Knowing Yourself

•     What poker game do you prefer?
•     How did you learn to play the game?
•     Have you studied any strategies or do you play based on instinct?
•     Do you like to take risks or play conservatively?
•     Do you focus on other players, trying to get a read on them?

How you answer these questions will determine what type of poker player you are. If you studied up on the history of poker, learned to play the game with numerous free versions first, and study strategy you are probably one that plays conservatively thinking about each move before you actually make it.

The Art of Folding

A player that is too focused on other players can reveal more about themselves and lose sight of important plays. The best poker player as they say “knows when to hold’em.” Basically, poker players who make it to the WSOP do so by understanding the players around them, but also by focusing on the cards. They know that not every hand will win, so they know when to hold and when to fold.
Even if you fold on a great hand it can be beneficial to you. If you fold on a good hand, you leave the other players guessing as to whether you were bluffing and you can see if they were bluffing. Of course, if you have a royal flush you don’t want to fold, but the point is utilising the cards and studying your opponents can help you reveal their weaknesses allowing you to play to your strengths.

Do not try to do everything. For instance, if you do have a hard time reading people focus more on your cards and bet conservatively until you have an understanding of the other players at the table. Testing players can help you reveal some of your strengths too. You don’t have to be the best poker play around, but you do want to win more than you lose which is why you have to evaluate yourself first before you evaluate other players.

Did you like this article? Please like it and share. Next week (February 10th) you will find the second article on how to make money playing poker which focuses at bankroll management!

February 3th 2012 – PokerStars announced they are bringing out a beta version of Zoom Poker in the end of February of the beginning of March 2012. This long discussed Zoom Poker will be a first fast poker game coming from the market leader PokerStars.

After Full Tilt Poker had great success since beginning of 2010 with their fast play poker game Rush Poker many expected competitiors to jump on board quickly. However it has taken almost two years before a first real alternative will be given. Very little is known about the new Zoom Poker that PokerStars will launch shortly. It can be expected that it will be very similar to rush poker and most likely be also braught out as a mobile client. After PokerStars launched Mobile Poker in Italy all other counties are still left in the dark. The need for mobile poker is growing as the percentage of smart-phone users has been growing steadily for years. While the online poker industry is expecting a mobile poker boom since 2009 also this has been relatively slow. Most likely the unexpected problems of 2011 have delayed any possible developments on this level and mobile poker once again was postponed. We however definitely expect to see good things regarding mobile poker in 2012. Our guess is that PokerStars will definitely use the Zoom Poker version as a first step into mobile poker and that they will come with Android and iPhone supported software from the start. Next to PokerStars also other networks should be working on this issue. We expect Bwin/Party to come with mobile poker in the end of 2012 and maybe iPoker networks are in for a surprise as well. It seems to us that this is one of the few areas where poker sites can make a difference and true development and innovation can give them a real competitive advantage here. However few things are more uncertain than the online poker market. We’ll keep you posted on any new mobile poker clients that are out there!

10. Jayde Nicole

Playmate of the Year 2008, Jayde Nicole is connected to Bluff Magazine. Through this connection she found Jamie Gold as her first poker coach. This 24 year old beauty played in the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge. Not really interested in this girl’s poker achievements? More pictures here and here!

9. Veronika Larsen

The Norwegian Veronika Larsen has been spotted at several EPT tournaments. Recently she quit her job to focus entirely at poker, she is still one step shy of her first major cash.

8. Tara Rice

Rice played in the Legens of Poker Ladies’No Limit Holdem tournament back in 2005. With little experience she managed to finish 35^th. In 2008 she appeared in the WSOP at a $1,500 buy-in event. Unfortunately no spectacular result… let’s just look at some pictures then!

7. Jennifer Leigh

Profits of Jennifer Leigh are estimated at $60k from live tourney winnings and another $100k from online poker tournaments. Of course she will be mostly known as a playboy model but with a WSOP cash and two cashes in WPT’s she is definitely in the game.

6. Vanessa Rousso

This lady from New York is about as tough as she looks. In total she shipped for $2.3 million in price money, this includes a cash of almost $300k when she won the Borgate Open (No Limit Holdem) back in 2006. More recent was her cash at the WSOP in 2010. She took a 9^th place in a Heads-Up event bringin home $94,956. Looking at the pictures you might not believe this is actually the same person, sources are correct… she was actually a swimsuit model…. Enjoy!

