Poker Tournament Strategy Tips and Advice For Online Poker

In Texas Holdem, making good decisions is vital to getting deep in poker tournaments. This article covers the poker basics of when it is a good time to go all-in throughout the different stages of a poker tournament.

Understanding basic poker tournament strategy helps you arrive at executing correct tournament decisions.
Timing, in poker tournaments, is practically half the game. Possessing the mindset of when to make moves and when to fold is a crucial part of tourney success. That being said, let's examine scenarios where it is a good idea to go all in, and then some situations in a poker tournament where you should wait it out. Before we do that, the first poker tournament strategy you want to erase from your mind is the concept that when you are down to 10 big blinds (BB) or less, you need to shove with certain strong hands. This poker basics theory is a poor poker tournament strategy and essentially nothing more than an excuse players use to try to double up. Living on hope is not the way to win a poker tournament.

The 10 Big blind theory in poker has inherent strategic flaws, mostly because a majority of tournament poker players embrace the concept that if they get an opportunity to knock out a player they will take the chance. Therefore, you are essentially involving yourself in an unnecessary race with the hope of gathering much-needed chips. In other words, an all-in induces action! Therefore unless you have a really strong hand, than you should NOT go all-in regardless of how many big blinds you have left. Believe it or not, the real poker basics strategy is; 'it is better to blind out than to take an unnecessary shot in the dark.' (Remember, a chip and a chair is a real story!)

Now with 10 BB remaining, typically you have a minimum 30 hands left before you are blinded out. Therefore, with 10 BBs, you should never become anxious. The poker basics formula to calculate how many hands you have remaining before being blinded out at a 9 person table is typically three to three and one half times the number of big blinds remaining. So, if you have 30 BBs, you will be able to see about 100 hands before you blind out assuming you fold every hand. The hands remaining formula is a basic poker tournament lesson taught in my poker tournament strategies newsletter, (see link below).

Now that we have covered how many poker hands you have remaining, let's find out which hands in your tournament are critically a good time to go all in. In the case where you hold a top ten hand in late position, and there are more than two limpers, and you have 10 BB left, this is strategically, a good time to shove all in. The limpers likely will not call you preflop. On the other hand, if you are willing to take the risk and limp, you could get more value by waiting to see the flop. Especially if your opponents are loose, and tend to limp with warm hands. However, my strategy is to take down a limped pot preflop, as this will give you more chips to make a play later.

If you have a warm hand such as KQ suited or less, and you are in late position with no action before you, this is a good tournament strategy to shove and get rid of the button and blinds. You must remember that in addition to the number of hands you have remaining, your position is very important as well. In a poker tournament, players will tend to tighten up as they get deeper, and you can take advantage of this as a short stack, to get your chips in. However, you should only do it in position, with no players in the pot before you. This eliminates the possibility that some players like to limp in a tournament with monster hands, hoping to catch (or, trap) the shortstacks making a move.

Late stage tournament poker strategy; you want to play a tighter variety of hands and use position to make an all in move. In the middle stages of a tourney, when players are holding onto their stacks, your strategy should change. For example, limping with a monster hand to see a flop before you make a move. In the case where the flop is a really dry flop (no draws, no high cards, no connectors, etc.), there is never a need to go all in, make a strategic bet and you are likely to take down the pot uncontested. On the other hand, if you limp and the flop is a really draw heavy flop, you want to proceed cautiously before going all in. Maybe put out a big enough bet to see if someone is drawing. Usually, two-thirds to three-quarters bet is sufficient. If you get called and the draw does not come on the turn, exercise your poker strategy and consider this may be the time to go all in.

Typically, players are less likely to make an all in call on the turn, in middle and late stages of a tourney. Therefore, your strategy to get rid of drawing poker hands is best on the turn and not on the flop. In almost every case possible, it is rarely a good idea to get all your chips in the pot on the flop or even pre-flop. This again is a poor strategy and usually induces action by drawing hands that figure they have 2 cards to come and their odds are better to hit their draw.

