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Free Poker Online Tips – Occasions Where Folding a Strong Hand is Necessary

March 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever wondered if you were behind with the best hand when playing free poker online? Is it even possible?

To answer your question. Yes, it is possible to feel the need to fold the best hand occasionally.

Whether it be pre flop or post flop some situations might dictate for you to fold the better hand.

Some of these situations might be like if you hold a pocket pair and your opponent has two over cards, for example, you might have jacks or queens and your opponent might have ace queen or ace king.

Now depending on situation and chip stacks odds are these hands that would be playing a big pot? You may find yourself playing in a tournament in the early stages and you have a generous chip stack and find that your opponent has a hand which is better than yours, or at least as good. This is a time that you will be wise to fold, there is no point in losing out on the whole tournament.

You may also find yourself in a situation post flop where you are holding a great hand of two aces and your opponent is holding a 7 and 8 of hearts. Along comes the flop at 5, 6 and two with two hearts.

Now you make a small feeler bet but your opponent re raises you big. Although your aces are the best hand mathematically you are an underdog and might want to fold them depending on situation and chip counts.

Players who are prepared to fold a decent hand can have much more success, especially in tournament situations. You will often see players regretting not folding, but at the same time, you must also need to be prepared to call if you think necessary.

Successful poker is not about big wins and losses but how many times you put your money in good. Practice by playing free poker online to get your base skills honed and then go for it!.

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Free Poker Tips – A Beginners guide to Texas Holdem

March 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It doesn’t matter what type of poker you are playing, pay or free poker. Hold’em is played in this way: Each player gets two cards, face down. Like any other game, you ante at the start and the first betting interval comes after the first two down cards are dealt. The play rotates to the left of the dealer. On this opening round, a player must stay or get out (fold).

Next, three cards are dealt face up in the center. This is called the flop, and these are community cards to be used by all players in making their “hands”, along with the two they have already got in their hand. You make a second wager after the flop. This time, a player can pass, because a pot has already been started.

As with before 2 additional cards (“the turn” and “the river”) are then dealt out to the middle of the table with the suit facing upwards for all to see. After each card there is a further chance to have a flutter, check or walk away and fold.

In the games in which I play, we always burn (discard) the top cards at the start of every turn–you burn one and turn one. This is a precaution, and the main reason for it is that burning or discarding that top card eliminates cheating about ninety percent of the time (marked cards won’t work for a cheater when the top card is burned).

We’re not accusing anybody of being a cheater: Burning the top card is just a traditional thing in professional and in many amateur games.

Depending on the game your involved in will determine if there is a cap to the money which be won. However Holdem is an appealing game due to the amount of opportunities you will be presented with to have something to draw at.

If you are new to Hold’em then have a go at playing free poker online where its totally free and you wont lose any of your own cash.

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Free Poker Stories – A Life Saving Bluff

March 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Nowadays, I tend to stick to playing free poker online, but years ago one night during a poker tournament, I got lucky and won an event and quite a bit of money. When the smoke cleared, it was 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., and I got paid my $1,000 in prize money. I felt great, but I had one small problem. Even though I was staying at the Four Queens, I didn’t have a safe-deposit box there. I did, however, have one at the Horseshoe, which I kept all year long. It saved me the time and trouble of obtaining a safe-deposit box every time I came to play in a tournament at the various casinos in Vegas.

So, not wanting to keep about $1,000 in my pocket, I knew I had to walk across the street to the Horseshoe to put my money in my box. Nowadays, that wouldn’t be a problem, but as I said, at that time there were lots of undesirable characters inhabiting Downtown, and let’s just say that there was little or no security..

I didn’t think much of it until I hit the street. I then realized how dark it was, and with the street all torn up, there were no cars and virtually no people, either. Furthermore, there was a light mist falling. I was tired and thought, “Oh, what the hell. It’s only across the street – less than a block away.” So, I started my short walk.

This was the point that I was wishing I was playing free poker online rather than being out in the streets like a crazy man!

Just as I approached the corner, two big, tough-looking guys came around the corner. Both were carrying beer bottles and appeared to be very drunk and looking for trouble. As soon as they saw me, I knew what was coming. I was sure that they were on the prowl for a handout or, with no one else around, maybe something worse.

As I kept walking, they approached me as if they were going to block what was left of the sidewalk.

As they approached me, one of the men asked if I had got a couple of dollars they could have.