5. Fatima de Moreiro

This Dutch star in field hockey decided she was changing carreers and started playing poker. Because she was close friends with Dutch poker player Lex Veldhuis (appeared in High Stakes Poker) she was connected to PokerStars quickly and was added to Team PokerStars NL. With a little bit of talent and perhaps some beginnersluck she took 9^th place in one of her first tournaments cashing €32,832, what a start!

4. Shannon Elizabeth

Alltime sex-godess from the movie American Pie considers poker to be her second carreer. In 2005 she won the Celebrity event in the WSOP which brought her $55k. Then it was quite for a while. Shannon Elizabeth reached a cash in 2007 in a $2k buy-in but no big results could be seen after this… She is under contract at Full Tilt Poker, for movies and pictures click here

3. Lacey Jones

The blond lady Lacey Jones is playing poker since she was just 5 years old. She was under contract with Absolute Poker until may 2010, about 1 month later she signed a contract with Full Tilt Poker and can therefore still be seen at many live tournaments.Last year she took a 41^st place ($4,100) in the Ladies No Limit Championship at the WSOP.

2. Kelly Hu

Kelly Hu is an American/Chine model. She made several appearances in both WSOP as WPT tournaments. Once a while she also plays celebrity poker tournaments including the WPT Celebrity Charity in 2008.

1. Joanna Krupa

Our absolute number 1, the Polish Joanna Krupa. She is at the top of our poker babes top 10. This absolute Supermodel was born in Poland. Besides modeling she has appeared in several tv shows including the Apprentice. This playboy model is under contract at Titan Poker (http://www.titanpoker.com/lifestyle/joanna.html). That she is probably more model than poker player we prefer to ignore for the sake of this list J you be the judge of this by looking at these pictures.

It was quit a long process to compose this top 10, yes tough job… The biggest downside of a Top10 however is that it is limited to just 10 babes, we therefore have a few poker babes not in this top 10. Two of these are the Jennifers (Jennifer Tilly & Jennifer Harman) but also Helen Chemberlain and a few others did not make the Top 10.

Our nr.9 was little bit of a discussion because of the fact we could not find more (better) photos in our extensive research, we expect her to rise towards the top 5 when we have more pictures but until then she’ll have to do with position 9.  Shannon Elizabeth might be a bit overappreciated at position 3. The thing is that she made herself immortal with a very specific movie scene, so that was good enough .

Another big issue in composing a Top10 of Poker Babes is which babes are actually connected enough to poker to be included in this list. For several babes it can be argued that they are more a general model instead of a poker babe, it’s a good thing we are not a democracy then! For more pictures of female poker players we kindly refer you to poker-babes.com. This list was created in cooperation with our Dutch partner site.

Answer 20 questions correct and receive $50!

Have you ever wished you could get started with your poker career for free? Maybe you would like to play real money poker, but just can’t afford to deposit any money into a poker account because your budget is just too tight to allow any room for gambling. Or maybe you are one of those people who likes free money. Isn’t everybody? You DO like free money don’t you? Well PokerStrategy.com has the perfect opportunity for anybody who fits into any of the above categories.

To test your own poker knowledge, PokerStragey.com offers a quiz which you can take in order to get an idea of just how much you know and have learned. If you sign up with PokerStrategy.com and pass the beginner’s quiz, PokerStrategy.com will deposit $50 into your account on any poker room you choose to play at. That’s right! $50 for free, simply by passing the quiz on PokerStrategy.com. The best part about this offer is that the quiz is simple, yes simple. You don’t have to be a poker pro to pass the quiz, in fact you really don’t have to know anything about poker at all.

When you sign up for PokerStrategy.com you have the chance to pass the beginner’s quiz. All the answers within the quiz can easily be found in the three beginner level articles and videos posted on the website. You’re even allowed to peak at the answers within the articles while you take the quiz. So really, failing the quiz is pretty hard. It’s a guaranteed $50 in the poker account of your choice for free. Just sign up, read the beginner’s articles on poker strategies and rules, watch the videos posted for beginner’s, then take the quiz. If there are any answers in the quiz you don’t know right off hand, just refer to the articles and videos while you are taking the quiz to find the answers.

