Key Skills to Master to Succeed at Poker

Poker is one of the most classic gambling games of all time. You could, of course, play it only for fun. But there’s more thrill in a high stakes bet that rides on your next decision. It’s the stuff so many movies are made of, and one of the classic Las Vegas moments we all aspire to have.

 

That said, poker is also a strategically complex game that demands excellent social skills. You have to know when to hold ‘em and fold ‘em, as the song goes. You also need to be good at reading people and possibly fooling them. If you’re already good at those things, then you’re on the right track! If not, there’s no shame in that. Analyzing people and making informed decisions on their nature is an entire field of study. So is guessing the validity of your poker hand. There’s a reason people make a profession out of poker playing.

 

If you want to up your poker game, we’ve included some tips and tricks for you. These won’t make you a pro overnight, but if you put these into practice over your next few games, you’ll find a lot more hands going in your favor. If you’re playing for money, you might even find your wallet getting fatter. So read on to learn the key tactics you need to work on to become a poker master.

 

The Best Way To Bluff

Let’s get right into the most famous poker skill: bluffing. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s all about lying really well, or tricking other players into thinking you have an unbeatable hand. In reality, your bluffing game should be more about buying time to turn a decent hand into a great one.

 

If you find that your hand is simply garbage, you’re better off folding and waiting for the next round. You lose less that way and can try to come back stronger when the cards are more in your favor.

 

You want to try bluffing when your hand actually has potential. Even if it isn’t great in the current form, you might be able to turn it into a straight or flush with future draws. That’s when you bluff – when you want to buy time for better cards or get your opponent to fold. Pros call this a “semi-bluff” as you’re not totally lying. You are still betting on the chance of something good happening, but you’re better off than if you were trying to completely bluff a bad hand.

Go All-Out On Your Good Hands

As said in the tip above, just fold if your hand isn’t going to go anywhere. Your goal is to limit the hands you’re playing to ones that can believably be a win. When such a hand does come along, be ready to go on the offense.

 

Aggressive play can scare off less experienced players easily. It can even give poker enthusiasts second guesses about their hands. It can be hard to project full confidence, but it’s a skill you must master to make the most of your game. Raise, semi-bluff, and play as quickly as you comfortably can. After some rounds of doing this successfully, the other players will learn to be wary of you.

 

Play With People That Are Worse Than You

It might sound mean, but the best way to win and make money is to bully weaker players. That doesn’t mean actually harassing them, just that there’s no shame in being the best player at the table. You should prefer that, in fact, as it makes it easier to consistently win. This tip goes differently if you’re playing for the love of the game, as then you might relish the challenge. But if cashing in is your goal, be sure to leave the table once you discover someone is consistently outplaying you. Look for players who hesitate or raise too eagerly, as those are the ones who are prime to make mistakes that you can take advantage of.

 

It’s an exciting time to be a poker player, as you can engage using online casinos to stay safe and play at your convenience. This goes doubly for those in Arizona, as online gambling just became formally legal. DraftKings Arizona is open for business, as are many other great online casinos and sports betting sites. Many are offering great bonuses for signing up during the opening, so check in to get some extra plays and put your new poker skills to the test.

Should Seniors Make Mind Sports a Part of Their Active Lifestyle?

Chances are, you’ve never considered what playing Texas Hold ‘em, speed reading a book or even texting a friend have in common. While these are seemingly quite different activities, each one causes you to engage your brain, and when practiced methodically, can strengthen your mental abilities.

Sound crazy?

Welcome to the mind sports era. A mind sport is defined by most as a game of skill in which competitors battle it out over intellectual ability as opposed to physical exercise…

If you hope to be successful in these mind sports, you must track your position in the game while keeping tabs on everyone else’s moves. Analyzing the plays made and using that insight to inform upcoming plays requires multidimensional, critical thinking. And if it’s not an already strong point, you will quickly develop multi-dimensional, critical thinking skills and improve your focus as you play.

In other words, playing a mind sport against others is a mental challenge. It’s a baptism by fire method of sharpening your brain functions while honing your strategical abilities and decision-making…

Horse Racing is a Mind Sport

Source: Should Seniors Make Mind Sports a Part of Their Active Lifestyle?

All Bets on Yellow: Double Free Spins Bonus Roulette in Sweden

Guest post

 

Roulette is definitely one of the easiest casino games to play. Its rules are so simple that you don’t need to even memorize it all. You only have to bet, see the dealer spin the wheel, then let the ivory ball decide your wager’s fate. Roulette is also famed for its very fast pace and its near fifty-fifty chances of winning. Thus, many gamblers have flocked to it, admiring its streamlined design and enjoying the very exciting feel there is in every spin.

That said, one can conclude that roulette is a very successful casino game. It’s now so popular in casinos that almost nobody remembered how it started from a derivative of a perpetual motion machine created by the French inventor Blaise Pascal. Who can blame this majority of roulette players? After all, roulette has evolved far beyond its origins and has given way to countless variations.

Roulette Normally, people will always think of American and European roulette once roulette variations come to mind. American roulette is a version known for its two zero slots and for having a high house edge, while European roulette is a more internationally popular variant for having a single zero roulette wheel, and therefore, higher winning odds. However, these aren’t the only forms of roulette. There are countless others, some of which have been popularized by online roulette casinos.

