Live Poker Event Strategy (Part 2 of 3)

1. Poker time is hard

One of the consequences of playing live poker is time. Casinos are designed to make time fly and on poker it certainly will. The dim light, no windows and the music are all made for you to keep playing and playing, don’t get surprised if you get in during night and come out on the sunlight, it can happen. But this is not the worst part, your body will feel this, it is very consuming for your mind, eyes and body. Most professional players require massages to make it through 8 hours of play. And not only will your body be affected if you play too much, but your social and family life might get affected as well. Manage your time and your bankroll, don’t play more than 4 hours while you get used to it and that way you will safe money, don’t affect your body and if you have a family and a job you will most likely keep them both.

2. Watch your back and sides and make the right moves

Since you are not used to do this if you play online poker mostly, you can be a little reckless to how you see your cards. At a casino always watch your back as people behind you can look at what you are holding. Cover the cards with your body and with both your hands and raise the cards slightly so you can only see what you are holding. Don’t do this very often, take quick glimpses at them and then memorize them. When you want to bet, call, fold or go all-in make you sure you tell in a high, understandable way to the dealer and the rest of the players at the table. This can avoid confusion and will allow you to play smoother and faster. Don’t throw the chips; move them gently to the center of the table or at the dealers’ reach. And most importantly do not make any comments on the hands, not even if you they are done playing. This will gain you respect at the tables and can keep you off trouble.

3. Know yourself

In a simple phrase “you are your worst enemy” and in poker it is a golden rule that if you don’t know yourself you definitely will cost you lots of money. You are not online anymore, you are face to face to your opponent who can see your reactions: joy, fear, anger, excitement, frustration, sadness; you name it, if you show them you lose. Put your best non emotional face you can, this is called poker face. But be careful, look for your own ways of playing, with your own style and don’t become a copy cat from a known player, no matter how cool or good he is. Be humble, in chips it might not be much, but money wise, you can represent a big amount. So before you make move try to look in retrospective your reactions and how much you are paying or raising, and you will safe money.

4. Manage your bankroll

One of the most useful tips we can give you is how to manager your bankroll. Dispose of an amount to spend monthly and play with this with its ups and downs. Poker can be a good business if you invest smartly, and your revenue of your play can be good and worth it if you keep this in mind. As soon as you are having big losses call it quits, don’t spend more money than what you have budget to it. If you have winnings also know when to quit. If you get 50% more of the money invested, you can quit for the day. Safe your winnings and come back later. If your casino has it available, ask about frequent player rewards, some casinos give you money back depending on the time spend at the tables, but this is no excuse to spend too much time.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the final installment in the live event strategy!

Keep up to date with all the latest poker tournament news at www.the-royalflush-club.com

Live Event Strategy (Part 1 of 3)

Playing live is very distinct from online in many ways. Apart from playing wherever you want and dress however you want and having to wear properly at a casino, you will notice the difference on holding the cards, chips and seating next to several other players face to face. The adrenaline rush is indescribable and the thrill of winning or losing a hand compared with not so many activities. But all this, can be disturbing and overwhelming if not taken the necessary knowledge with you. The following are some tips that will brief you in this amazing, fast phased, morphing world of live poker.

1. Know what and how much to play

First is first, money! You can play as much as you carry and willing to risk. Yes, poker is a risk, is no sure thing. Even professional players take big swings of money up and down. And in some cases those swings are worth millions! At this stage make, when you are beginning to play live don’t spend much. You might be the king at the online tables, and make thousands of dollars; but at the end of the day you will find out there are a lot more players that are way better than you are and have been playing for years. Since you are starting play save, go little by little, and look for tables with low stakes and with small players. As far as your money, remember to take at least 100 times the big blind, this will allow you to play a significant amount of hands.