It really is just that simple. You may be thinking there is a hidden catch somewhere. You must have to pay to join or something right? Wrong! Joining the community at PokerStrategy.com is completely free, there are no costs to signing up, taking the quiz is free, and the $50 deposited into the poker account of your choice is FREE. There is no hidden fees, no gimmicks, just an amazing offer that any poker player would be a fool not to take advantage of.

Unfortunately players in the United States are not allowed to join PokerStrategy.com, therefore the $50 bonus for passing the quiz is unavailable to US players wanting to take advantage of this offer. All other players all welcome and encouraged to join though. Good luck at the tables.

This is also the reason BWIN is starting out only in the UK and Austria, plans are to expand this list of countries quickly.

Because BWIN is the owner of the Ongame poker network expecations are that other companies offering poker at this network will soon follow BWIN in offering this great iPhone App.

A full review off this BWIN iPhone App will follow next week, we just could not waiting breaking the news to you!

Visit the App Store and get it now.

See article: egrmagazine.com

1. Create a Full Tilt Poker Account (allready have one? go to step 2).

2. Go to: https://mobile.fulltiltpoker.com/mobile/ and login.

3. Play rush Poker on your mobile!

Is your mobile phone ready for Rush Poker?
The rush poker application is a flash based program that needs Flash v10.1 on Android 2.2, in case you are in doubt about your phone please check the list with phones at Full Tilt, like stated any phone with 2.2 Froyo build or higher should be fine.

To select the right poker room, you have to ask yourself what it is you want out of your online poker experience. Winning, obviously, but what else? Are you a better cash games player, or tournament player? Maybe you like a mix of the two.

What games will you play?
What kind of tournaments suit you best? Do you do well in the early rounds, but falter just before the bubble? This won’t do at all in a standard tournament structure, but in bounty tournaments (a.k.a. knockout or head-hunter tournaments), it could prove amazingly profitable without even finishing in the prize pool.

What about cash games? Do you like the simple NL Holdem or Omaha tables, or a road less traveled, like Stud, Draw and Lowball games? Not every online poker room has a large selection of poker variants, while the largest poker rooms tend to have the best variety.

What limits will you be playing?
Stakes are another thing to consider. Most poker rooms have micro-limit stakes that start at $0.01/$0.02, but not every site is going to offer the same high stakes action. One poker room might offer its highest stakes at $100/$200, while others scale up as high as $2,000/$4,000.

Do you consider yourself a fish, a shark or an all encompassing poker strategist? If you say fish, you need to stay away from the real money online poker tables altogether until your skills improve! As a shark, you are eating the fish, but may have a harder time against other sharks like yourself. Sharks play best at low to mid level stakes where most of the competitors are inexperienced, unskilled poker players. A true poker strategist will adjust their game to overcome any oppositional situation.

This information will help you to select a poker room by the type of player traffic that frequents the tables. Some networks are well known for their loose, fishy player base, while others have tighter competition. While building your bankroll and developing your poker strategies, hunting the fish can be a perfect gateway to exponential success.

But why would a poker player choose to face tighter competition, when there are so many fish out there just waiting to have their chip stacks plucked from the sea? Because it translates to higher stakes games, a tougher challenge, and further growth in your poker education and skills.

If you’ve ever pictured yourself seated at the final table of the WSOP Main Event, you’re certainly not going to get there by playing against an ocean of fish, nor will you find very many fish at a WSOP table, early rounds or not.

Discovering the level of opposition is a simple matter of skimming the tables in the poker lobby. The column labeled VFP, VF% or Flop% (viewed flop percentage) will tell you what you need to know. The higher the viewed flop percentage, and the higher the number of players at the tables, combined with that %, the looser the table is. A high VF% with only 2 players doesn’t mean much, but with 5+ players, 50% or more is a very loose, fish table.

Make sure the room suits your goals
Last, we mentioned your new attire (poker room) fitting the occasion. So what is your occasion? Are you looking to make a little extra cash while having a good time, to pull in a supplemental income, or to make a career out of this? Career poker players are looking at the long term, and that often includes major live tournament entries.

It takes $10,000 to buy into the World Series of Poker, for example. Why not spend your time in the poker room working your way towards that goal by playing in WSOP satellites? Many of the industry’s largest poker rooms offer satellites and qualifiers to the WSOP and other major live events, so if that’s your goal, that should be factored into the selection of your poker room.

