Online poker strategy, poker room reviews and the latest poker news

Heres the latest piece I wrote regarding american poker legislation.
Online poker strategy, poker room reviews and the latest poker news:

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Color Up Poker Blog: thURsday HANDS: Paying Attention To Your Opponents...

Solid hand analysis I did for another blog. Worth a read so check it out. Great company as well. Their new line of poker training cards are great for beginners to learn the game quickly. They also help advanced players memorize outs and odds.

If you would like a hand history analysis of your own, leave a comment. You can delete your screenname if you choose, just let me know which player you are and any reads on players you may have.

Color Up Poker Blog: thURsday HANDS: Paying Attention To Your Opponents...: Welcome to ThURsday HANDS. Every week we look at UR HANDS and see how you played them, and if there is any room for improvement. ...

Outs in Poker

When referring to the term "outs" in poker, we are saying that this is the amount of cards we have left that will improve or make or hand. For example, we have 2 hearts in our hand and the flop brings two more hearts. This gives us 4 to a flush. So we can now say that we have nine outs to hit our flush by the river.

So, how do we determine how many outs we have? Using the example above (four to a flush) we need to know how many cards will make our flush. There are 13 cards of each suit in a standard deck. We need to subtract the number of cards we either hold in our hand or are already on the board. In this case we have two in our hand and there are two on the board. Therefore we have nine outs (13-the 4 we already see = 9).

Other examples would when we hold a pair pre-flop. We will have two outs to make a set. When we have AKo, we will have six outs to make a pair of kings or aces. Perhaps a more common and useful scenario would when we have an open ended straight draw. If we have TJ and the board is QKx, we need a nine or an ace to complete our hand. Since there are 4 of each card remaining, we have 8 outs.

Now I want to discuss an important factor when determining whether we should call a bet when we are drawing to a hand. The first thing to determine is how many outs we have which we know how to do now. Next we will need to figure out if the bet is worth calling based on the outs we have.

Sticking with the flush example, let's say we are faced with a $4 bet. Counting the $4 bet the pot now holds $12. To figure out the odds we need to call we will multiply the number of outs we have either 4 or 2. If we are on the flop and plan on seeing a turn and river then we multiply by 4. If we are on the turn and will only see one more card, we multiply by 2. This is commonly called the 4/2 rule.

If we take our nine outs that make the flush and multiply it by four since we are on the flop, we get 36. This will be the percentage that out hand will hit by the river. So, we now know that we have a 36% chance to make a flush when seeing two more cards.

We now take the amount of money in the pot and the amount we have to call to determine whether it will be a profitable call. Calling a $4 bet when we can win $12 will give 3-1 odds. Since we are 36% to make a flush this means that we are slightly more then 3-1. Therefore we are getting the right price to call this bet. Any time our chances of hitting our hand are equal or greater to the amount of money we have to call relative to the size f the pot, is a profitable call.

To sum it up, we first find the number of outs we have. Next we determine what percentage we are to make our hand based on the number of cards left to come, i.e. turn and river or just river. Finally we find the odds we are getting to call the bet based on the current size of the pot including the bet we have to call.

Your Daily Poker Tip

Table select: Finding the right table can make you more money than the skill you have in some cases. Often times players will just look in the poker lobby see an open table and jump right in not even thinking about who is already sitting. Next thing you know you're on the right of an aggressive player putting you in every awkward spot you can think of.

If you play often you will tend to know who the better players are learning to stay away from them. If you have no reads on any of the players, sit for a few rounds and if you notice they are tight and aggressive, sit out and search for another table. Looking in the lobby for high saw flop percentages, is a good way to spot juicy games. There's no shame in sitting out of a table full of regulars. You play poker to make, not to see who has the bigger club.

Poker Tip

Pay attention to stack sizes: This tip applies to all both tournament and cash games. You have to know what the stack size of every player at the table is before you make your decision. This is a common mistake made by all players and never ends well.