2. Pay attention and be organized

If you play online you are most used to play several tables at a time, while watching TV and eating from your bowl full of chips. Live playing is very different and since action is very slow you might get bored. While at online poker you play 100 hands an hour, on live play you will only do so for 15 or 20 an hour, most of which you will not play. You have to be patient and pay attention to the game. If you want this to be profitable and fun as well. Look at the other players, how they grab their chips and cards, the facial expression they make when they are playing and when they are not. Look at their hands, how they are sitting, how often they look away or into the table. Pay attention to the dealers; follow the instructions given by them. Be organized, and stack your chips in a clean way. Put your high value chips in front, that will make your opponents know certainly how much chips you have as well as you and will decrease the chances of a mistake from an opponent trying to over bet you and you losing a big pot because of this.

3. Be polite

Poker is a social game, you are not playing from home anymore, follow the casino rules and keep your manners at the table. Dress properly and clean, believe or not this is something that happens in the real world. Don’t curse and most importantly don’t try to be bossy or bully at the tables. You will learn how to do this with class as you play more and more. Drinking and smoking might not be allowed at the tables so please make sure you as the dealer or the room manager before doing so. If you are allowed to eat at the tables or take a break to eat, clean your hand, there is nothing worst than receiving dirty or greasy cards. Part of poker etiquette at the open tables is tipping the dealer, tip them every time you win a big pot and don’t be cheap give them a couple low denomination chips and they will be happy.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next part in the live event strategy! Keep up to date with all the latest Poker Tournament news at www.the-royalflush-club.com

Poker Freeroll Tournament Strategy

Freeroll tournaments are the most popular among poker players. Freerolls are really helpful when you want to start a bankroll and make it grow, or just to try the software and practice a bit. Freerolls are tournaments with guaranteed real money prizes that you join for free. Some freerolls are huge and offer thousands of dollars as prize pools.

When you are playing a freeroll you need to think that it is a great opportunity for you to gain some money without having to risk yours; but not because it’s not your money, you need to let it go or play without having the pot in mind. It is really hard to get into the big freerolls and if you make it, then you need to focus on winning.

First Stage

The first stage in the freeroll is the hardest part, you need to keep in mind that not everyone that is in the freeroll is a good player, nor that they are playing it to win. In fact 75% of the players at a freeroll are there just to try their luck or to get experience. It is really normal that most of the players get out at the first stage of the tournament because of the way other players bet and because they are tilt.

During the first stage you have to build up your chip stack, make it as big as possible is the key to succeed and make it to the top final. A good way to do this is by betting pre-flop when you get a good pocket pair, this will help you get less callers. At this stage try not to bluff, because players at this stage will call easily no matter how much you bet. Play only strong hands and try to eliminate your competition as soon as possible.

Middle Stage

After an hour or hour and a half, you will be at the middle stage of the tournament. This means that most of the players are out or with small stacks. Besides having the blinds up you should already have an average stack or be out with the other players. If you have a decent stack then you need to double the size of it immediately. If got a bad hand just fold, if you have a good hand raise and if you get re-raised the best thing you can do is not risk your money if you really don’t have a good hand. At this stage you can bluff because the opponents with small stacks will try to do anything to win more chips.

Avoid going all in. Pressure the small stackers for them to go all-in if they re-raise then its better if you fold if your hand is weak.

Final Stage

If you got here after almost 3 hours of play, you need to step it up. The worst scenario here is that you have a short stack; if you do, you need to get up as soon as possible! A good thing to do here is to change your strategy, if you played loose at the middle stage then you should play tight and that way your opponents will not be able to read you. Once you are at the final stage it’s not a matter of luck or how you play, but on how many chips you have. If you are not the one with the lowest stack then wait for a good hand and make your opponents, with lower stacks than you, go all in. This will help you build up your stack and get some opponents out.

