Basics to Help You After You Download Video Poker
Tips on How to Play Video Poker
Video poker has become a very popular online casino game. One reason poker players like it is because it plays fast, much faster than a hand at the poker table. Another thing that people like is the fact that this is a casino game that involves quite a bit of strategy. It’s easy to download video poker and get started. Here are some tips for those who play video poker.
How to Play Video Poker
A hand of video poker plays a lot like a hand of five-card draw. First you make your bet. Most video poker games give you a choice of betting from one to five credits. The thing to remember is the more you wager, the more you can win.
Make your bet and then push the button. You’ll be dealt five cards. Unlike five-card draw, you may discard up to five cards. (The maximum for five-card draw is usually three.) Once you’ve chosen the cards you’ll get rid of, you press the button again. New cards will replace the ones you’ve jettisoned. Your cards are then automatically compared to the payout chart. If you’ve won, you receive the appropriate amount of credits, and if you lose, your wager goes to the casino. Then it’s time for a new hand.
The higher the odds are against your making a specific hand and the more you bet, the higher your payout will be. Usually the minimum to win is 10s or better or Jacks or better. Thus, you need a high pair to see some cash when you play video poker.
Strategy
Whether you play this game at a casino or you download video poker and play it in your home, the strategy stays the same. Here are some basic strategy tips that will help to make you a winner.
- Make sure you understand the payout charts. They illustrate your goals.
- Learn how likely it is for you achieve each hand.
- The most profitable machines offer higher payouts for specific hands such as four Aces. (With some machines four twos pay the same as four Aces.
- Play video poker machines that offer progressive payouts. These are the ones that can give you a huge payout on one hand.
- Play at your own pace using poker knowledge. Do not play emotionally.
- Your bankroll needs to be large enough to get you through a losing streak.
- Divide your roll into units with each unit being equal to one credit. You want to have a minimum of 100 hands in your bank. This will allow you to play through the bad times.
- Control the rhythm of your play by taking breaks.
- Know when to quit—set a limit for loses and walk away when you’re ahead.
Does Jacks or Better Play Differently than Deuces Wild?
The four most popular video poker games are Jacks or Better, Tens or Better, Bonus Poker and Deuces Wild. Two other download video poker games, Double Bonus Poker and Double Double Bonus Poker, are also played a lot. Each game has its own set of rules, payout amounts and payout combinations. The one thing all of these games have in common is that they are “full pay” games, which means they offer payout percentages between 99% and 100%. These video poker machines are the best to play.
Download Video Poker and Play
Once you know the rules, have studied and learned poker strategy and completed your download, it’s time to play video poker. Remember that although the game is a lot like poker, there are many differences. In video poker, there’s no bluffing, raising or kickers. Video poker is a fun game to play and it offers fine payouts. Have fun and good luck!
Don’t Tap the Glass
If the fish are sleeping, why would you want to wake them up? So many times I have seen a player lose to an absolutely ragged hand, that had not business being in the pot, while holding a premium hand that hit the flop hard. You have all seen similar situations and had it happen to you. You have AK suited with diamonds. The flop comes with two spades and a king of diamonds. There is not straight potential and you not only have top pair and top kicker but you have the nut flush draw. Oh and did I forget to say that you were in position and that the weak player, that is about to beat you with a hand that should have gone immediately into the muck, is under the gun? Well you bet out on every street and this terrible player calls you down to the river. And his 7 2 of diamonds hit runner runner diamonds to make a flush and beat your hand.
What do you do when this happens to you? So many times I see players begin to criticize the other player for playing badly and every time that I see that I wonder to myself, why in the world would he be doing that? Don’t you want him to continue to do that? Do you want to embarrass him so that he will leave the game or even worse, change the way that he plays? Listen, I can understand being upset. I usually take this situation as a good time to get up and take a little walk. But that is just me. Sometimes all I hear the losing player say to the bad player, in that situation, is “Nice Hand”. The problem is that this is meant and taken sarcastically so it is almost as bad as out and out ridicule.
Since I am assuming that you are a good poker player, then you know that the mathematics of the game is the holy grail, and that over time, the person that plays those weak hands and makes those calls on such a long draw, will lose. You know that because that is why you don’t do it. So, I ask you, why would you want to stop a player from playing badly? If your ridicule chases the player away or changes his play, then what you have done is stopped the mathematical progression right after you lost against the long odds and now that you have either chased the player away or changed his play, you will not be able to get your money back with a profit, over time, as the mathematics of the game says that you would.
So, my point here is, never ridicule another player, If they are playing badly, let them continue to do so happily. Hopefully they will remember this hand and keep drawing from behind because, after all, isn’t that what you really want to happen?
This article was provided by playingpokerlive.com, be sure to check out their excellent article on string bets here.
3Betting in No Limit Holdem
Learn Why to 3bet and How to do it the Right Way
The 3bet is one of those makeshift moves that a good player in the mid-high stakes games of no limit holdem will make on a regular basis.
3betting literally means to make the 3rd bet in a round of poker. For example, in the pre-flop stage of texas holdem the blinds are considered the first bet (they are a forced bet), an open-raise is the 2nd bet and any opponent re-raising will be 3betting the pot.
