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HISTORY OF PLAYING ONLINE POKER
2011-02-08
The games of poker played on the Internet are called as online poker. This has brought a drastic increase in the poker players in the whole world. It was stated that the revenue generated through playing online poker went from $82.7 million in 2007 to $2.4 billion in 2005. Playing poker in the usual brick and mortar casinos can be intimidating for the beginners plus many of the traditional casinos do not offer the game of poker, as it is tuff to get profits from it. The cost of running a casino room is also very high. The traditional casinos make more money by terminating poker rooms and adding more of slot machines.
It is advantageous for the casinos to let the people play online poker, as it is very cost effective. It does not take much space like in the normal casino to add another poker table in the online casinos. The online casinos also offer the clients an option to take low risks by betting less amount of money. It even provides the poker free roll tournaments, which are usually attractive for the beginners and less wealthy clients.
It can be often risky to play online poker as the online versions are mostly open to some kinds of frauds most significantly collusion between two players. But they have collusion detecting abilities that is not there in the traditional casinos. The online poker security team can look at the hand history of the cards played by any player and can easily make out where the colluding players can simply fold their ands without letting the people know about their strength of holding. The IP addresses of players are also checked by the security team on the site to prevent players of playing from the same household and from the same tables.
The first time when free online poker was played was in 1990s in the form of IRC poker. The first online poker card room was Planet poker that offered real money games. It was on January 1, 1998 when the first real money online poker game was played. The face of Planet poker was declared in October 1999 and it was author Mike Caro. The various online poker sites offer many features to attract the new players. One of them is the service of tournaments known as satellites, which gives the players the chance to enter real life poker tournaments. Chris Moneymaker got the entry to the 2003 world series of poker through one of such tournaments called as PokerStars. He brought a shock wave in the world of poker by winning the main event. The 2004 World Series got as many as three times the players that came in the year 2003. It also known that four players in the WSOP final table got their entry through an online card room. Greg Raymer like Chris Moneymaker won his entry at the PokerStars online card room.
To play online poker can be different from the traditional poker because of the difference in legal perspective. However many of the issues remain the same. Online poker is legal and is played in many nations in and around Caribbean Sea and most importantly United Kingdom. In the US, the North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill to legalize online poker in the nation in February 2005. The requirements of the legalization of poker were that the online poker operations must testify themselves in front of the state by physically locating their operations.
It is not at all difficult to play online poker as the software for its support is available on the Internet. Most of the online poker service providers give incentives to the players in the form of bonuses. These bonuses are given after a certain number of raked hands are played. Some of the card rooms even have VIP rewards for their regular players. So we see how online poker is as great as real poker.
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CASINO AND POKER ROOM LAUNCH FROM DOMGAME
2010-11-11
New casino and poker room targets players in central and eastern Europe
Domgame, operated by Entraction Operation Ltd, has launched an online casino and poker room that caters to Russian, Polish and soon Hungarian players.
The casino features games from Net Entertainment; hosts weekly blackjack, slots and roulette tournaments; and offers players a progressive jackpot pool while the poker room, part of the Entraction Network, hosts tournaments including online qualifiers for the European Masters of Poker.
GERMAN VICTORY IN ENGLISH POKER OPEN
2010-09-16
Quoss takes GBP220 650 home to Germany
The English Poker Open tournament concluded in victory for German player Fabian Quoss this week, rewarding him with a first prize of GBP220 650 and the George Trophy.
Quoss beat a total of 192 entrants in the NLHE event, which carried a stiff GBP3 750 buy-in and was played out at the Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair, London.
Quoss faced a final table that comprised Sebastian Crul, Mathew Frankland, Felipe Ramos, Andrew Brennan, Brent Lehring, Mark Norman, Salman Behbehani and Stephen Chimelski after three days of tough action to thin out the big entry field.
Big names that fell by the wayside included Phil Laak, Thorston Schafer and Liv Boeree
The game reached a climax when the composition of the heads up was decided by the elimination of third placed Mathew Frankland. The resulting confrontation between Quoss and Sebastian Crul was brief but exciting, with the German dominating the game to leave Crul with the runner up's prize of GBP129 000.
$3k HORSE - Ivey Wins It All
2010-07-06
The event number 37 at 2010 WSOP was the $3,000 buy-in HORSE. The event commenced on 19th June, 2010, and the total pool prize was about $1,319,280, and Ivey won the bracelet with handsome prize money of $329,840.
Now, let us take a closer look at the final players, the main hands placed, the prize money involved, and the event highlights.
