If you are really interested in online poker, then Party Poker is one of the most reputable online poker rooms. They have been providing poker games on the Web for more than a decade, indeed pretty much since the beginning of online poker in the late 90’s. Party Poker is one of the most trusted brand in online gaming, part of the Party Gaming group of companies, which is listed on the LSE (London Stock Exchange). Such a listing puts Party in its own league with just a handful of online gaming operators.

Indeed not any company can get and keep such a prestigious listing, but it comes with a lot of constraints. In order to grant its stamp of approval, the LSE (or any stock exchange for that matter) requires listed companies to provide audits and reporting, to follow compliance and regulations and to respect the law. Likewise shareholders expect the company to act fairly and to follow the law. This is why Party Poker left the US market in 2006, unlike Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker, as the management knew they they were not allowed to make a huge gamble against the US Department of Justice. Now five years later we know that they make the right choice. Full Tilt is bankrupt. Pokerstars still faces legal charges, will have to pay a huge fine and will probably not be allowed into the lucrative US market when it reopens.

Given that the online gaming legal landscape is still so uncertain and unclear, it is better to send your hard-earned money to the safest locations, and Party Poker is one of them. They had their troubles with the DOJ as well, but this is behind them and they are ready to come back to the USA when online poker gets legalized there, potentially boosting their already large traffic. They are now the second largest online poker room and they could regain their top spot if this occurs.

So traffic and reputation are arguably the two main factors to judge a poker room. Most players would probably agree that the third factor is promotions and bonuses. After all online poker is a very competitive game where it is easy to lose your money, so you want to get as many benefits and perks as possible. You will get a PartyPoker bonus of 100% of your first deposit up to $500 and this is more than enough to get started. If you have the money send the full $500 to maximize this opportunity. Even is this is more than you need, you can always withdraw some of that later as your dollars are perfectly safe in your party poker player account. The bonus itself converts by simply playing at the real money ring games or tournament tables.

Playing Poker is an art where everyone can find their place and so chance may smile even to beginners. But you should not count on luck to win, it is with skills that you will win consistently. To start playing and winning, you should master the rules of this exciting and often surprising game, do not hesitate to spend time studying your good and bad hands.

Whether you are a beginner or an advanced player, it is important to have discipline to play and win at online poker. This is necessary if you want to put the odds on your side. Many hands are of little interest to be played because statistically your chances of winning are low. Learn to recognize them and toss them. On the contrary, if you have a good hand, maximize your chances of winning by making a suitable raise, without showing too much enthusiasm to the other players though.

Bluffing is one of the most difficult concepts to master in poker, and this requires many hours of training. If an opponent has discovered your bluff, be careful next time, change the way you play in order to be unpredictable and to trap your opponents. Start your learning curve on tables at the low stakes tables, or playing for free, either with fun money or in the numerous freeroll tournaments offered by poker roms. So you can build your own experience at a lower cost before moving on to higher limits, and start winning poker games.

Always try to calculate your chances of getting the result you want. If you realize that your chances are reduced, do not hesitate to fold. That is money better saved than trying something nearly impossible, such as a 4-outer or less. After a series of consecutive wins, some players tend to change the way they play, for example by raising bigger and more often. This is the best way to lose your carpet. If you feel that you are started to not play your A game anymore, it is time to go. Online poker will be there tomorrow. Patience is key.

However, I have decided that I need a dramatic change in my life. Ideally my new goal is to earn a consistent income promoting poker rooms. A lot of the income generated is residual since you earn money from the players you sign up forever, so ship the cash for doing nothing.

Hopefully I can get to a point where I am earning a decent living doing affiliating and then I can play poker when I want to without pressure. I think it will make me even tougher to play against, because I feel like I play a lot better when I am not playing everyday and there is pressure for me to perform day in day out for months on end.

After two years playing almost daily the toll it takes on your body is quite extreme. I am mentally drained and on the edge of mental breakdown. This was pretty much my own fault for being a product of my addictions, but I wanted to make a shitload of money and prove to my friends and opponents that I am excellent at poker.

Reflecting on that I feel I somewhat achieved both, but did not get anywhere close to my ultimate goals yet despite being in
the top 1% demographic of online poker success. I probably averaged between $10,000 per month over the last 18 months and had months as high as $22,000 to months as low as $4,000. Overall I made somewhere in the region of $150k playing NL200 and NL400 on multiple sites over this time frame.

But I feel like this lifestyle is not sustainable for me. Very stressful and the swings are obviously emotionally taxing. As many people have said before me, poker is the hardest way to make an easy living. So whats next? I am going to cut down on the volume I play, probably playing once a week most likely on Sundays and spend time playing less tables and higher limits. I am then going to dedicate the rest of my time to working on my new website.

First I am probably going to take a well deserved break for the next month. I have a 2 week vacation in Cyprus lined up this month and need to prepare for that by doing nothing, playing video games and watching TV. See you soon.

In fact, aggression is one of the key elements in Holdem and semi-bluffing is the most formidable weapon that can ensure victory even in situations that appear desperate. This tactic should be used when betting or raising with a drawing hand, but there are two cases: the opponent folds and you win the pot immediately, or he calls the outs that you have can be enough to win the hand.

Let’s see exactly what this means with one example. In the case when your hand is made of the nuts flush draw plus an open ended straight draw, the chances that you win the pot are 55%. If your opponent does not fold, you will have invested less than 50% in the pot but with a probability of winning of 55%. This is a positive expected value situation and you must play it as aggressively as possible.

What are the advantages of semi bluffing?

In order to understand the importance of semi-bluffing, put yourself in the shoes of your opponent who tries to read you during the game. I he sees that you always bet with big hands, he will take good decisions systematically. It will not continue with a hand if he thinks he has a good chance to win.