Often times we will be in a spot where we would like to raise and try to steal the blinds or have a hand that is weaker than normal but worth an open in certain situations. For example if you are the button and the big blind has a stack size that a standard raise will only leave them with little chips, its best to fold all junk hands and not even attempt a steal. Nine times out of ten they will call regardless of what they have or raise you all in and be forced to call a bet you really didn't want to. 

Todays Poker Tip

Isolate the fish: Most of our winnings will be coming from the less experienced players at the table. There are a few ways to help maximize our winnings by targeting the weak or fishy players. If you're not sure who the fish is, you can start by watching to see who limps in pots a lot and who is playing passively. Bad players usually don't play very aggressive and are often huge calling stations pre-flop.

Now that you've spotted the fish it's time to set the hook. When you have position on a bad player who limps before you, try raising and isolate them to get the pot heads up. Cards often don't matter, but ideally you'd like to have at least a high card that can make a big pair. Once the flop comes just fire a continuation bet regardless of what your hand strength is. More often than not they will just give up and you take a nice little pot with relative ease.

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Daily Poker Tip

Play short sessions: The human brain can only focus for so long. Different people will have different thresholds but for the most part, brain function begins to deteriorate after about an hour of straight work. If your decision making becomes obscured you will start to leak away valuable chips.

If you use some form of tracking software you will be able to find when you start to bottom out. Usually your graph will start going down after a certain amount of time. Use this information to set a time limit on your future sessions. Once you reach your limit, get up and take a little break. Go for a walk, do some push-ups, whatever. Just make sure you give your brain a rest so it can regain its focus. Little tricks like this can go a long way to keeping your bankroll intact.

New content

Ive been busy working on projects for this blog and am pleased ot announce that some cool stuff will be coming up. This site will now be called poker report card and our focus is going to be bringing the best reviews of everything poker, and ocassional off the wall stuff.

This will all be brought in a truly unique way. Keep following to see the new and exciting features to be revealed any day.

Poker Stars buying Full Tilt????

News that is about to rock the poker world has struck today. The once defunct poker site Full Tilt is being bought by.............. Wait for it......................

 Thats right folks, Poker Stars is in talks with the DOJ to purchase and operate Full Tilt Poker. The deal comes after GBT, the French investment firm has backed out of the deal, citing no agreement could be made in regards to lost player funds. Here is the official statement from GBT:

 Groupe Bernard Tapie regrets to announce that, after seven months of intensive work, our efforts to obtain final approval of the United States Department of Justice of the agreement to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success.

Ultimately, the deal failed due to two major issues. 

 The parties could not agree on a plan for repayment of ROW players. 

GBT proposed a plan that would have resulted in immediate reinstatement of all ROW player balances, with a right to withdraw those funds over time, based on the size of the player balance and the extent of the player’s playing activity on the re-launched site. All players would have been permitted complete withdrawal of their balances, regardless of whether they played on the site, by a date certain, and 94.9% of ROW players would have been fully repaid on day 1. DOJ ultimately insisted on full repayment with right of withdrawal within 90 days for all players– a surprise demand made in the 11th hour, after months of good-faith negotiations by GBT. 

 The legal complications surrounding the deal – specifically, questions surrounding the legality of the forfeiture under non-US laws – also proved unresolvable. 

All of the key assets of the FTP companies reside outside of the United States. A non-US court well might regard the purported forfeiture as a “fraudulent transaction” and declare it invalid or deem the acquirer of the assets responsible for all of those creditor obligations. 

Given the $80 million purchase price, and the substantial amount of cash needed to relaunch FTP, those issues ultimately proved too substantial to overcome. 

GBT is very conscious of the hopes it has created – among FTP employees that they will retain their jobs, among FTP players that they will recover their balances, and among the entire poker community that the world’s finest poker platform will be relaunched and bring a needed added element of competition to a world market that today is fully dominated by a single operator. 

GBT cannot accept the end of those hopes. 