Now for a look at early stage poker tournament strategy. There is almost never a reason you should have all your chips in the pot in the first 4 or 5 levels of any poker tournament. It is mathematically impossible to get blinded out in any poker tournament in the first 5 levels. In other words, you can not get blinded out, so why get all your chips in? The early stage of a poker tournament is best to slowly build up your stack with the intention of doubling your stack by the first break. However, the first 4 or 5 levels of any poker tournament is where most of the loose aggressive donkeys play! So, make it your strategy that unless you have the top 4 nuts on the flop, turn or river, you should avoid going all in.

We covered early stage poker tournament strategy, where you should build slowly and avoid the donkey play, middle stage strategy where you should target your plays for the flop or turn and late tournament stage strategy where you want to patiently wait for top hands to make your move. We also covered the false 10 BB theory and how to calculate your approximate poker hands remaining. The final word in this poker tournament strategy is that you want to reserve your all in for only when you have a lock on the pot! Do not get it all in weak or preflop, work your poker strategy on the flop, turn or river. After all, that is where the real power chip building is! Good luck and for more poker tournament strategy tips, make sure to sign up for my tournament newsletter sent free right to your email.

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The Poker Face – Reading and Being Read

Every poker player is quite familiar with the 'poker face' and the importance of it in the game. However, is reading your opponents poker face more important than the projection of your own poker face? The reading ability you acquire through years of playing poker and the aptitude to recognize different situations is only half the battle when it comes to playing an effective game of poker.

The other half is the projection of your Poker Face and how you can easily convince or manipulate your opponent into believing you. One of the best players with the greatest reading ability is undoubtedly Daniel Negreanu. I personally met Daniel at the WSOP in 2008 and was just amazed at his outgoing personality and his targeted reads at the poker table. A lot can be learned from Daniel and how he is able to project a convincing poker face to his opponents.

While many poker players will try to cover up their face with sunglasses, hoodies or hats, or even cover their face (ala Phil 'unabomber' Laak), many pro poker players have learned that revealing your poker face and using deceptive countermeasures are far more effective in misleading your opponents.

As a side note, Daniel Negreanu along with several other professional poker players have started a grass-roots movement to ban sunglasses and hats at major live poker tournaments.

Before you can work on your poker face, you need to learn more about the body language of the face and what tells are derived from it. Doyle Brunson once said,

"If I can see your eyes, I can see your hole cards."

Although this may scare a player into believing they need to cover their eyes with sunglasses or a hat to prevent a pro from learning the secrets of their poker hand, the reality is that, Doyle, or any experienced pro, does not need to see your eyes. That statement is merely a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the real tells people give away when they play poker.

The truth is, that the poker face is not just resigned to the face, it is more about body language as a whole and the behavior of a person in a certain situation. I always amaze my daughter with the fact I know when she is not telling me the truth, just as any parent is usually able to do, not because I can read her mind, rather I am familiar with her body language, mannerisms and behaviors.

Those are the basic keys to having the ability to read your opponent, and furthermore they are the keys to you projecting your poker face to lead your opponent into believing what you want them to believe. So remember, when playing poker, putting on your poker face is not about hiding your hand, rather it is about telling your opponent what you want him to believe you are holding!

An excellent book on the subject is from a magician and mentalist, known as The Mind Reader. His book is called The Poker Face and gives great tips and strategies for reading body language and detecting lies. It is available as an instant download at http://pokerface.caligonia.com

Midnite Madness Live Poker Tournament - Meadows PA Poker Room

Nearly 60 late nite poker players abandoned their hopes of turning in early this past Saturday night and instead opted in to playing the newly featured 'Midnite Madness' Tournament held at the Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Washington PA.

The tournament was the brainchild of poker room manager Peter Lau and Princess of Poker Donna Lapia in an effort to give tournament players a venue to satisfy their late night urge to play a poker tournament. Similar events are held at major casinos across the USA, however, the Meadows tournament brings a little added flavor!