The $3k HORSE started with 25 outstanding players involving several preceding bracelet winners, cutting down to sixteen players, and finally the heads-up game between Phil Ivey and Bill Chen.
Phil Ivey looked great in the heads-up game, full of confidence and control. He never took the game easy and he gave a hard fight to several tough opponents in the line-up.
Final players
The final players for the event were Phil Ivey and Bill Chen, and Phil Ivey bagged the event title, the admired WSOP bracelet, and good deal of cash. You don’t really expect the likes of Phil Ivey to win the event title against Bill Chen, who fought his way to the very end.
Ivey had got the momentum going from the beginning of the tournament, and he finally ended up winning the $3k HORSE title.
Ivey entered the heads-up with the fall up against the finest technical exemplars in the game of poker. He ran over his final opponent Bill Chen. Bill Chen certainly had not missed a betting value by picking pot after the pot.
Bill Chen's supporters cheered him to get his hands on the victory, but it was Phil Ivey's day, who won whopping prize money of $329,840 and the runner up Bill Chen had to go home with $203,802, and second place finish.
Main Cards
The betting went all the way through 5th street. Chen had a strong heads up in A-2-5-6-7 and Ivey had A-2-3-5-6 a superior hand compared to Chen. Bill Chen was bit unlucky and Phil Ivey finished the game in style hitting four in order to complete nuts on river.
Bill Chen had the early advantage over his 3rd and 4th opponent with the Aldridge on the J♥ T♦ 2♥ board and with good combination of J♠ 9♣ 8♥ 6♠ to end as top pair and open-ender. But, it was not enough to outsmart Phil Ivey who won the bracelet and the prize money of $329,840
Final Winner- Phil Ivey
After the dust settled, it was Phil Ivey who came out as the winner of the #37 event- $3k horse comfortably over his opponent Bill Chen. This is one of the master class performances by Phil Ivey.
Phil Ivey played the game consistently, all the way throughout the tournament. He went on to face great pins in order to understand the degree of the game. Phil Ivey won his eighth bracelet and one can expect a lot more from this promising poker star.
Ivey revealed that "I never doubt myself," and he collected the plaudits and the bracelet from an enthusiastic rail.
Summary
In a heated battle involving 5 different games of Omaha-8, holdem, stud, razz, and stud-8, that involved 478 players and a $1,319,280 prize pool, Phil came out triumphant at last, and the final hands were -
Chen: A-5-2-7-6-7-10
Ivey: 3-5-A-6-2-7-4
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Position and Style in Online Poker
2010-06-10
Position
Position, position, position, just like the saying about location, it is one of the most important parts of your game once you learn the basics. You want to play extra tight from early position and you can loosen up in late position. When you play a hand from early position, you are going to have to act first for the rest of the hand. This means your opponent will get to see your actions on every street before he has to choose his action. The information advantage he has over you is significant to say the least in online poker.
When you have the advantage of position, you get all the benefits. With position you can put extra pressure on your opponents, play your draws easier and take free cards at will. These advantages make it easier to play those weaker hands that I suggested you fold from early position.
Playing Tight-Aggressive
Playing tight-aggressive means being tight when selecting your starting hands but being aggressive with the hands you do play. Being aggressive means you make many bets and raises but not many calls.
Not all calls are bad, but the general idea is that if your hand is strong you should raise and if it’s not strong enough to raise, you should fold it. Mediocre hands that aren’t strong enough to raise are actually just unprofitable hands so they should be dumped.
Pot Odds
Pot odds are how we determine the profitability of a call in limit Hold'em. If the pot is $10 and an opponent bets $2, it will cost you $2 to potentially win $12. The pot odds are 12:2 or more simply 6:1.
The odds of every draw can be similarly expressed and then compared to the pot odds to determine the profitability of a call. For example, the odds of a flush draw turning into a made flush are 4:1.
If you had a flush draw in the above example, the pot odds of 6:1 are greater than the 4:1 flush draw so it is a good investment to call the bet.
If that opponent had instead bet $4 into that $10 pot, the pot odds would be 14:4, which reduces to 7:2 or 3.5:1. Since 3.5:1 is worse than 4:1, it’s a bad call. The money you win when the draw hits will not be enough to make up for all the money you spend chasing and missing and this is a major vice of online poker players.
In limit, you will often have sufficient pot odds to chase draws, so you want to know the odds of your draws. Some of the more common drawing odds are:
You Hold |
You Hope to Make |
Odds On Next card |
Flush Draw |
Flush |
4:1 |
Straight Draw |
Straight |
5:1 |
Two Pair |
Full House |
11:1 |
Inside Straight Draw |
Straight |
11:1 |
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