Outdoor Lifestyles

Here’s a blow by blow or maybe hand by hand account of a recent free poker tournament of mine, I hope it gives you some guidance on how to think and play in such situations.

The game was ten of thirty one paid- decent odds of three to one so my decision is to play smooth and take a back seat as the games commences. A few of the cards I used at the start were fifty two suited in the small blind & K9 off with six to one pot odds. AJ off I fall pitiless- the odds are purely the difference between the cost to call to the size of the pot e.g. one hundred dollars to see six hundred dollars would be six to one.

I have built up around a grand playing the K9 forcefully with Q9Q flop and hitting a free ace on the river with an ace / jack. I find myself saying the same old thing time and time again: you have to gamble in the uncertain plays if no one else has or you will end up with nothing else to go on.

I gamble with three times my bet with a King / King and have one caller- the flop happens at five, eight, ten, and he bets so I blag his J10 for another grand. The generalisation of slow play is when you’re holding unstoppable cards; however the game here is far too tight.

An example of cards I have had to limp off with are: A2, A3 suited, and 88 due to the poor odds. By poor odds I mean to work out how much cash your opponents are holding and to know if it’s possible to bankrupt someone with good cards calling five dollars with junk may not seem as bad if you can take their fifty dollars in doing so.

There are certain cards I have passed on now that the blinds are higher and pot chances even smaller, such as, K10, J10, Q8 suited, and the Q8 ended up being a very poor fold. I’m now around an hour and a half into play & my wallet still holds two grand which I had built up before- plus a further five hundred and sixty dollars with other minimal pot plays.

It’s too early to go flat out so I fold an ace / queen as I can smooth play to the final table. Being able to fold a decent hand has taken a lot of time, practice and control before the bubble- like all things- time helps master this habit. The bubble means the last person to leave the game before pay out. I finally finish in sixth place and I’m pleased with this- if you can regularly find yourself in these positions you can earn a wage. The idea is to start small, play free poker tournament sites and climb the ladder as you become more experienced.

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Here’s a blow by blow or maybe hand by hand account of a recent free poker tournament of mine, I hope it gives you some guidance on how to think and play in such situations.

Tonight’s game is 10 of 31 paid, good odds here about 1 in 3 so lets play it smooth for a little and see what happens. Some hands that I’ve played early are 52 suited in the small blind and K9 off with 6 to 1 pots odds, AJ off I slip in cheap. Pot odds are simply the ratio of the cost to call to the size of the pot example $100 to see $600 pot would be 6 to 1.

I have built up around a grand playing the K9 forcefully with Q9Q flop and hitting a free ace on the river with an ace / jack. I find myself saying the same old thing time and time again: you have to gamble in the uncertain plays if no one else has or you will end up with nothing else to go on.

I gamble with three times my bet with a King / King and have one caller- the flop happens at five, eight, ten, and he bets so I blag his J10 for another grand. The generalisation of slow play is when you’re holding unstoppable cards; however the game here is far too tight.

Some hands I’ve limped in with are A2 suited, A3 suited, AJ off, and 88 because of implied odds. Implied odds are basically how much money the other player has and knowing you can bust someone with the right hands calling $5 with junk may not seem as bad if you can win his 50k doing so.

Some hands that I have passed on now that the blinds are higher and pot odds are getting slimmer are K10 suited, J10 suited and Q8 suited and the Q8 turned out to be a bad fold. About 1 hour 30 minutes in and I still have the 2k I made early plus another $560 with random small pots.

I am folding AQ off suit here because we are two away from payout and it looks like smooth sailing to the final table. Folding these higher hands takes a lot of discipline but becomes easier with each bubble you get. The bubble refers to the last person to go out before the pay. I end the match in 6th place which I’m very happy with…you can make living from places like that if you’re consistent. So start small, play on free poker tournament sites and work your way up in line with your growing confidence and bankroll.

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Bluffing is considered by many as an art form and can take a long time to establish any level of skill. Most people believe bluffing is as simple as keeping a straight face and having balls of steel- but let me reassure you there is a lot more to it than this. The ambitions of any poker player can be reflected by the degree of bluffing that they will involve during play. For example you may find players trying their luck while playing free poker online, but at the money tables the same player plays a lot more conservatory. In this article I will share my experiences and provide tips of bluffing in no limit Texas Hold-um.