If you get into the final table or heads up, then you are very lucky! This is a battle that you want to win. It is all about being focused on what you want to get (the pot). If you make a mistake, don’t let it rule your whole game, stay focused and you can still win even with a small mistake. If you make a big bet and your opponent re-raises it’s a bad sign and the best thing you can do is fold. Even if it’s a pro they will never follow a big bet if they don’t have a good hand. Bluffing at this stage is really not a good idea since you are too close to win it all.

Always remember to enjoy your play, these are free tournaments and if you make it to the top players then just have fun and don’t pressure yourself to win.

If you have the chance to re-buy or add-on, do it. Many of the players that get into freerolls don’t have the money for place a buy-in. This will help you be the chip stack lead at the middle stage.

Find a site to test out the Freeroll Strategy at www.the-royalflush-club.com

ESPN Coverage of the WSOP gets an Emmy Nomination

The ESPN’s coverage of the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) got a nomination for the Sports Emmy Award for the second year. This is one of the 54 nominations ESPN got this year.

The category of the nomination is for “Outstanding Live Event Turnaround” for the coverage of the final WSOP table. The final table was played on Nov. 9, were 21 year-old Joe Cada won the bracelet and $8.5 million on Nov. 10.

This year’s World Series of Poker will be on May 28^th, with an inaugural Poker Player’s Championship. This event will be televised by ESPN and the winner will receive the Chip Reese trophy.

ESPN announced that they will broadcast the Main Event again that begins on July after the charity tournament –Ante Up for Africa-.

ESPN also got other nominations for NASCAR and the Tour de France coverage; they also have a new seven-year broadcast agreement for the World Series that will start in 2011.

Estonia in war with online poker sites

Some days ago, Estonia announced that they wanted to fight against illegal gambling. Last Tuesday they completed their list of illegal gambling operators that should be banned by the providers of internet service in that country. This law was released and implemented this year stating that there’s only one operator who has permission from the state and all others are considered as outlaw. This list includes 175 domain names and some of them are big online poker names.

Sites on the list are under penalty and have a fine for 40,000 crowns. Some of the names on the list were real companies interested in the Estonian market.

Most of the forums in Estonia related to poker are going under this law by the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. It is basically a decision to block all access to foreign online poker sites. The list of names includes PokerStars, Party Poker, Full Tilt Poker, Unibet and Bwin.

The only operator of the sector with a state license is the OEG group. Complains about the Estonian Legislation have come from everywhere the European commission said that online gambling could be considered one of the exceptional fields where the national governments can still apply their own policies even if they go against the EU agreements like the EU regulations on freedom of movement of goods and services.

Joanna Krupta at Poker2Nite

The hostess of NAPT (North American Poker Tour) Joanna Krupta from PokerStars was part of this week’s Poker2Nite show, the UB.com sponsored poker news show Poker2Nite. The show started with an opening discussion about the World Poker Tour (WPT) that was played last week in the California casino. Later on the discussion turned to the high-stakes poker matches with Isildur1 that have been taking place at Full Tilt Poker during the lasts weeks.

Then Krupa joined the discussion and talked about her poker experience in 2006 WSOP. She said “I was basically thrown into the situation. It was nerve-wracking”. While being at NAPT she will have to do some charity events and comment about it.

At the end of the show Dana workman joined and spoke a bit about forum activity and social media with the appearance of Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak that appeared on TwoPlusTwo.

You can check this amazing show every Wednesday at 11:00pm ET on Versus.

Dwan takes $230, 701 out of Antonious! – Durrrr Challenge.

What happens when you mix the excitement of playing high stakes poker and the adrenaline of doing it with the best players of the world? You definite catch attention, and this is what Full Tilt has done with their Durrrr Challenge extravaganza. This little game, but mostly a dare, is simple. Tom “durrrr” Dwan, young poker hot shot and Full Tilt’s poker pro, threw a challenge in 2009. He said he could beat any player that was able to play against him 50,000 hands of No-Limit Texas Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha with any money there put up, with a side bet and a thrilling plus. If he loses the winner would take $1.5 million plus all the winnings for the play involved; but if he wins, he would take the winnings plus $500,000 from his opponent. But there’s another condition. It must be played in 4 simultaneous head’s up tables and once you choose your game and stake you can’t change.