The starting stack is a very generous $12,000 with a dealer buy add on of $1500 ($5 gratuity). The blind levels, in keeping with the '12' theme of a true midnite madness, are 12 minutes long. Players can expect plenty of play for their $50 buy in especially since there are no antes throughout the tourney coupled with the generous starting stack.

With a total of 58 players and a first place prize of $835, the shuffle up and deal announcement was made at just a minute after midnite. Play moved along fairly swiftly as the players adjusted to a faster blind level. By Level 10, with blinds at 2K and 4k, the bubble broke as the remaining 10 players convened to their final table.

Action at first was quite soft as shortstacks found places to double up while the big stacks (including the final table chip leader Carl C. of Washington PA) waited patiently for their chance to KO opponents. Finally with 4 minutes remaining in Level 16 (blinds 10K - 20K) the final 4 were battling it out as the shortstack pushed his 35K all in against the BB who made the call for an additional 15K.

The shortstack tabled Ace 2 suited while the BB reluctantly turned over his 9 5 off. Dealer Micheal spread the flop of 6 3 7, burned and turned an 8 and brought down an irrelevant river 4, giving the BB a winning 7 card straight. With about 780,000 in play that Left the 3 remaining players (Carl, Chuck and Pat) to enter level 17 after nearly 3 and a half hours all with fairly even stacks.

Floor manager John, as well as several other players gathered near the final table to watch the action. Carl C, the overwhelming chip leader throughout most of the tournament raised all in with KQ of hearts on the button against the pocket 10's of Chuck in the BB. Micheal spread a board of J 2 9, giving Carl a glimpse of hope on a gut shot or over card, however the 6 and 5 on the turn and river exasperated Carl's hopes of a first place finish as Chuck scooped in the pot. Carl's third place win netted him nearly $250.

Heads up began and ended quickly on the second hand as Pat made a move against Chuck showing 10 5 off to Chucks Q 8 suited. The board ran out J 7 2 2 6, giving Chuck a Queen high win to take down the $835 prize. Pat's second place finish rewarded him with a little over $420.

The Midnite Madness tourney is an exciting tournament to play in and will be a staple every Friday and Saturday night. Registration begins at 10:00pm on Friday and Saturday evening. Buy in is $50, Hope to see you there!

First Poker Tournament in PA Well Received

Pennsylvania's first legal poker tournament took place today at the Meadows Casino and Racetrack in Washington PA. I arrived at 9:30, just to avoid any potential rush of tournament players and was relieved to see that there were just a few signups.

Tension was a little thick as the poker room management(Peter Lau and Donna Lapia, readied the tables along with help from the well-expereinced poker dealers on staff. In addition, several 'suits' were hanging around (puportedly PGCB and Upper level Meadows management) ready to oversee what would historically be the first legal poker tournament in Pennsylvania.

I registered and took a late breakfast and coffee break in anticipation of playing in this tourney. When I returned to the Poker room at 10:28 am I was surprised to see 5 tables filling up for the tournament. What a great turnout! Especially since the tournament was not announced or advertised.

After a brief settling, the tourney got underway.

The Basics:

The buy-in is $40 with a $5 dealer add on bonus, initial chips: $4,000, add-on $1,000.
The structure was player friendly considering the amount of chips as the blind levels were 18 minutes long with starting blinds at $50 and $100.

The tables were hand dealt (the final table used the shufflemaster), however the hands per hour were above average.

42 players registered to the tourney with a payout scale going to the top 5:

1st $567.00
2nd $315.00
3rd $189.00
4th $113.00
5th $ 76.00


The Play

Most of the play at my table was soft with just a little aggression in the early blinds, I ended the first break (at level 5) with a little more than 10K in chips and the field had narrowed to 34.

Although I had played hundreds of low stakes tourneys at Wheeling Island the last few years, this first PA Poker tourney lacked the uber-aggression and complacency commonly seen at the latter. The dealers and staff were very attentive to the level-ups. Although there was problems with the tournament clock in the beginning, (frozen at one point), it was quickly reset, while play continued without missing a beat.