For that reason, unless a concrete and legally viable solution is found in the very coming days to save the employees and repay the players of FTP, we will move to our own plan of action. 

We understand from press reports that the DOJ may have entered into an agreement with PokerStars pursuant to which PokerStars will acquire the FTP assets.
If accurate, we can only assume that PokerStars determined that it was willing to accept these legal and financial risks in order to resolve its own legal situation with DOJ.

If a PokerStars acquisition of FTP means that all FTP players will be fully repaid immediately, we are very happy for the players, as their final and full repayment has always been our priority. 

We only regret that such a deal would signal further consolidation of a poker market already dominated by a single player – an outcome that may raise antitrust concerns and that, in the long run, is probably not good for players and for the whole online poker industry.”

This is all very exciting news for everyone. Rumors are abound that once re-opened, American players will not only get their funds back but will allowed to play on the site. Full tilt had in my opinion the best software around and to have the option of playing there would be enormous. The crap sites we are left to play on are growing old and its tilting to just load the client up.


Poker Stars Eric Hollreiser, Head of corporate Communications has released statement neither confirming nor denying the rumors. Although the statement is more of a confirmation no specific details are given.

We’ve had a lot of enquiries and there’s lots of speculation on the forums, so I wanted to address the PokerStars chatter. As you know, PokerStars is in settlement discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. As such settlement discussions are always confidential, we are unable to comment on rumors. As soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so.

Follow my exclusive coverage over at www.plentypoker.com. 

New Poker Music

I tend to listen to music while i play and my current paylist is getting stale. Ive always listened to pretty much anything. My library consists of Rage against the Machine all the way to Luciano Pavoratti.

I dont listen to radio often and when I do its the public radio station called 89.7. Its an indie station I guess you could say and they hardly play any mainstream music unless its really good shit. My point is I dont have the exposure to new music that others may have. Since I dont care much for new music and like to pick stuff out on my own I dont mind this at all really. I feel those who follow and listen to only stuff they hear on the radio are close minded and I feel sorry that they dont get to experience newer things. They probably eat the same thing every day. Wear the same clothes they see on Jersey shore and follow what everyone else does.

So anyway my new music has been more laid back lately. Ive been listening to alot of Coldplay and Raggea. Weird mix I know but it works for me lately. Older Coldplay music is pretty good and its well written stuff that doesnt sound too poppy. The new stuff is just crap and is obviously made to sell on the radio.

New layout with pussy pictures

To celebrate the new look here are some pussy pics. Who doesnt love a good pussy.

New Poker Venture.

Ive been looking for other ways to start making income from poker recently. As the state of american poker grow dimmer and dimmer, my frustration grows. I cant stand playing on these sites much longer. Its tilting to even load the software because I know what I have to be playing on. the constant glitches, no auto reload among others.

I started writing for a sites as of late. Mainly room reviews and re writes of poker news. I had no idea where the articles were going, and recieved no credit for them. I did get paid, meagerly I might add, but no recognition. I needed to start somewhere and build up a resume and/or reputation. After about 5 or so gigs, my name has become known at this site i get jobs from and people have started to contact me about writing for their sites.

Photo credit s8an

I finally chose one the other day and published my first article for them on the 1st. Its a new site and just launched, but i like the layout and the direction they want to go. Most importantly I actually get credit for the articles. this will help to establish my name in the writing field. Having your picture with a bio at the end of an article can really do wonders for ones career, not to mention ego.

Ill admit, I was a little gitty when i first saw it on site and open to the world for the first time. I take my writing seriously, and although Ive had little formal training aside form a few classes in college, I feel my work is solid.
I treat my articles as if they were kids, sometimes better. My articles get more attention some times, and for this I feel bad, but make up for it in the way of watching endless marathons of Dora on nick Jr.And the fact that I know almost every song to The Fresh Beat Band is my penance.