Although a lot of bluffing comes down to judgment and instincts there is still an awful lot you can learn. The 1st example of bluffing amounts to the majority of play: if your instincts kick in after an opponents checks from the flop, turn or river then you can gamble high. A great example of this when playing an opponent heads up. If there are only 2 players and you’re holding a top pair or top kickers- you have a brilliant chance of winning. I will explain why; your opponent only has 2 cards from the pack the same as you meaning the chances are small. If bluffing a heads up opponent, just ensure you have done your research and understand this type of player, so you know when the correct time to bluff is.

Next, you have to understand what is at stake when you produce a bluff. If you push all in and you know you do not have the best hand, you must consider the worst. You may get lucky, or you may not. Bluffing is similar to betting on red or black in roulette, it’s a fifty-fifty chance. If you are bluffing in free poker, you may think it does not matter because it is not real, but that does not make you a very good poker player. Bluffing is only part of the game but can never be mastered. Even the poker professionals would agree that even they still do not know when to make a bluff or not. Sometimes it is hard to tell if someone is slow playing you or they just simply do not have anything.

Third, another concept of bluffing is the persistent value bet method. During this method, you are betting on nothing from the flop all the way to the river hoping they will fold if they have chased their hand. If you bet the same amount on the flop and turn but bet a little higher on the river with your bluffing hand, the other person is most likely to fold their hand to you. But again, this does not always have the same outcome every time.

Finally, my favorite part of bluffing is when you try to produce a bet that seems like a bluff, but is not. The best bluff bet is the famous all in or the bet pot. Also, if you are playing with the same group of players on a regular basis, you can change up your style by betting an amount they would not expect. The best way to get as much as you can get from someone out of a hand is to simply call all the way and go all in on the river, hopefully they will think you missed what you were chasing and they will call.

In closing, I hope you now understand a bit more about bluffing as a whole. It is one thing to be a poker professional but being a bluffing professional is an entire different world. Bluffing is either something you are good at or not. If bluffing works for you most of the time, you may be just lucky or you may truly have the gift of bluffing mastered. But just remember, the most important concept about bluffing, in pay games or free poker, is that it will NOT always be successful.

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Limit hold-em is one of the easier of the poker games to understand and for this reason is very popular especially with the free poker sites. Its not that the rules differ to those of other poker games it’s simply the process of placing bets is different. The maximum value is identical to the big blind and you can’t place a wager in excess of that maximum value- therefore the only way to get this elevated is to check in the 1st round of gambling in early positions and gamble in the later positions. It’s good practice to widen the parameters of hands your willing to play with; this will adapt your usual method of play.

The basic’s are pretty much the same with three simple rules that are bet, bet, and bet. Pre-flop you want to bet the pot as much as you can with your big hands and call the minimum with most everything from low suited connecters on up in the later positions. After the flop you want to bet with any made hands or draws equal to or greater then a flush draw taking the strength of the finishing hand into consideration.

The main idea is to just bring up the pot as much as you can whenever you think you may win the hand. The pro and con of limit hold’em is that it is much easier to chase a hand to the river for both you and your opponent and this is the reason that you should just bet, bet and bet. They will get their share and you will get yours when the time is right. Hopefully this guide will help, give it a go, on a free poker site if you can and see how it goes and above all have fun!

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The idea of private poker is not a new concept; on the contrary it has been around since the dawn of time- well since poker started anyway!! The main obstacle most enthusiasts of the private game face is finding a suitable time that doesn’t affect work or home life.

With the huge growth of online poker and free poker online most sites are now offering the ability for players to make their own private, passworded games they can play with friends and while not quite the same as the traditional poker night most of us are use to it can still be a great alternative, you can choose the stakes you want to play for and depending on the site also choose your starting chips and blinds.

While Texas Holdem is one of the most popular online games Omaha is now making a big come back and on many sites both are available in the private games.

Many sites offer you only a ten minute window to join the private game so you need to do all your inviting before making the game although some do offer time scheduled games so be sure to check multiple sites prior to making a decision.