The first poker room you join won’t likely be your last, but if you follow this guide and put a little mental effort into your decision, you can save a lot of time in the long run by learning how to select a poker room.

How are the online poker rooms handling privacy issues?

It is concerning because this is an unregulated industry in the United States. While these poker rooms are legally operated, and oftentimes regulated by governing agencies in many other countries, the United States, who in most cases can’t keep it’s nose out of other countries squabbles, seems to have no interest in protecting her own citizens from Internet fraud in the casino and gambling industry.

Maybe that’s a good thing though? I know it sounds crazy, but had the United States came in and regulated, and therefore taxed Internet Poker before other countries beat them to it, maybe we would have learned to depend on that blanket of security? Our money could have been more safely insured, rather than stolen by the government, but we’d have had to pay for that too right?

Besides, this means that there is not a lot of time spent on these issues in the government. It seems to be a taboo subject that no one really wants to talk about anyway, sort of like legalized marijuana. Because of this lack of talk, a number of problems like privacy issues had to be dealt with early on.

Who Should I Sign Up With?

When most people begin there journey into online poker rooms, they wonder which rooms they should sign up for. Privacy issues are a prime concern for most people along with issues about if they will be able to withdraw their money once it is put into the site. Since this is such a gray area in the United States, it makes sense that people would be worried. Since it is so taboo, many people do not want it known that they play poker in these rooms. The best option is to choose a site that many people use and that is well advertised. Those are the big name sites that are frequented by so many people that there should be less worry about privacy.

There are only about 10 online poker rooms still accepting players from the United States, even less for Washington Residents.

If you’re NOT located in the United States the best plan for choosing an online poker site would be to:

1. Use a site like this one to gauge the reputation of the online poker sites you’re considering.
2. If you’re still not convinced, go with a site such as Party Poker that is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange.

Sites that are publicly traded are forced into complete transparency, they utilize the latest in privacy technology, and there are clear consequences for any non compliance.

If you are in the United States:

1. Research United States Friendly Poker sites on a site such as this one.
2. Stick to well known and highly recommended online poker sites.

For those in the United States, the top 2 online poker sites are Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, PokerStars however does not accept players from Washington State, therefore those players are limited to PokerStars as far as the huge reputable sites go.

What Should I Do To Protect My Privacy?

There are things that Internet Poker players can do to protect their privacy at online poker sites. The first of which is to simply learn about phishing, and not fall victim to phishing scams via email.

Protect your own Internet passwords, that’s a big one, all to often people leave themselves logged in on public computers, or give out their passwords and later lose funds from accounts involved.

Some things that really go the extra mile toward privacy protection include the use of a disk encryption utility for the storage of information.

What Are The Sites Doing To Protect Privacy?

Because the poker room websites understand that this has become a bit of an issue, they are working on ways to help you feel more comfortable. After all, they want you to feel free to come and play poker at their site without feeling any threat to your privacy. The competition for players among these sites means that they have had to update to stay ahead. One thing that many of the sites have done is made it possible for you to hid information about yourself from other players. Whereas it used to be much easier for other players to see what your actual name was and what part of the world you are from, this is not as easy to do anymore on most sites. Often you do not have to give the website your credit card number directly anymore. You often use third party payment services to deposit and even withdraw your money from the poker websites.

What Updates Will We See In The Future?

Privacy updates that are coming in the future are a little harder to predict. We don’t know exactly what the sites are going to do, but we do know that things will only continue to get better. They are such tight competition with one another that they have no choice but to update.

So to ease the stress and serious nature that sometimes envelop the game of poker, we’ve decided to throw together a fun, informative article we like to call ‘Interesting Poker Facts’. Some of these facts are based on trivia type knowledge, known to many veterans in the business, while others are downright amazing poker facts that few would know.