Dealer pushes were done quickly and extra effort was made to ensure the tournament moved along. Going into level 7 (600 and 1200, 200 ante), we were down to 18 players, I sat close to the average with 12K in chips. The final table convened during the 9th Level (1000 and 2000, 300 ante) with 10 players remaining.

The Final table was moved to a poker table with an automatic shuffler and play resumed quickly as seats were assigned. During the break the 100 chips were raced off, and play continued. We had made a deal for the bubble boy, which encouraged two shortstacks to move in and shortly thereafter we were down to the final 5.

With 3 minutes remaining in Level 10 (1500 and 3000, 500 ante), the bubble broke and 5 players remained to capture the title of the winner of the first poker tournament in PA. I lasted until 4th place (Level 11) moving all in on the button with 33 against the BB who showed A6os, flopping a 6 to end my run to be the first winner. Shortly thereafter player 3 went down and heads up play commenced at level 12 (3,000 and 6,000, ante 1000).

Lasting less than 10 minutes, the two players got it all in when the button limped and the BB shoved all in, getting a quick call from his opponent. The tabled hands were (Button) AA, (BB) 4 6os. The flop came down 3 4 4, enough of a sweat for the AA as a turn came down blank and the river Ace giving the champion aces full.

The tourney ended around 2:45pm, with congratulatory handshakes for both players as Peter Lau escorted the entrants to the cage.

Personally, this is one of the better tourneys I have played in recent years as the relaxing and serene atmosphere along with the cordial nature of the poker room and players made it an enjoyable experience overall.

Now that we have that first cash out of the way, let's get onto the big tourneys!
Starting next week, the Meadows will announce their full schedule and it will be posted on the Pennsylavania Poker Players blog at http://pennsylvaniapokerplayers.info

Great Poker Gift For Your Valentine

This Valentine's Day do something extra special for your sweetheart by entering them in the WSOP (World Series of Poker)!

Wheeling Island Casino Hotel and Racetrack in Wheeling WV will host a WSOP satellite event on February 14th 2010 at 1:00 pm (EDT) in the spacious showroom on the main casino floor.

The event is a $130 entry with ONE optional rebuy of $70. Once your chipstack is below the starting stack of $10,000 you may rebuy an additional $10,000 in chips for $70.

The blind levels are 20 minutes and start at 25 - 50. The complete blind structure can be viewed here.

The event will award at least one $10,000 WSOP main event seat and $6000 in extra cash for expenses. The final table will be paid. (*based on a minimum of 132 players)

Take your sweetheart to an early Valentine lunch at the exquisite Pointe restautarant or the fabulous buffet featured on the main casino level. Wheeling Island also features all table games including blackjack, craps, roulette, 3 card poker, 2000+ slot machines and of course a 20 table poker room with all types and limits of games.

Take a chance to win your WSOP seat this year and you and your sweetheart may be able to honeymoon in fabulous Las Vegas this July!

If you have any questions or need assistance for the tournament contact the Poker Room Manager Peter Lau at 1 877.943.3546 or by email at plau@dncinc.com

Good Luck! Hope to see you there!

What a Rush! Rush Poker at Full Tilt

Full Tilt poker just introduced a new way to play poker, called Rush Poker. User input and suggestions helped to formulate this new method of online poker with a twist. Much like speed poker or the turbo Texas holdem tournaments, Rush Poker has a twist that will keep you addicted.

I took the opportunity to try out this new way to play poker online and here is my review of Full Tilt’s Rush poker.

The way the game works is you register in a ring game (cash game poker) and buy in for your desired amount. The game is not a poker tournament, rather a regular cash game. The twist is you are playing against hundreds or even thousands of other players as each table you sit down to will rotate the players.

When you first join a Rush Poker game, you are set at a table with 8 other players, and dealt your hole cards. If you choose to fold your poker hand, you are immediately sent to another table with 8 different players.

To facilitate even more speed in the game, you can ‘quick fold’ before action is on you, to go to the next table. If you do not like the poker hand dealt to you, simply click quick fold and BAM! You are at another table.

