffic to the site.

Google trends data sources:

Trends for Websites combines information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. The data is aggregated over millions of users, powered by computer algorithms, and doesn’t contain personally identifiable information.