It wasn’t a surprise that the hot shots took the challenge. The first one on the list, Patrick Antonious, the female heart melting Finn that is deadly playing poker and one of the best in the world, that can definitely finish durrrr’s aspirations to become victorious from such a challenge.

The latest match of the “durrrr” Challenge was this weekend and it’s a match that Patrick Antonious probably wants to forget. They played for nine minutes on Saturday and after 61 hands they wrapped it up and Dwan took another $230,710 off Antonious. So far they have played 33,303 hands out of 50,000.

So far the battle hasn’t been easy, both players have played over 33 thousand hands of 50,000 and the results so far are against Antonious with an impressive $2 million dollar loss.

Face the Ace Drama comes to an End

After going back and forth on the lawsuit against Poker PROductions from Brandon McSmith in the Eighth District court in Nevada; it seems that it finally came to an end. This Monday the lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Michelle Leavitt.

McSmith can now appeal or ask for the intervention of the Federal court. McSmith said to Poker News Daily he was disappointed with the decision and he hopes his appeal will be successful: “Judge Michelle Leavitt dismissed the case on the basis that I didn't state a claim. Leavitt has her fair share of appeals that have gone against her.”

FBI was investigating McSmith’s lawsuit were he claims they used his idea for the NBC poker game show “Face the Ace”. “This week, the FBI got in touch with me twice and asked for all of the information. They’ll be launching an investigation of the copyright infringement charges”, McSmith said to Poker News Daily.

McSmith claims he created a series called “ All Star Poker Challenge” were 5 pros took contestants and had 5 heads-up matches, with a win of $2,000 per match and the ultimate winner would take a seat to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) . The Face the Ace show offered three matches and a top prize of $1 million.

Full Tilt poker had some issues past July when the Southern District was behind a seizure of over $30 million of online poker funds going to the US players despite the UIGEA. Face the Ace had amazing ratings when it was launched, something around 1.59 million viewers.

Originally McSmith was after an $85 million compensation for copyright, but his demand now does not contain an amount. Let’s hope this all get’s finally into an end and continue receiving great games and service from Full Tilt poker.

Maxim's top 20 hottest women in Poker

In an industry dominated by men, just some women become icons, not only because of the way they play poker, but because of their beauty while playing it. Maxim, magazine for men, just came with their hottest top 20 girls in poker. It's not a surprise to find some names like Tiffany Michelle and Vanessa Rousso on the list.

Some of the names Maxim dropped, are not really from poker players, most of them are Hollywood celebrities that might attended to an event. But other Stars like Jennifer Tilly that really deserved a position on the top 20 hottest girls for her skills at poker and her cleavage.

The great Tiffany Michelle leads the list; she had a great performance in 2008 at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). She also was part of the show “The Amazing Race" with poker player Maria Ho as her partner. Vanessa Rousso was also included on this list. Rousso is currently in a sponsorship for GoDaddy.com and PokerStars.

Here's the list of the top 20 Hottest Poker Girls:

Cameron Diaz

Heather Graham

Jenna Fischer

Jennie Garth

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Jennifer Tilly

Jenny McCarthy

Joanna Krupa

Lacey Chabert

Laura Prepon

Mena Suvari

Odette Yustman
Pamela Anderson
Rosario Dawson
Sarah Silverman

Serinda Swan
Shannon Elizabeth

Tiffany Michelle

Traci Bingham
Vanessa Rousso

2010 Aruba Poker Classic by UB.com Cancelled

UB.com decided to cancel their Aruba Poker Classic this year. They want to get more involved in other online and live poker events. This was a very crowded event that was offered for many years. In 2002, the first year this tournament was held, Juha Helppi was the winner of the event. Winners of other years include, Erick Lindgren, Eric Brenes, Freddy Deeb, Travis Rice, Matt Brady and last year’s winner Brandon Hall who defeated 475 players and took $753,000 first place prize.