One of these variations is the double bonus free spins roulette, which as we can agree, has a rather mouthful name. This version of the casino game is distinct for having a yellow “B” slot, which is considered a single bet but with a higher payout. This is 50% larger than the usual pocket, giving the ball better chances of landing on it. Once the ball lands on this slot, you’ll be awarded with two free spins, whether you have placed chips on it or in a different number. As you have probably guessed, this feature is where the double bonus spins roulette got its name.

As previously mentioned, you can also place a bet on the lone yellow slot. You can actually make three kinds of wagers on this particular betting space. The first is the straight yellow bet that wins 12:1, or twelve times your bet. However, if the yellow comes up again in the resulting bonus spin, you’ll win 120:1, and if the same occurs in the third spin, you’ll get a whopping 1200:1 win!

The other two bets are the Split and Trio yellow bets. The first is a bet placed on the yellow B plus another placed on green 0 or 00, paying out 6:1. The second is played in a similar manner, this time covering both green slots and pays 4:1.

As you can notice, double free spins bonus roulette is played on an American live roulette online wheel and that perhaps is its biggest disadvantage. Fortunately, what extra house edge created by the zeros and the yellow slot is negated by the rare bonus spins, should yellow B ever come up at all.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that you won’t find enjoyment in this version of live roulette online. The free bonus certainly is an interesting spin to the game, and the progressive win on yellow is something you’ll really hope for.

 

Betfair Moves NJ Online Gaming Operation to Golden Nugget Atlantic City

JERSEY CITY, N.J., Nov. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Betfair, one of the world’s leading online gaming operators, has moved its online gaming operation to the Golden Nugget Atlantic City. Under New Jersey law, online gaming operators such as Betfair must operate under the Internet gaming permit of a land-based casino in Atlantic City. As a result…

TED Presentation: What We Can Learn from Expert Gamblers

The presentation of this short 15 minute video is Dylan Evans.  He is the founder of Projection Point, a global leader in risk intelligence solutions. Evans has written several popular science books, including Risk Intelligence: How to Live with Uncertainty and Emotion: The Science of Sentiment. He received a PhD in Philosophy from the London School of Economics in 2000, and has held academic appointments at King’s College London, the University of Bath, the University of the West of England, and the American University of Beirut.

His topic: What We Can Learn from Expert Gamblers

httpv://youtu.be/7jyokhjUCyk

Seven-figure score by Poker Pro in Serious Jeopardy

Earlier this year poker star and professional Blair Hinkle won over $1.2 million in a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) main event. Hinkle’s prize was one of the largest the site had ever awarded, and it coincided with the company’s alleged insolvency. However, he had no way of knowing that his seven-figure cash award was in serious danger, or that his winnings existed partly as what authorities have called “phantom funds” within the Full Tilt poker site.

According to Hinkle, the company took about a month to respond to his emails asking to raise his $8,000 per-day limit on cashing out. The site then asked him to re-verify his account. By the time the process was over, it was April and Black Friday had hit the poker community. Furthermore, none of his requests to withdraw just $48,000 of his winnings had been successful.

Memo to Hinkle and the thousands of online poker players in the United States: online poker is illegal! It doesn’t matter whether or not you think it should be legal. It isn’t.

Hinkle is under the delusion he will see his money some day. Read his thoughts at Card Player

Devastating news for the Illegal online Poker Industry

FullTiltPoker.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors made new allegations on Tuesday in a probe of the Full Tilt Poker website, accusing self-styled “Poker Professor” Howard Lederer and professional poker champion Christopher Ferguson and others of paying themselves more than $440 million while defrauding other players.

In a motion filed in federal court in New York to amend an earlier civil complaint, the prosecutors accused Full Tilt Poker of running a Ponzi scheme that continued even after the original charges were filed.

Prosecutors unsealed the earlier charges on April 15, accusing three Internet poker companies — Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and PokerStars — and 11 people, including Full Tilt director Raymond Bitar, of bank fraud, illegal gambling and money laundering offenses.

Lederer is described on his website as “The Poker Professor” and Ferguson has won five World Series of Poker events. The men are directors and owners of Full Tilt Poker.

“In reality, Full Tilt Poker did not maintain funds sufficient to repay all players, and in addition, the company used player funds to pay board members and other owners more than $440 million since April 2007,” the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

“Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme.”

A Ponzi scheme is usually one in which early investors are paid with the money of new clients and it collapses when funds run out.

The U.S. Attorney’s previous civil complaint did not contain allegations of the company defrauding players or owners taking payments improperly.

Representatives of Full Tilt Poker could not immediately be reached to comment on the amended complaint, which has yet to be approved by a U.S. District Court judge. This type of filing is usually approved as a formality.

The prosecutors said Full Tilt Poker’s board of directors, including Bitar, Lederer, Ferguson and Rafael Furst, defrauded players by misrepresenting that their funds in accounts were safe, secure and available for withdrawal.

In the new complaint, they cited emails and poker message board postings in 2008 and 2009 in which Full Tilt Poker and its representatives assured players their money was safe.

One of those emails read, in part: “To protect both our players and business from financial problems, all player account funds are segregated and held separately from our operating accounts. Unlike some companies in our industry, we completely understand and accept that your account money belongs to you, not Full Tilt Poker.”

The government challenges the assurances, saying the company did not have money to repay the players.

The case is USA v Pokerstars, et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 11-02564.