Another good tip on the organisational front is to find how easy the game is to find and access once you have set it up. Some of the bigger sites make this extremely difficult- once you have found a site you can use and find, be sure to spread the word.

At this point I should also make the obvious clear that as your playing over the internet you must obey the ‘house rules’ of the hosting site. Some sites have bans on bad language and also remember anyone has the ability to try and join your game or see it.

After locating a site that offers the type of game and the features you want, you will find both money and free poker sites that do all you need to do is schedule a time that your friends can be online, make the game and begin playing.

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Poker, free poker online sites, buy in poker sites, casino tables – whatever – they’re all just like life… You have your bad days and good ones. You have your bad beats and your good hands. Unfortunately your good hands are usually the ones you fold while the bad beats hit you when you’re actually trying to play the hand!

From my experiences; I have decided that its how you play the decent pocket pairs but they hardly ever hit v playing the awful hands such as a 6 2 or a 4 9. That pocket aces your bad loss while those hands you fold are poor till the flop appears.

You may ask yourself and wonder why lady luck always seems to be on the shoulder of your opponents, and the experienced players benefiting from this while the novices always get hit with the pockets while you lose. This is called bad beats v donks at this stage- as those keep playing very poorly and you wonder what is going on!

I believe that free online poker games you will see more poor beats than against real life in flesh games. The reason is the donks online often go all in and in person such as social clubs or casinos people tend to stay very tight fisted.

Point of this is simple… Poker is like life… It is fun yet it’s challenging yet it’s totally surprising yet unreliable.

When playing poker and free poker online, you just never know if you’re going to be dealt a bad beat or a good hand but in the end it’s all a utter surprise and your day ends the same… Playing cards or not… It all sucks because in the end the one that wins is the one that makes your day into one big ass BAD Beat!

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After playing free online poker for a week now I have found that patience is the key to consistency. Since my last article I have discovered the wonders of the free-roll. In my opinion the best way to play tournaments is carefully. I have seen countless numbers of people going all in on the first hand and then getting burned, it’s crazy!

It goes without saying this puts all but one player into a shallow grave. If you can play conservatively till you find yourself on the top table; you will then be in with a shout of playing more forcefully. Many would be disappointed with some of the cards I have folded with near the beginning of the game, but chances are those same people would not make it to the later stages as often as I do.

The best free roll final position I made was forth with one hundred and fifty competing- in all honesty I was ecstatic with this, especially being a novice. From this I started to believe the chances of getting a pay out would not be as hard as first imagined especially when so many people go all in.

A good tip I continually use is the step up method. The highest I have won in a single hand is seventy five dollars- FreeD in the same hand and I managed to get my 1st sr8 flush smashing a very sure ace high flush which had the player go all in.

Mathematics I have found to be incredibly important. Knowing the chances of a flush by the river from two suited cards or the chances of winning from a certain pocket pair. Wising up on your odds will help greatly.

I have found the community at my free online poker site incredibly friendly and I always enjoy each game, whether I win or lose.

I know that I will continue to play free poker online for a long time to come and I look forward to perfecting my game as time goes on.

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I’m going to talk you through a step by step account of a recent free poker tournament I played in. My intention is making you think and question future plays of certain scenarios.

The game was ten of thirty one paid- decent odds of three to one so my decision is to play smooth and take a back seat as the games commences. A few of the cards I used at the start were fifty two suited in the small blind & K9 off with six to one pot odds. AJ off I fall pitiless- the odds are purely the difference between the cost to call to the size of the pot e.g. one hundred dollars to see six hundred dollars would be six to one.

I have built up around a grand playing the K9 forcefully with Q9Q flop and hitting a free ace on the river with an ace / jack. I find myself saying the same old thing time and time again: you have to gamble in the uncertain plays if no one else has or you will end up with nothing else to go on.

I gamble with three times my bet with a King / King and have one caller- the flop happens at five, eight, ten, and he bets so I blag his J10 for another grand. The generalisation of slow play is when you’re holding unstoppable cards; however the game here is far too tight.