Not about to inform them of my win, I had to come up with something pretty quick before being beaten to a pulp, so, I took a chance and drunkenly squared up to them shouting ‘Don’t **** with me… I have just lost $25 in there!!!’. The two guys didn’t know what to do and actually looked quite bemused as they parted for me to walk through them.

A few steps later, I turned and loudly shouted another expletive at them. It was a great spur-of-the-moment bluff. Oh, I could have said, “I don’t have any money,” or given a dozen other excuses, but I don’t think that any of them would have worked quite as well as what I did. The bottom line was that these fellows wanted no part of a guy who could be that angry about losing 25 bucks.

It had to be the best bluff of my life, because I am here today retelling the story. If that bluff hadn’t worked, well I’d be lucky to be even playing free poker let alone big money!

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Free Poker Tournaments – How to Build a Pot with Big Hands

March 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It is a common misconception that by playing your hand slower you will win more games. Sometimes this may be true, but in many cases it isn’t, especially when you have a big hand. I see slow playing happen so much more often than necessary when I am playing both live and free poker tournaments online but I think that playing a more simple tactic works better.

In my opinion it is pretty risky to play big hands slowly. First of all, you are pretty likely to be outdrawn by the other players, and more importantly slow playing is actually, in most cases, much less lucrative than playing a hand faster.

Better Betting

If you want to build a big pot with a big hand like a set, you need to be betting. You need to raise pre-flop, bet on the flop, bet on the turn, and fire your last bullet on the river. In other words, you want to gradually get all-in.

You may think you’ll scare away opponents with continuous betting, but this won’t be the case if they hold a reasonably strong hand. Big pots happen when a big hand runs into an even bigger hand. If your opponent folds before you get all your chips in the middle, it simply wasn’t meant to be.

What you don’t want to do is scare your opponents away with ridiculously large bets or raises. Nobody will call you if you bet $800 into an $80 pot. Nobody will call you if you raise it up to $1000 after an opening bet of $40. You want to keep your bets and raises small.

Practice this approach on free poker games and free poker tournaments where you can get a feel for what’s OK without messing it up bigtime with proper money!

You must persuade your fellow players that they have a good enough hand to continue playing so that they don’t fold.

You want your opponent to be pot committed. You can’t do that with an oversized bet. You’re basically declaring that you own the best hand.

There is also a downside to not betting and just checking. Obviously, you can get outdrawn on. That’s a common concern.

However, checking also fails to build up the pot. You may eventually get your opponent to bet at you, but you he or she may just check behind-and thus, you’ll be losing some profit from winning one less bet.

Exceptions to the rule

There will be occasions when it is best to slow play. For example, it’s a smart move to slow play when you flop a royal flush, a straight flush, quads, a full house, the nut flush, or the nut straight. Those are very strong hands. There’s little chance to you’ll be beat. You want to give your opponent every chance possible to bet his second best hand.

When playing against aggressive or loose players then its worth playing slow, as they are likely to bet as players check. Make the most of their aggressive play.

Yet, in most cases, you do want to bet out or raise. You want to build big pots slowly by betting every chance that you get. Remember, its well worth practicing these tips by playing free poker tournaments sites, such as NoPayPOKER.com where you wont lose any of your own money but can still win real cash. That way when you get into a higher stakes cash situation you’ll play it right and hopefully scoop it up!

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Why Free Poker Articles Won’t Make You a Winner

February 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’ve written many articles on poker but one of the best ways to learn is to play. You can read free poker article all day but when you’re out there with the other players implementing what you learned can be a whole different story. Some players may feel scared to lose chips or just plan feel a certain move is dumb or “only for donkeys”.

By keeping a constant eye on the tables and playing poker regularly is the best way of staying ahead of your opponents. Doing moves like blind steals and bluffs are moves that you need to do over a long period of time not only to better understand when to do it but also to remind yourself that it does in fact work. Trying these moves a few times a week just won’t cut it, you’ll lose 2 or 3 times and just give up on that major part of poker all together.

It’s been said that if you’re sitting at a table looking for a donkey and can’t find one it is most likely you. It can also be said that if your looking around a table and everyone looks like a donkey you probably don’t know how to play poker. Some may be offended by that, but by winning is what determines who the best players are not what hand they had pre flop.

Don’t put to much emphasis on what you lost with or how you lost a single hand. It is what happens in the long run that means the most. Keep at it, play the free poker games as much as you can then try to move up to money games, if it doesn’t work out don’t despair. Go back to a free poker site game and do it again… and again.

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