Casino Poker Bonus Blog

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College Poker Championship offers college students an alternative to playing for
serious money online.

What can be won through this site? For starters,
scholarships and the ability to be recognized as the "Worlds Best College Poker
Player 2006."

The site hosts free tournaments to interested college
students and the students have the opportunity to win as much at $135,000 in
scholarship awards.

The process to win is a long one but it is also a
free way to learn and potentially become one of the worlds best.

Poker is
a great challenge," said distance learning systems administrator for the Center
for Teaching and Learning and founder of the Wings group for Texas Hold ‘em
Charles Platt.

"It is a great skill and it is not gambling. Most people
do not have the strength to sit and wait for cards," said Platt who has been
playing poker for about four years.

Platt said he learned the ins and
outs of the game through an online poker site called Poker School.

He
said this website is a wonderful way to learn with the possibility of winning
real money. "It is better than the poker at yahoo.com," he said.

People
who usually play house games may be slightly frightened by the thought of
Internet play. Platt offered some tips for students playing
online.

"There are tells online," he said "but they are harder to
spot."
A tell is a habit or mannerism that gives away strength or weakness in
a poker hand.

He said online tells include things like: How long do they
take to act? How much are they betting? Did they bet the same a little while ago
in a similar situation? Is their computer set to automatically fold while they
are away from their computer?

"It is a different animal than home games,"
Platt said.

Wright State students offered their own insight for playing
online. "It is hard to bluff online. You don’t get to look at faces and
actions," said political science and African-American politics major Mike
Ruffin.

"Playing online gives you the probability of having the winning
hand which you can use in a similar situation in a home game," said marketing
junior Capri Pointer.

Poker sites are making big dollars and college
students are getting hooked into poker.

Platt said that the biggest tip
he could offer was to tell students to keep a ledger of all money won or lost.
After a few months, he said look at the ledger and find out where the money is
being won and lost, and adjust based on that.

All that is needed to play
poker is an Internet connection or some chips, some beers and a few friends for
a home game. "It is cheaper than going to a bar all night or dinner and a
movie," Platt said.

Source : Guardian

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It seems its not just about playing poker – alongside the game is an
unwritten law of poker etiquette that players should abide by. Its a long list,
bound by years of tradition so here’s a few

For example – Code of poker conduct number one – especially at low limit
tables – is never show your cards to another player who’s not in the hand

I once sat across from a player while holding pocket queens and saw
my opponent lift his cards up to his eyeballs just to show the other half of the
table what he had during the betting rounds.

He hit quad nines on the flop (a nearly unbeatable hand), so he was just
showing off. I went on to pay him off with my overpair to what felt like an
innocent board of two nines and a seven.

Next rule – which even has its own cliche is that of "show one, show all" –
in other words, don’t just show the player next to you your hand – at this
point, the dealer will usually turn the cards over so everyone can see them

Third: Never act out of turn – however excited or depressed you are with your
hand. Here’s why:

It gives your intentions to the skipped player (information the rest
of the table didn’t have access to), while also rudely squashing his or her
ability to make a clean play.

An out-of-turn fold also hurts the rest of the table since it gives a skipped
player the opportunity to add value to a marginal hand if table position becomes
a factor.

The nice thing about all this though is that if you’re new to the table,
you’ll learn quick – and if in doubt, just ask the dealer

Article: Manners count —
even in poker

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A University of Waterloo student has won more than $1.3-million (U.S.) after a
week of playing poker in paradise.

After a seemingly endless chain of
tense moments, Steve Paul-Ambrose, 22, emerged in first place Tuesday from a
pool of more than 700 players in the Third Annual PokerStars Caribbean Adventure
at the Atlantis Casino Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

The
third-year business and science student won $1,363,100 and captured a $25,000
seat in the World Poker Tour’s championship tournament, which will be played in
Las Vegas in April.

His brother, George Ambrose, spent all day getting
updates of the matches online.

“It was colossal,” Mr. Ambrose, 26, said
in a phone interview from Kingston, Ont., Steve’s hometown. “I’m just totally
excited and blown away.”