Interesting Poker Facts

1. Approximately 80 million Americans indulge at the poker tables on a regular basis.
2. The intense popularity of poker can be proven by the fact that over 70 million decks of playing cards are sold annually in the US alone.
3. No one knows the true origins of poker.
4. The youngest World Series of Poker Main Event champion was Joe Cada, at age 21, in the 2009 WSOP.
5. The oldest World Series of Poker Bracelet winner was Paul McKinney, at 80 years old, in the 2005 WSOP.
6. The oldest player to ever compete in the WSOP Main Event was Jack Ury of Indiana, who competed at 96 years of age in the 2009 WSOP.
7. Richard Nixon’s first congressional campaign was funded in part by substantial winnings from a poker game.
8. The most common lunch time cuisine, the sandwich, was popularized by avid poker player John Mantagu, a.k.a. the Earl of Sandwich. Mantagu would spend so many hours at the poker tables, he refused to stop to eat. Instead, he had bread and meat brought to him at the table. And thus the sandwich was born.
9. About 20% of all players who competed in the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event (5,619) won a satellite prize package from the world’s largest online poker room, PokerStars.
10. In 1998, there was only one, officially licensed online poker room.
11. In 2008, there were over 400 online poker rooms spanning the world wide web.
12. There are 1,326 possible 2-card combinations a player can start with in Texas Hold’em.
13. There is a 1 in 16 chance of being dealt pocket pairs.
14. There is an 8.3 in 1 chance of flopping a set after being dealt pocket pairs.
15. The Rio Casino All Suit Hotel & Casino, host of the 2009 World Series of Poker, takes a 10% rake from the overall Main Event prize pool. The overall prize pool at the 2009 WSOP was $60,043,650, for a total rake of$6,004,365 (the profit taken by the casino).
16. When the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada first opened its doors in 1993, the casino possessed $3,500,000 in quarters.
17. At the 2005 WSOP, Howard Lederer paid Doyle Brunson $3,500 to have Brunson’ good luck charm, a black Zippo lighter with the Ghostbusters logo on it (nicknamed “Casper”), and engraved with the name “Doyle”, willed to him.
18. Uttering the profaned “F” word loud enough to be heard at the World Series of Poker will result in a 10 minute penalty. Mike Matusow was given 4 consecutive 10-minute penalties in the 2005 WSOP after an argument with the dealer that resulted in him using the “F” word 4 times in a row.
19. Phil Hellmuth Jr. is well known for his childishly moody behavior at the tables, hence his nickname “Poker Brat”. Interestingly enough, he is married to a psychiatrist.

The difference between the two countries is that the Italian Republic finally did something about it that would benefit the country and its citizens. Italy chose to sanction and regulate online poker. Granted, Italy first tried an ISP block to prevent online poker gambling within its borders, and it wasn’t until that failed that the republic went the other route to legalize online poker in Italy.

Whatever the case, the adult population of Italy is finally able to enjoy online poker without threat of legal recourse, and the government is generating massive revenue via taxation of online gambling.

Italy claims a healthy percentage of all revenue from online poker rooms, combined with considerable licensing fees to all internet poker rooms who want legal access to promote their products to Italian customers. PokerStars has been following the Italian online poker movement very closely, and their research discovered that the Italian online poker market would have an estimated net worth of €400 million annually. The taxation of €400 million would be astounding.

Italy’s government chose to allow offshore online poker operators, as well as its own local, live poker rooms, to provide services to Italians legally over the internet. On the bright side, casino poker rooms can now present their tournaments online; on the dark side, for operators at least, all tournaments are taxed at about 20% – live and online, prize pool and fees. It’s almost impossible for any operator to run a tournament at that rate of taxation and actually make a profit.

For the bigger companies, however, it’s well worth it. A large, live casino with 400 rowdy poker tournament players is going to get a lot of cash games action – that’s where the real profits are. An online poker room will get plenty of cash game response as well. The tournaments become little more than a lure, while all of the other offerings generate actual revenue.

PokerStars is expected to have the most success as an online poker room serving the Italian Republic. The poker site is so large to begin with, even if they lose money for the first year or two, their other worldly investments will easily keep them above water.

General Manager and Founder of European Poker Consulting, Thomas Lamatsch, estimates that Italy’s will smaller online poker operations will have minimal success in the beginning, but that only about ten major poker rooms will make be left standing at the end of the day. These bigger Italian poker rooms can afford to offer the biggest tournament prizes and draw enough traffic to promote higher stakes cash games.

Online Poker Rooms Licensed in Italy
It’s more difficult to get into the Italian online poker business because it costs about 30x more than entering any other standard jurisdiction, and requires an Italian-exclusive poker site.

There are currently less than two dozen online poker rooms taking advantage of Italy’s new legal poker markets. PokerStars.it and Party Poker Italy are two of the forerunners, along with Eurobet Italian Poker and SNAI Poker and Games.