Although my ramblings on here are not top notch, I wanted to share to my readers some of my better pieces. Its sort of like a mechanic. Most mechanics drive pieces of shit. They spend all day working on cars that they dont want to fix their own.When I write here, its not to say I dont care, but im not overly concerned with spelling and puncuation. There are little red squiggly lines all over the page as we speak pointing out to me my flaws.

Here is the site and you can check it out if youd like. www.plentypoker.com

 Please feel free to leave any feedback as I am trying grow as a writer and welcome any criticsm, good or bad. also, if there is a topic of interest you wish to read about or larn, let me know. Ill do my best to get it up and posted.

Fun With Scammers

I know this may be a bit off topic for this blog, but I thought this was sort of funny and wanted to share it with you.

I have about 4 different e mail accounts and Yahoo is one of them. I use this for work since its the worse email provider of all them and I only check it twice a week or so.

Usually when i log in theres about 3 different people wishing to add em as a contact on messenger. I usually pay this no mind and just close the list and move on to checking my mail.

Well, every once I will get bored and decide to mess with one of them. I try to pick the best sounding one and wing it from there. I already know what they are going to be trying to get me to do. Its almost always a porn site or adult cam site looking for you to go and have a private session or buy some of their pics. I may be old school, but i dont pay for porn!!!!!!!

So I pick Melodie perlow. Sounds cute enough. I pretend to be dumb at first and just wait to see what he or she or whatever is on the other end of this conversation has to offer. This is what ensues ........

melodieperlow516 is Available
melodieperlow516 : Hello ??
Me: hi
melodieperlow516 : heeey  how are u doing?
Me: great u
melodieperlow516 : umm have we chatted before? cause ur on my buddy list..
Me: u added me, so u tell me
im guessing you want me to visit a site wiht your naked pics?
melodieperlow516 : oh lol im sorry im kinda forgtful at times.. anyways, what r u up to?
Me: not much, just waiting for the inevitable. visit this site to see my pics
melodieperlow516 : http://goo.gl/kXpCS
Me: lol
you people need to eb a little more creative
melodieperlow516 : sooo are you busy?? wanna have some fun with me?  lol..
Me: i guess theres still enough idiots out there that this works but whatever
melodieperlow516 : lol.. mmmm yess!!  im turning my cam on if you wanna cam for a bit  i mean if you want to?
melodieperlow516 is Offline
melodieperlow516 will receive your Chat message after signing in.
Me: ve
melodieperlow516 is Available
Me: i need more incentive
allright, well gl with your scams today
melodieperlow516 : i registered here to have secure cam sessions.. just accept my invite babe, k?
Me: sure thing
are u completely oblivious or something
melodieperlow516 : dont worry babe it doesnt cost anything.. all u have to do is register thru my invite k?
Me: lol, whats next on the script
babe
melodieperlow516 : you'd better gimme some "gold" when ur on the site lol..its kinda like a flirt and I'd love some from you ..k?
Me: u betcha, im gonna give u all the gold baby
melodieperlow516 : wanna go private with me  ??
Me: absolutely
melodieperlow516 : k u in?
Me: thats what she said
if you were a good salesman youd realize this was the part where you just move on to the next sucker

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Hand History Review

Ive decided to start to doing a " hand of the day". Its exactly what it sounds like. Ill be picking an interesting hand that I feel is worthy of some good discussion. I encourage people to respond and let me know their thoughts on the hand as well. Also, if you have a specific scenario or hand you would like to go over, just post it in the comments and Ill post it and analyze.

This first hand is one i played the other day on True Poker
The game is 25 nl 6 max cash. Villian is a super aggro loose fish, 3 betting a lot and bluffing pots.

Preflop

Flop

Im dealt AKo in the BB. JMG (villian) opens for 3x to .75. We get 2 flats as is usually the case at 25nl and were left to act. I choose to raise pretty large in this spot for 3 reasons. First is that I dont want everyone calling. AK oop is tough to play against 3 other opponents. So by raising large Im forcing the other players to fold weak hands. Yes we want weaker hands in against us but not 3.