The tournament was organized by PokerStars, an
online poker site. Spokesman Scott Womer said the admission was $8,000 and “it’s
one of the biggest tournaments out there people can participate in.”

But
Mr. Paul-Ambrose only paid $102.

The Kingston native got in by winning a
series of online competitions through the website.

“It’s ridiculous,” Mr.
Ambrose said. “This is the last thing he ever would have expected. He has very
little experience.”

Mr. Ambrose said his brother has only been playing
online for about two years and has rarely faced opponents at a
table.

“Over Christmas, he was playing penny-poker with his uncles and
was telling me after that he was practising at getting a read on people,” Mr.
Ambrose said.

“Steve is a fairly quiet guy and he’s a really good thinker
and problem solver. That’s what this game is about.”

The tournament was
based on a popular version of poker called Texas Hold’em, in which players get
two cards they must use with five others dealt on the table to come up with the
best hand.

Source : Online Casino News

If someone describes your playing style as weak, you’re in lots of trouble. You’d better make changes to your game quickly to shed that reputation.

If you want to win at the poker table, focus on the weak players. Rather than duke it out with strong, aggressive players, you’ll risk less and win more, in the long run, playing against timid, passive players.

In order to pound on the shaky players properly, the first thing you’ll need to do is identify them. There are generally a few clues that you can look for, that, while not always accurate, could be signs nonetheless.

•1) How he or she dresses. A player who dresses extremely conservatively will generally play poker that way. If they dress loudly, they’ll more than likely play aggressively or flamboyantly.

• 2) How they talk. This is in line with the previous clue. If a player is quiet or timid in the way they speak, chances are that’s how they’ll play poker. Conversely, if you’re dealing with a boisterous or overexcited talker, he’ll probably be an aggressive player.

• 3) Does he raise before the flop or just call? If he likes to limp in on a regular basis, you might be dealing with a weak player.

• 4) Do they like to bet, or check and call?

An aggressive player is a bettor, while a weaker player tends to check or just call others’ bets.

Once you’ve identified the weak players at your table, it’s time to strategize against them. Playing against a weak player is without a doubt, the easiest type of opponent to face. In fact, your cards often don’t even matter since your inferior foe plays so predictably.

The key principle to think about is to basically pound him like an anvil! Do it repeatedly ­ like the school bully who steals his target’s lunch money ­ until he starts to stick up for himself. If he keeps giving it up, you keep taking it. Hey, no one said poker was supposed to be fair.

When you have position on an ineffective player, it makes it that much easier. What you really want to look for are opportunities to get the weak opponent heads up. How do you do that? Well, when the helpless one limps into a pot you try to isolate him with a decent-sized raise. That will often knock everyone out but the timid player. Now you’ve got him where you want him. If the player is extremely weak, it doesn’t even matter if you have a 2-7 in your hand.

You really aren’t playing your hand anyway, you’re playing the player.

If you are able to get the weak player heads up, with position, you’ll let his actions, or lack of them, dictate what you should do. If he bets the flop, you can be pretty sure he has a good hand. If you don’t flop a very good hand, now would be an excellent time to fold. You might be playing the player, but you can’t ignore his bet entirely.

If he checks the flop, then you should bet, regardless of what you have. If, however, your inept opponent check-raises you, run and hide! Unless, of course, you flop a strong hand yourself. The only time you may want to check is if you flop the nuts and want to give him a free card. Otherwise, you should always bet the flop and look to win the pot right there.

The tricky decision comes when the weak player decides to just call, which he will often do. At that point you have to make a game-time decision as to whether your opponent flopped a drawing hand or a made hand.

Since your opponent is weak, he won’t give you much information about his hand by the way he plays it. Generally, an inadequate player will check and call with either a made hand (like top pair) or a flush draw.

As a rule, proceed cautiously if a weak player calls you on the flop. If you have a good hand, by all means, bet. But if you are bluffing, lean toward checking on the turn card since the weak player has shown some interest.

There is an old adage in poker that I think sums up that last point: "If you bluff a bad player you then become one."

Stay aggressive against weak players, but don’t get caught running without the ball when they show interest in the flop.
By Daniel Negreanu