Live Poker Blog and Podcasts

By Darren Power

I’m not sure if Poker Scalping is a recognised term for what I’m about to explain, but for me it sums up a strategy used by a lot of professional gamblers.

That strategy in a nutshell is that of preying on new and vulnerable poker players in order to win consistent hourly wages from playing poker.

Every day thousands of bad poker plays go online at the nets largest poker site and play badly and lose their money. That money is won not just by good poker players but also by poker players who play systematically. That is they play tight they know their odds and they play business like.

These professional players are winning and winning big with some making regular six figure salaries year in and year out.

There is an unlimited supply of bad players to win from and more are added daily. All you have to do is to have a strategy and some tools.

Now maybe “preying on new players” is strong language, but what you have to keep in mind is that these players will lose to somebody and that while they are losing they are getting an education. And to be honest if you dive in to a financial transaction without any real knowledge of what you’re doing, other than what you have seen on TV then you have to expect to pay for your education.

There are an unlimited number of players and more come online everyday and the added bonus is that nobody cares if you are winning. No casino heavy looking over your shoulder, no bookmaker cutting your bets. The casino takes a rake from everything you win and all they care about is that you play, they want you playing at their tables.

So how do you get some of this action. Well you need to make sure that you aren’t one of the TV poker suckers. You need an education.

Your first step to earning regular poker income is to join a poker room and spend a little time familiarising yourself with the set up, get familiar with the software, watch some games and play some free games.

Your next step is to formulate a simple set of rules that you will play by. You can do this by buying the best poker strategy books over at Amazon. Or you can do it the way we did. And that’s by learning from the professionals that already win regularly.

There are a number of guides available online that will teach you how to play to win and if you visit our resource page we will tell you which ones are worth their weight in gold.

If you get started today there is absolutely no reason why you couldn’t be making an extra thousand or two next month and before you know it you will be a six figure winner. Remember you don’t need to be lucky when you have a plan.

Darren Power is the webmaster of Betting-School.com a site dedicated to winning bets on all sports.

By Oddvar Pettersen

To be successful at poker you should, at any time during the play of a hand, be able to calculate the odds of catching your hand to the odds the pot is giving you.

Knowing the probability of making a specific hand in poker can be done by calculating hand odds. Figuring out how many outs you have will give you the possibility of calculating the number of times you will hit your hand by the river.

Lets say your’e dealt A-9 of hearts in Texas Hold’em and the flop comes up showing two hearts. Your hand odds for hitting another heart by the river will be approximately 36% or 3 to 1. (you will hit your hand 1 out of 3 times)

You can figure this out by first finding the number of outs that you have. Outs are the number of cards remainig in the deck ( not visibe to you) that can help you make your hand.

So if we are using the hand above as an example and you hold A-9 of hearts and catch two hearts on the flop, than you have 9 more hearts in the deck that can help you complete your flush. 2 hearts in your hand + 2 hearts on the table minus 13 hearts in total = 9 outs.

If you multiply your number of outs by 4, than you will get an approximate percentage of hitting your hand by the river (9×4=36%).

Poker pot odds is the a ratio between the size of the pot compared to how much it will cost you to call a bet from another player. The higher the ratio between the size of the pot and the cost of calling a bet, the better your poker pot odds are.

If there are $40 in the pot after the flop and a player bets $10 and two other players calls his bet then you are getting 7 to 1 in pot odds. If you are chasing the A-9 flush draw from the flop , than you are getting 36% or 3 to 1 in hand odds to catch your card at the river, so calling or even raising this bet will be a correct decision to make.

Oddvar Pettersen writes for True Poker Guide, established as a website to provide information on rules and strategies for all poker games played at home, online and in casinos.

By John Harding

The World Series of Poker has sprouted many followers in the last couple of years. Amateur tables are popping up all over the world and friendly cash games are everywhere come Friday night. Whether it is for thrill or profit the so called sport of poker has the attention of many onlookers year round. While Amateurs know the basics of the game they usually get lost in all the poker lingo spoken at the casino poker tables. While some is lingo is made up by experienced players to throw off the amateurs, some are actually well known terms in the poker world that any amateur trying to make it big should know. Below is a guide to all the poker lingo you could ever want to impress your friends or intimidate an experienced opponent.

Ante: The initial money thrown into the pot to induce betting. This is done before the flop.

All In: When a person decides to put all his chips in to bet on a certain hand. No Limit Hold ‘Em is the most popular game and All Ins are allowed as many times as a player wants. In Limit Hold ‘Em you cannot bet more then the pot itself.

Backdoor: Backdoor is a reference to when players are chasing a card that has not come up yet but has a good chance to. Having 4 cards of the same kind is a backdoor flush draw, having four cards in a row is a backdoor straight draw.

Bad Beat: A Bad Beat occurs when a player has a large advantage over the other and the last card beats the big hand by luck. Bad beat is usually used to imply that the player with the weak hand should not have been in the hand at all and it was by mere luck that he won his underdog hand.

Blind: In Texas Hold ‘Em, the game uses blinds instead of antes. The blinds are forced bets to induce some money in the pot by the two people sitting to the left of the dealer. The first person to the left of the dealer is the “small blind” and bets a smaller amount. The second person to the left of the dealer is the “big blind” and bets twice what the small blind has.

Bottom Pair: The lowest pair out of the cards out on the table.

Check: When a player decides to not bet he calls “Check”. This is the option of betting zero dollars.

Check Raise: When a player checks with a strong hand hoping another opponent will raise. The player then re-raises with his strong hand thus getting more money out of his opponent in the pot.

Drawing Dead: When a player is trying to make a hand that will still not win the pot.

Flop: The first three cards that are “flopped” onto the table. These are also called community cards.

Heads Up Play: When there are only two players playing a certain hand they are considered “heads up”.

Muck: A pile of unused cards usually in front of the dealer. These come from folded or burned cards. To “muck your cards” is to fold them by throwing them into the muck pile.

The Nuts: Likely the favorite expression of any poker player. The Nuts indicates a hand that is mathematically unbeatable with the cards on the table.

Offsuit: When the two cards you are dealt are of different suits.

Pocket: The two cards dealt to you in Texas Hold ‘Em that only you can see.

Rake: The total amount of money that the casino’s dealer takes out of every pot.

The River: The last card to be flopped on the board. The 5th card to come out in a Texas Hold ‘Em game.

Short Stack: The short stack is referring to the player with the least amount of chips at the table.

Tell: A tell refers to a players action when he or she has a good or bad hand. Some players take off their sun glasses when they have a bad hand. Other players tend to itch their right hand when they have a good hand.

The Turn: The fourth card to be flopped onto the table in a Texas Hold ‘Em game.

These are the necessary terms in order to keep up with the pros. There are hundreds of other terms in the world of poker, yet they are much less needed or too experienced for the amateur. Learn this lingo and impress your friends or play at experienced tables and wow the crowd. Lastly, poker is a great game, but the greatest player in poker knows one this: When to know you’re beat. Everyone likes to hold ‘em, but sometimes you get that feeling and you just have to fold’em.

John Harding is a respected poker author and has more articles at Poker-Prophet.com