The speed in which you are dealt hands is incredible, as I played for one hour and saw 312 poker hands! In a normal online poker cash game, that would be about 5 hours of play, and in live poker, that’s about 12 hours play.

In addition to the speed in which you are deal hands, there are a few more advantages to Rush Poker: the changing players, elimination of cheating or colluding and better hand selection.

The Changing Players

Since each table you are moved to has 8 other players and there are usually hundreds of players in the game, the chances of you seeing the same people again are slim, (although it happens). This is an advantage, because if you bluff or slow play or trap, these opponents may not see you again, and hardly have time to take notes on your play.

Elimination of Cheating / Colluding

This is a big plus! Since the players constantly rotate and the odds of any two players sitting at the same table are greatly minimized, poker cheating and colluding becomes practically non-existent.

In a normal game, two or three players can easily dominate a table using text, instant messaging or any number of other methods to communicate their hole cards to each other, giving them an advantage over other players.

Colluding becomes harder and therefore the Rush Poker game becomes a better game.

Better Hand Selection

One of the hardest things for poker players is the wait between hands and folding constantly until they get a good hand. Sometimes I personally have sat one or two hours without seeing a quality hand and scooping a big pot. When I played Rush Poker, I saw 312 hands and was able to win 26 pots that tripled my buy in!

The hands come a lot faster and it seems to me that people were a lot more selective about their starting poker hands. This adds to a good game, as you have a less chance of poker bad beats when a guy is so bored he plays a junk hand and hits a miracle card to river you.

Faster poker, it appears to be the next wave in online poker, as more sites are adding turbo texas holdem tournaments, but Full Tilt is the first to introduce this new idea to the poker cash games. I look for PokerStars to add a competitive method soon as It will catch on quickly with poker players.

Learn more poker strategy by visiting the How To Win At Poker Blog

Darvin Moon Poker Challenge Kicks Off!

The Darvin Moon Poker Challenge kicks off today at the Wheeling Island Casino Hotel Racetrack with the first of four events, a $125 buy in No Limit Texas Holdem tournament. The expected field size is about 150 players with an anticipated prize pool of over $15,000.
Each event in the Darvin Moon Poker challenge will award points to the final 20 as well as cash prizes. The points will be tallied on a leaderboard with the person getting the most points, eligible to play Darvin Moon heads up for $2000 (added by the house).

I will be playing in the event, all four of the events as well as structure and satellites are listed at Pokerline.org go over and check it out!

Wheeling Island is offering a special room rate during the challenge of $59/night, you can call the Hotel @ 1877 WIN HERE.

If you have any questions or need assistance for the tournament contact the Poker Room Manager Peter Lau at 1 877.943.3546 or by email at plau@dncinc.com

Good Luck! Hope to see you there!

How To Win Texas Hold em Poker Games

Texas hold em poker games have recently become one of the hottest activities on and off the Internet. Live poker tournaments can be found in practically every major city and casino worldwide.

This new wave of entertainment has even become known as the newest sport. A sport where anyone, regardless of age, physical prowess, or experience can have an opportunity to compete with professionals side by side in a competition that produces many millionaires each year.

Merely playing in a Texas hold em poker game, does not necessarily mean you can win it, just like with any sport or competition, you must acquire and posses a special skill set to find yourself getting further and winning. The key to winning Texas hold em poker games is experience.

That experience can come from actual play or from practicing in online poker tournaments in the multitude of available pokersites. In addition to playing Texas hold em poker games, one must continually try and improve their game by using the knowledge of each game and apply it to future competitions.

Texas hold em poker games are primarily what is known as situational. That is to say, each situation you are involved in has a unique set of circumstances, which may or may not be repeated the next time you play. The reason is the deal of the cards and the variety of people playing in each poker tournament will change each time you play.

For example, when you are dealt pocket Aces in a Texas hold em poker game, you can not just assume the correct move is to raise or go all in. It largely depends on two things. One is the position in which you are sitting and the other is the style of players at your table.