Second reason is, I know the villian will call a large raise with any random cards possibly even 4 bet since my large raise looks like a squeeze. And I have been 4 bet by this guy before so the dynamic is there.

The third reason is that i am out of position and I want to set up a pot that is large so that when i do hit I can easily get stacks in.

The inevetible 4 bet

 

So our plan works and villian does 4 bet small. I have 2 choices, shove or call. Folding is not an option. I elect to call because villians range is so heavily weighted towards air in this spot. I dont rememer stats exactly, but I know his 3 bet 4 bet etc stats were very high.
I could 5 bet real small and just shove any flop but thats a little too fancy here imo.

So I flat his 4 bet and look to hit a flop. I should not that I am prepared to go with A high in this spot as I stated villian is aggressive and loose. Not good aggressive but monkey aggressive. Spewtard aggressive, fishy. I think you get the point.

The flop

With SPR (stack to pot ratio) already low, we need to be ready to get it in. Except in this special case. When villian bets large a standard play is to just get it in with such a small stack left behind. In this case we know our opponent is betting air a huge portion of the time and when we shove hes just folding. We have TPTK and as far as im concerned is the nuts in this spot. Im never folding regardless of what comes on the turn or river.

I elect to just flat and let him spew again on the turn. Again, regardless of what comes I am calling any bet and NEVER folding. This type of player does not realize I am never folding and will continue to bet a good portion of the time.

The turn

Again our goal is achieved and villian shoves. We obviously call and look to sweat the river.

The results

We can see we get unlucky and our opponent spikes the 3 outer on the river. But as poker players we cant be results oriented. We made all right plays and over the long run this will net us a huge profit. Against most opponents we would play this hand alot different. I picked this hand because we need to recognize who our opponent is and act accordingly. Most of us get stuck in robot mode and play every hand the same way regardless of who we are playing against. Sure you may win some of the time, but in the ever changing game of poker where the games are getting tougher all the time. We need to maximize our winnings on every hand.

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Think Outside the Box

Ive started playing chess alot recently as seen by my link to challenge me at chess. Ive always loved the game but was never that good at it. I understood where the little knight and castle move etc, (I actually know there names) but never understood even basic strategy.

So I started playing at a little site online for free and grew to enjoy it. I also noticed that some professional poker players either played chess for fun and were quite good or actually used to hustle the game for cash. Imagine if "Color of Money" was based on a chess hustler rather a pool shark.Picture Tom Cruise and Paul Newman playing a mean spirited game of rooks and pawns in the park of New York. Actually might not be a bad plot.

My point is that I began to notice a similarity between poker and chess. Both involve out thinking your opponent. And perhaps more importantly thinking a few steps ahead. When playing a poker hand, we generally like to have  a plan on how we play every street. As with both games circumstances can changed based on many factors. This makes us change our plan and react accordingly.

I feel that playing chess has helped in my decision making process. I normally dont play a full match. what I mean is that the games are timed and i almost always play with a 5 minute time limit. I do this to practice my quick decision making. with only 5 minutes to complete a whole game, we need to formulate a strategy and then adapt very quickly to how our opponents react to our moves. Sometimes i will go cracked out and play 1 or 2 minute games but I feel this is just pointless as each player is usually only playing to not time out.

We can see that both games are very similar as far as the mental side goes. Even the game actions themselves are quite the same. When trying to improve our own game we often just go over our losing hands for the day and see what we did wrong. Sometimes we look at our stats in HEM, but even this isnt enough. We constantly need to adapt and react. On the felt and off. Look for other ways to improve and think outside the box.

Poker Tracker Review

Poker Tracker Review

If you play online poker you need to be using software. Most regular players are using some form of tracking software that gives them an advantage of players who don't. If you are one of those who don't use it, then you are at the disadvantage.

What is tracking software?

Tracking software is a program that runs with a poker site. It imports all hand histories you play and stores them in a separate database. It will then take all these hand histories and analyze .......

For the full review please read here