Ultimate Bet looks forward to expand their online and live tournaments this year, and this is the main reason behind their decision of cancelling the Aruba Poker Classic. They will invest in new online tournaments that will include a monthly guaranteed tournament for $500,000 and a weekly guaranteed tournament for $200,000 Guaranteed. They expect to bring with this more than 1,000 players.

A press release was given on Wednesday from Tokwiro COO Paul Leggett and he commented, "It is with great regret that we are announcing that the Aruba event will not run this year, but 2010 is going to be an exciting year for UB and its players. Over the last year, we've been redefining the UB brand in every way. We love the Aruba Poker Classic event, but we think we can do a lot more for our players by investing in new events and rewards."

Beside all this, UB.com will continue to send players to the World Poker Tour (WPT) and to the World Series of Poker (WSOP), plus many other great prizes that will benefit loyal players.

Annie Duke is the absolute winner of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship

The Caesar’s palace witnessed how the amazing Annie Duke was crowned the first female champion of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker championship on Sunday. Duke, UB.com pro, took home a $500,000 prize after beating her good old friend Erik Seidel, eight time winner of World Series of Poker (WSOP).

Seidel who stayed by Annie’s side tweeted "Ended 2nd to Annie Duke in the NBC Heads Up. She played an outstanding match. Easiest loss of my career, very happy for her."

She had 3 long days with dramatic matches. Her first round was against Andy Bloch. She also had a match with 2007 NBC Heads-Up Poker Champion Paul Wasicka, where she was at risk of elimination.

Duke’s pocket nines in the final hand were enough against Seidel’s A-2. Duke took the main prize and sent Seidel home with a $250,000 consolation prize.

Here were the final payouts:

Place	Name	Prize
1st	Annie Duke	$500,000
2nd	Erik Seidel	$250,000
3rd	Scotty Nguyen	$125,000
4th	Dennis Phillips	$125,000
5th	Jerry Yang	$75,000
6th	Doyle Brunson	$75,000
7th	Jason Mercier	$75,000
8th	Peter Eastgate	$75,000
9th	Paul Wasicka	$25,000
0th	Eli Elezra	$25,000
11th	Annette Obrestad	$25,000
12th	Barry Greenstein	$25,000
13th	Gabe Kaplan	$25,000
14th	Phil Laak	$25,000
15th	Chris Moneymaker	$25,000
16th	Jamie Gold	$25,000

Amazingly, nearly half of them, made it to the top 16. Some of the most remarkable pros that were part of the championship are: Patrik Antonius, Chris Monyemaker, David Williams, Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey, Scotty Nguyen, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Gordon, Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson and many more.

NBC’s television coverage will start on April 18^th and end up by May 23^rd.

European Poker Tour Berlin Robbery

Panic was part of the 2010 PokerStars.net European Poker Tour (EPT) Berlin this Saturday at approximately 4:00 p.m. local time, when a group of armed men broke into the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Berlin where the tournament is being held. Robbers were apparently after money, but there are still no reports on whether they succeeded on taking it or not.

More than 22 players were in the event during the incident, most of them ran when they realized the covered face armed men entered the building; luckily there are no reports of serious injuries.

PokerStars organizers released an official statement - “An armed robbery by six men took place today at EPT Berlin. Nobody was seriously injured. We hope to re-start all events at 4pm local time. A police investigation is underway. If you have video footage or photographs that could help the police, please contact the EPT organizers as soon as possible.”

Side events 1000 Euro NLHE and Ladies Event were cancelled and PokerStars offered all players refunds to the players registered in such events.

Staff will try to restart the tournament by 6 p.m. after they finish the process of verifying chip counts.

Police is asking for photographs and videos of the event that may help them with the investigation.

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