If your table has several aggressive players that like to raise every hand and you are sitting before them (in early position), it may be a good idea to just limp in (do not raise). The hope is that one of your more aggressive opponents will raise giving you the opportunity to make more money in the pot.

If your table is tight and rarely anyone raises, and you are in late position (or last to act pre-flop), you may want to raise after several players have come in to the pot. This may get them to fold and allow you to just take the pot down now.

Texas hold em poker games are easier to win if you can obtain enough information on your opponents, and use the knowledge of different situations to play against these opponents. First, learn the different styles of how to play position, when to bluff, when to fold (different situations) and then put that knowledge to work and gain the experience you need.

A simple plan of attack that you formulate beforehand will give you the confidence and knowledge to win more Texas hold em poker games in the future.

Get more poker tips and poker strategy by getting your FREE copy of How to Succeed as a Professional Online Poker Player.

The Cash Out Curse Is it Real In Online Texas Holdem?

Lately, a lot of people have begun to question the honesty of several online pokersites, due in part to recent scandals involving players on particular sites. Many have gone so far as to claim that online poker is rigged and that a winning player is penalized for making withdrawals. This is known in the poker community as the ‘cash out curse’

Typically, a player that has won a large sum of money or has consistently played well and won several big cashes, goes to withdraw a portion of their winnings. Suddenly they are attacked by a seemingly inevitable curse that causes them to constantly lose game after game, forcing them to reload their account with more money.

Many claim that the poker sites, to keep people from cashing out their winnings, perpetrate this cash out curse. No matter how hard one would try to convince someone that this is just a fable, the losing player can not be convinced, as they continue to complain that online poker is rigged and that when they cash out they go on a losing streak because the poker site wants them to keep their money online.

Although the notion of a ‘cash out curse’ may seem ridiculous, it is entirely possible that a pokersite can (and often does) control the cards of a particular player. This is accomplished by the fact that everything in an online poker site is regulated by computer-generated codes and programs under the direct control of the owners of the site.

Read more at EzineArticles The Texas Hold em Cash Out Curse. . .

Online Poker The Random Number Generator

As many people are aware, online poker rooms (as well as any online gambling site) uses what is called a random number generator to produce what would appear to be a random outcome in each hand.

This article will explain the Random Number Generator (also called Pseudo-Random Number Generator, PRNG or RNG). The purpose of this article is to familiarize players with the 'inner workings' of the software used in the Online Poker rooms and the way cards are produced in a deal.

The use of a RNG is nothing new, as it actually dates back hundreds of years before the computer was even conceived. Mathematicians as early as the 1700's used a random number process to try and determine outcomes of specific problems.

The advent of the computer presented a challenge for scientists and programmers wanting to produce a seemingly random action from the computer, and therefore an assembly code language function was implemented called RAND also known as randomize and RND. This function would be attached to a program and assigned a variable to select a random number.

However, the program required a 'seed' number to begin its process of selecting what would appear to be a random number, otherwise it would produce the same series of numbers each time the program ran. Therefore, early programmers used the timer function on the CPU in order to produce a different series of seemingly random numbers each time the program ran.

This was somewhat acceptable and appeared to produce a different random result each time. However, after several thousand runs of the program, it became easier to 'predict' what series of numbers would come out. This gave a challenge to programmers to find a way to actually produce what would seem to be a truly random result, one that could not be predicted or repeated in any short course of time.

Ultimately, a mathematical method was derived that gave the RNG's a better way to produce a more realistic way of generating random numbers. In addition, experiments using white noise generators to produce the seed were also successful. Both of these among other secondary methods to produce a seemingly random result are used today in all major Online Poker rooms.

Now for the DEAL!

How does that affect the deal of cards, you may ask. Well, actually, the modern RNG programs are more beneficial then the software used several years ago. The sophistication of the randomness is better for the player, because the predictability of a card is much harder, and the RNG is designed to curtail cheating. However, it is not the best method and has many failures.

The Major Fail

A standard 52 card deck has a total number of possible combinations of 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,404,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Thats a BIG number, in fact, there is no name for a number that large except to say it is 8 times 10 to the 67th power.