Some hands I’ve limped in with are A2 suited, A3 suited, AJ off, and 88 because of implied odds. Implied odds are basically how much money the other player has and knowing you can bust someone with the right hands calling $5 with junk may not seem as bad if you can win his 50k doing so.

There are certain cards I have passed on now that the blinds are higher and pot chances even smaller, such as, K10, J10, Q8 suited, and the Q8 ended up being a very poor fold. I’m now around an hour and a half into play & my wallet still holds two grand which I had built up before- plus a further five hundred and sixty dollars with other minimal pot plays.

I am folding AQ off suit here because we are two away from payout and it looks like smooth sailing to the final table. Folding these higher hands takes a lot of discipline but becomes easier with each bubble you get. The bubble refers to the last person to go out before the pay. I end the match in 6th place which I’m very happy with…you can make living from places like that if you’re consistent. So start small, play on free poker tournament sites and work your way up in line with your growing confidence and bankroll.

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Avoiding giving the game away and not showing your hand is an important part of making your cash go further when playing free online poker.

Moving all in on the river or pre-flop is only the right move when it’s really your only option, for example, Short stacked. In poker you need to think to yourself what would I do if I was in the same situation I am putting them in? When do call an all in pre-flop or on the river?

Hopefully your answer was when you think you have a better hand. If your all in on the river or pre-flop then your most likely going to get called with hands no worse then AQ pre-flop and at least top pair with a high kicker on the river.

Consdier your move before acting:
If you had put a player on a flush draw and they don’t hit on the river why bet your normal bet? Bet something they may actually call even after missing.

Rather than go all in with the top boys I would suggest if you’re that way inclined, to gamble just over the pot with your made hands.

You will only begin to get calls with less they greatness if you appear to be bluffing a lot and many more players bluff with over bets then with all in’s.

By letting your opponents see one or two of your poorer hands works leaps and bounds too. If fore say you managed to get your opponents to lay down with a middle of 6’s even though this was the top cards in the game- it will illustrate to everyone you are willing to gamble with less than flawless cards.

Hopefully my tips will help you get the best out of your hands when you are playing free online poker…. good luck and I really hope to see you at the poker tables very soon!!

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In this free poker article we discuss how to play with big pairs like AA, KK, QQ and JJ

If you’re lucky enough to have the best cards, a pair of Aces, its paramount you try and find a large raise or re -raise if a player raised before you. With a pair of Aces you must not call a raise as potentially you’re loosing the chance to get more money into the pot and probably more significantly allowing opponents with poorer cards get better cards on the flop.

If you can compel your opponents to either fold or believe you’re faking it with 1 or 2 big cards and then call your large raise. With double Aces you must ensure the speed of play is at a reasonable tempo by not allowing little raises. Because if you do the other players will gain the chance to improve on the flop and also the number of opponents will drop.

Once the flop has passed it’s a good idea to go for a large raise not allowing your opponents the chance to call flushes, straights or drawing hands for minimal chips. Try and remember there is the chance that one of the opposing players has made a better “flop” and you may no longer have the best cards. The chances are you should still be the front runner and let the pot grow unless you’re positive someone else now holds the better cards.

When playing hands like KK, QQ and JJ you should raise before the flop. Someone would have maybe A and something lower but it is very rare to come up against a better hand before the flop when holding either of these hands, so raising will reduce the number of players who want to see a flop. Key thing is to limit the number of players who you are up against with either of these hands because the opponents can easily make a better hand than you hitting an Ace on flop to make bigger pair.

On the flop there will be two situations: you will face overcards or you won’t. If there are no overcards on the flop, you should continue to raise. Second situation with overcards on the board is more difficult for you but I suggest to raise a 3 or 4 times a big blind and then evaluate you situation after opponent responds to your raise. If he just calls be patient and cautious because it is unlikely that you will win a big pot any more in this situation. If pot gets bigger you must be prepared to let the hand go.

Although it’s not an exact science playing with big pairs if you go for right raises before flops you have a better chance of taking the money. One thing to think about though is the possibility that the opposing players could have better cards than you; especially if they’re playing strongly, gambling and raising too.

I look forward to seeing you at the free poker tables soon!

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