But if you put a big bet in with a semi-bluff, you will have learned the main strategy of poker. Your tactics will force your opponent to make mistakes. In this case, there is the possibility that he calls when you have a stronger hand, or that he folds his hand when it is stronger than yours. This means that you have more options when your style is aggressive.

The skill of the semi-bluff

You must be careful that your semi-bluff is credible. The most important aspect is to bet as if you had a strong hand.

For example, let’s say that you call a bet from the small blind with A-10 of clubs against one opponent only and the flop comes QJ-2 with two clubs. In such a situation, an easy to read player will normally bet his strong drawing hand. But the better is to check-raise, which indicates a very strong hand and not a drawing hand, as the raising part indicates that you want to protect your assumed strong hand against a potential flush draw.

The semi-bluff is a tool that can help you manipulating your adversary. You need to gradually learn the playing styles of each player at the poker room’s table and act based on such information. For example if you see a player who is afraid of players who bet big, semi-bluffing is the ideal weapon against him. If the opponent is the type of player who thinks a lot, then the best technique is to bluff up to three barrels, after you made him accustomed to see that you have strong hands every time you bet.

When your hand is a flush draw, a straight draw or if you hit a pair on the flop you must use the semi-bluff to force your opponent to fold. Folding equity is another element reinforcing the power of the semi-bluff.

You may have heard this somewhere else, that pokerstars is number one. But is it true, and by what measure? Like all number ones, it depend on what measure you use, and as far as traffic is concerned, Stars is the uncontested number one, with a big lead over the number two, Full Tilt Poker.

And all other poker rooms are left in the dust, far behind. But nothing is static and the rankings can change fast in online gambling. So beyond the fact that pokerstars in number one for traffic, are they also number one by other measures?

Pokerstars is easily the largest and most popular online poker room on the globe.  If you are looking for a reason to sign up at pokerstars, this is already in itself a great reason. More traffic means more poker variations and tournament formats available, more ring game table and stakes with action  to choose from, more lucrative promotions dues to their bigger budget. More frequent and larger freerools, less waiting times at practically any poker activity you are interested in.

Some of the best pros in the world have chosen to sponsor Pokerstars, such as Daniel Negreanu and Vanessa Rousso. This is a sign of quality as these people are among the best poker players in the world, and they would not tarnish their reputation by joining a room they do not trust and enjoy playing at.

An added advantage of having all these poker pros  is that it improves the overall quality of the games, and this is certainly a feature that will help you improve your poker skills. As the large buy in tournaments and the highest stakes ring games are where these pros operate, the amateurs who confront them learn from them and this  knowledge somehow flows to the lower limit levels.

So if you do not have an account at stars, now is the time to get one.

I bought it just by curiosity. I have a good training in computer science so this is the type of product I love to play with (I am a borderline geek let us be honest). Since the robot can play poker by itself and the coding can be modified through an open source programming language (available). There is a default setup with the program, or you can also tweak it in details when you buy.

I do not care too much about the results, but the facts are there: my initial deposit of 150 dollars at pokerstars has increased to 260 dollars in a few hours without any human intervention other than sitting at the tables and starting the robot. This 110 dollars gain includes the profit from playing at the tables plus part of a bonus conversion, but no rakeback (as pokerstars does not offer rakeback but the initial deposit bonus is quite easy to grind).

The robot plays without emotions obviously, which is one of its main advantages beyond the fact that it is programmed to always make the optimal decision. It applies strictly to the letter my own playing style at no-limit Texas Hold’em, bluffing, semi-bluffing, blocking bets, etc. None of that was omitted in his design. It is always content to apply its algorithm, without ever asking any question or getting upset when getting a bad beat from a lucky player.

Is it a big risk to use such a bot? Lol, I don’t think so: He goes to bed without getting angry after to a bad beat, he continues to play without getting annoyed, he never tilts. The advantage is that I can run two or three tables at once and let it run while I do other things, a great way to convert bonuses and to collect rakeback potentially.

Of course, the test period is still too short to make any conclusion, but the actual result is quite satisfactory: it is a true pleasure to program this robot, to adapt it to my profile as a player, watch him play and make corrections and improvements.

Some work ten hours a day … or week. Some make income that CEOs would envy. With the explosion of the game of poker online, they are now hundreds of online poker pros who make a living from poker.

Often they make the move to pro when they start to realize that they can make more money in online poker than from their regular job. And if their job is a pain, the choice is even easier. Multi-tabling is a common practice where that play from 4 to 24 tables simultaneously, just to maximize their gains.

The ideal that such players seek to achieve is to get sponsorship by an online poker room. Recently Tom “durrrr” Dwan joined the prestigious Team Full Tilt Poker in a contract valued at about 2 million a year. As Full Tilt pays travel and registration fees for all major international tournaments. And Tom Dwan does not pay rake, which equates hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings every year as he plays in the ultra high stakes.

To last in this business, you must be good at cards and in your head too.

Having a job where you earn a good living and where you have total freedom is a great plus. No boss, a lot of travel to the Bahamas, Australia, Monte Carlo, etc . Nothing to complain about.

It is estimated that about 10% of poker players earn money from the game, but only 1% of them manage to live very well from it. Many smaller grinders only succeed in making a smaller income that just pays the bills. And they play ten hours a day. It is a question of style and stake level.

Being a poker pro is having a great freedom and earning lots of money only to the best of them. But there are also a lot of instability. Players do not know at the end of the month how much they will win or if they will win. To last in this business you must be good cards, but most importantly have a strong  head. Because poker is a game of strategy and psychology, where luck plays an important role in the short term.