What this means is that if you lay out all 52 cards in order, that is one possible combination of the deck, you shuffle the cards and lay them out again, they obviously are in a different order, and that would be a second combination, repeat this process and each time you would get a different sequence or combination of cards laid out on the table. It would require a minimum 8 times 10 to the 67th power 'deals' to repeat the exact same sequence of cards.

In essence, a deck of cards is ideally suited to an RNG because of the endless variety of combinations of a deck. However, there is no possible way any computer in existence has the ability to store every combination (it would require at the bare minimum a 256 bit processor and a whole lot of speed!) and since most servers use only a 32 or 64 bit architecture they are only able to process a small fraction of all possible combinations.

Two Pigeons; One Hole

This is known as the Pigeonhole Principle, wherein the theorem states that there does not exist an injective function on finite sets whose co-domain is smaller than its domain. In other words, you can not put two objects into a container that is physically only able to hold one object.

So what happens to the billions of possible deck combinations? Simple, they are never used, processed or even appear in the online poker RNG. They do not exist as far as the program is concerned.

In reality, out of the 8x10^67 possible combinations only about 4 billion deck combinations are used in a 32bit architecture. This greatly reduces the number of possible hands you can make, and also is a basic explanation as to why there are so many bad beats and made hands in online poker.

For this reason, you will notice more straights, more flushes and more often full houses appear at showdown. The program, by reducing all the possible combinations down to less than 1/20^58, now forces a lot of action and produces a lot of big hands, because it strips away all the outer-dimensional deck combinations. (How often do you see high card, one pair or two pair win?)

In conclusion, the RNG used in online poker is never able to truly produce a random deck or outcome, simply because the program does not use all possible combinations of decks. There are other reasons the deck may be stacked against you and we will explore those in upcoming articles.

I hope this article is helpful to you in understanding how the RNG produces a 'random' deck of cards and invite you to subscribe or bookmark this blog to learn more about online poker.

This post is intended to give a brief oversight of some of the inner workings of the online poker RNG, in the next post, I will explore how the RNG can actually be manipulated to your advantage.

Play Poker Texas Holdem Card Game

You have seen it on television in a multitude of formats such as the World Series of Poker, The World Poker Tour, and High Stakes Poker. All of these shows feature professional Texas holdem poker players as well as a large field of amateurs. However, is it possible for any one to play poker and win huge cash prizes like on TV?

The simple answer to that question is yes you can play poker, just like the pros! An amateur poker player, Chris Moneymaker did it in 2003, winning more than $2.5 million dollars. Chris found his way to the Main Event of the World Series of Poker through online poker site Poker Stars. After winning his seat on Poker Stars, Chris went to Las Vegas and played in the Main Event, beating out a field of 838 other poker players and finally beating a seasoned pro, Sammy Farha for the first place win.

Even If you have never had the opportunity to play poker, you can do the same. The skills required are minimal, and the opportunity is limitless. A quick study of the game and lots of practice in Texas Holdem can give you the chance to play poker with the pro’s and an opportunity to possibly cash in the big one! Practice makes perfect, practice to play poker daily in the online freerolls offered by many poker sites.

If you are just learning to play poker, or if you have had some experience, a great place to start is to enter the freerolls offered by many online poker sites such as Poker Stars. These freerolls cost nothing to enter, and offer cash prizes to help you build a bankroll.

If you play poker in the freerolls, the best advice is to play a very tight game. That means that you do not want to just play any hand and hope you win, the strategy of winning is in making the right moves at the right times. There are an enormous amount of helpful sites online that teach winning strategies, just click on any of the links you see for winning, strategies, and tips to play poker.

Take the opportunity to sign up to any online poker room (I recommend Poker Stars com as the most trusted), play in the daily freerolls and work your way up to improving your game and learning to play poker like the champions. There is no requirement to deposit money at any site. Play poker online and you have the opportunity to win real cash. Remember if you need tips, strategies or help just click on any of the links provided.

Good Luck!