We could take this even further and say that an additional re-raise made by an aggressive opponent will be a 4bet and any raise after that will be a 5bet. But, for the time being in the micro-stakes stakes games of $0.01/$0.02 up to $0.50/$1 you’re unlikely to see much 4betting or 5betting action going on. If you did than I’d be very surprised since most new players will just be flat-shoving by this point rather than making calculated raises worth only a percentage of their chip stack.
Why Do Regulars 3Bet in NLH?
The answer for 3betting is very simply: if you have the best hand pre-flop than you want to get as many chips in the pot as possible. If you have AA pre-flop, which is the best possible hand at this stage, than you’d obviously want to build the pot as big as possible or even stack off with opponents. Against most hands you’re already a 80+% favourite
The second main reason for 3betting pre-flop is that you need to eliminate limpers and LAGs from seeing the flop cheaply and hitting a monster. A lot of players in the micro-stakes up to mid-stakes games will be limping with hands such as 67s or 22 from MP or LP. Theses hands can be very dangerous for you because if they manage to clip a set or straight on the flop than it’s extremely hard to fold a strong pre-flop hand such as AK or AK. That’s why you need to dispense of these limping hands immediately and make it hard for them to see the pot. The main reason that marginal hands such as 67s are great for limping with is because the implied odds for trapping opponents on a random board like 4-8-5 are massive yet they can easily fold and get away from trouble if they miss. Thus, it’s your job to stop these sorts of hands from ruining your day and stealing your pot. I’ve seen way too many new players slow-playing hands such as AK in ring games only to lose a massive ton of chips on the flop because they thought that they were ahead.
In terms of how often you should 3bet (re-raise) your opponents pre-flop in NLH, it depends on your playing style and that of your opponents’. If you’re a loose-aggressive player (LAG) than you might be 3betting up to 10% of your hands – including a lot of bluffs and 3bet steals. Much more importantly however, your 3betting frequency should revolve around your opponent’s tendencies. For example, if your opponent folds 100% of the time to 3bets than you should be 3betting every single one of your hands. This is obviously just an extreme scenario to make a point however.
TAGs will have a much tighter game, and will probably only ever 3bet their top 3% of hands such as AJ+ and JJ+. Anything below these holdings than a new player will most of the time just flat-call a raise pre-flop and hope to hit the flop.
Betting Light
3Betting light is another term for betting with hands that a made for bluffing. When you are 3betting light, you are not 3betting for value but instead you are betting for bluffing. Your aim is either to make your opponents fold and steal the dead money pre-flop or to mix up your table image and balance your 3betting range. Balancing your 3betting range means that it makes it harder for your opponents to know if you are 3betting with a big hand or a bluffing hand – making it harder for them to call you.
This poker article was provided to us by the guys at InstantWinGames.org.
Poker Edge Software Review
Poker Edge is one of the latest, all-inclusive poker software packages and a must-have addition to your poker playing experience. Packed full of features, the software can analyse an opponents styles of play, record your personal heads up record with them and calculate your odds of beating them again! The database contains billions of games played to date – a figure which is increasing by almost ten million every day – including games you have played yourself even before you had the software.
Here are just a few of the features:-
The HUD (Heads Up Display) automatically recognises an opponent that you have played previously and overlays the most relevant statistics as your hand progresses through flop, turn and river.
The Detailed Player Report shows you a full analysis of any player before you sit down and play with him. It can be filtered customised for certain areas of the game, and shows hand replays in case you are not convinced by the stats alone.
Hand Notifications are an excellent bonus feature which advises you when there is an opportunity to steal blinds, when you have the unbeatable hand and when somebody is going all-in against you. This is particularly handy for players who multi-table.
The Odds Calculator feature is fully automated for each table you are playing (when multi-tabling), which means that you do not have to manually enter the data.
The Table Selection tool is one of the most advanced on the market, and useful for finding buddies that you enjoy playing with as well as identifying the tables and players that will make a positive effect on your bankroll.
Poker Edge is available for a trial period free of charge from www.poker-edge.com. Once you decide that you cannot live without it, you pay a monthly subscription depending on the amount of data you would like to access. Further details are available on the Poker Edge web site, but please note that not all websites will allow players to use this software at present, so please check with your poker room before committing to a subscription.
Is Online Poker Fair & Safe?
It’s a pretty common question and one which does need addressed from time to time, as with anything where money is involved there is always a risk of someones greed getting the better of their conscience. Online Poker involves very large amounts of money placed in poker accounts by hundreds of thousands of players from around the World, in the main it is safe!!
There have been scandals in the past and tales of cheating most notably an Ultimate Bet scandal a few Years back, many losing players are the first to claim cheating and that there is noway they should be getting beat on the river so often, what these players fail to realise is that online you play 3 or 4 times as many hands as you would live, you simply get to see more flops, more action and more bad beats in a short period of time.
Play Safe Online Poker
To make sure you are safe and put anyone’s mind at rest you should stick with the “big names” such as pokerstars, bodog or fulltilt for example. These sites have wayyy to much to lose and have the highest security measures in place, online poker is fast, fun and very safe but we all need to play where we know we will be treated as fairly as possible.
Enjoy your online poker!