The Poker Lounge by Full Tilt Poker

The Poker Lounge is the new TV show that Full Tilt Poker brings to all the poker lovers. The new TV show will be about the poker top players. This show will be taking place in UK, and will combine intimacy and style with high-stakes action. Only 6 poker players will fight their way for a weekly price of $120,000.

Each player will place a $20,000 buy-in, but each winner will take all the tournament earnings. This show will combine a friendly and great experience of the live games.

You can watch this show on Channel 4 from June 22^nd through August 24^th. For each ten matches they will have one online qualifier that will measure himself/herself with the top pros of Full Tilt Poker.

So, do you think you can beat poker pro players like Phil Ivey and Gus Hansen? Then this is your chance to challenge them and make your name one of the most known out there.

Make sure you register and read all the rules about how to qualify and when you have the chance to do it by Navigating through to the Full Tilt Poker website or by clicking here. Remember to visit our Full Tilt Review to get information about all the promotions and great bonuses www.the-royalflush-club.com offers you.

Make sure you catch the action every Tuesday! Here is the TV schedule:

EPISODE	AIR DATE
1	June 22nd
2	June 29th
3	July 6th
4	July 13th
5	July 20th
6	July 27th
7	August 3rd
8	August 10th
9	August 17th
10	August 24th

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Ongame Launches GSOP Live Poker Tour

Ongame Network recently launched their GSOP live poker tour. This is created with the collaboration of Betsafe, Betsson and RedKings.

This tour will be across Europe, with accessible buy-ins, side events and first class casino venues we are sure it will be a huge success.

The online finals will start in August 2010 and they guarantee 50 prize packages to each event, this will give all players the opportunity to win their place at the live tables.

The Grand Series of Poker will give recognition to players from all the partner networks and all the tournaments will be held on the Ongame Network. The number is of participants in the tour organization will be equal for each partner.

“GSOP Live is different. It is a live tour open to everyone who loves the serious fun of competitive poker. It also showcases Ongame Network’s inclusive approach as three partners have joined forces with us to launch this exciting network-wide product,” said Martin Lerby, Head of Ongame Network.

Grand Series of Poker Schedule is the following for season 1:

• GSOP Live Riga, hosted by Betsafe, 5-9 October 2010 in Riga, Latvia
• GSOP Live Malta, hosted by Betsson, 24-28 November 2010 in St. Julian’s, Malta
• GSOP Live Budapest, hosted by RedKings, 3-6 February 2011 in Budapest, Hungary
• GSOP Live Grand Final, 13-16 April 2011 in Seville, Spain.

Remember that Online finals for the Riga event start in August. The packages are worth $3,000 (or $5,000 for the Grand Final) and you can try your luck for as little as $2,20. Don’t miss the chance to get 1 one of the 50 packages.

If you want more information visit www.gsoplive.com

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WSOP and Vegas Economy

It is not a surprise that the WSOP bets are lower than how they use to be. We still remember when poker pro players used to come out with some nose-bleeding bets and fought their place to win a bracelet.

Now days we see poker players that used to win many bracelets and that had awesome performance during the WSOP events going down and not even winning a single bracelet. This is something normal to see when you are a mortal and you have to sweat your way up to make it to the final tables, but it’s not something we are used to see among the poker gods.

There are maybe many factors that we need to take in consideration in order to find why this is happening to the WSOP. Maybe the problem comes from the global crisis and it just hit Nevada.

Vegas is a state that needs tourism to survive and people to gamble to keep to money flowing. The problem comes when poker players do not want to invest more money than what they are supposed to because they also don’t want to lose their money to an amateur that’s been playing online.

In fact, many tournament winners are not professional players that have won their entrance through online poker rooms and somehow have made it to the big events. Maybe poker pro players are not sure anymore about how good they are or which techniques will work with the new opponents.

Many fear a recession in Nevada; I think we all fear also a recession in poker and especially on a great even such as the WSOP. Another thing to that reflects on is that, now days there are so many poker tournaments going on, that probably players don’t have the chance to be part of all of them or they just rather wait and gain their way to another event by playing classifiers online. The reality of the situation is disturbing, in what used to be one of the busier, if not the busiest week in Vegas as far as hotel and services, have been deemed by low clientele and cheap hotels, that we never thought they would be available in times like this.

Even worst, during a public appearance early this year, the President of the United States, Barak Obama, suggested US citizens to refrain from going to Vegas and bet their money and instead pay their debts. This particular incident has affected and upset the Vegas community and organizations, and has had a great impact making the state of Nevada the most hit state as far as economy.

But not everything is negative, we have seen the service and commodities from most places been engaged in order to suit the diminished amount of guests at the different hotels in Las Vegas that benefits the ones that dare to go and have a chance on winning prestige and immortality as one of the WSOP bracelet winners.

Let’s hope that everything recovers and that we keep enjoying this powerful event and the extravaganza that normally accompanies it. Best wishes to all of the Nevada state residents specially the ones working at the different casinos along the Las Vegas city.

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WSOP Top 20 Tournament of Champions

The results have been announced for the WSOP Tournament of Champions million dollar freeroll online votes. 20 players by people’s vote will have the chance to be part of this tournament.

Familiar names were the favorites of the voters with players like Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson and Jamie Gold. Some big players were left out because of the voters, players like Phil Galfond and Jason Mecier, will miss the chance this year.

This tournament will have a total of 27 players. Five players were included automatically (Joe Cada – current world champion). WSOP Europe champion Barry Shulman and the TOC winners Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton. The other two places are sponsorships given to Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and the WSOP Academy winner Andrew Barton.

Only one woman is part of the top 20 vote-getters for the 2010 WSOP TOC, Jennifer Harman from Full Tilt Poker is the one chosen by the voters. She is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner.

The Tournament Of Champions is played for three days, 27^th and 28^th of June and 4^th of July. You can see the tournament on ESPN, they will be televising it. WSOP released the top 20 list on Friday.

Here are the Top 20 Players and number of Online Votes:

1. Phil Ivey 16 267
2. Daniel Negreanu 16 239
3. Doyle Brunson 13 796
4. Phil Hellmuth 12 673
5. Chris Ferguson 11 585
6. Allen Cunningham 10 486
7. Johnny Chan 10 434
8. Scotty Nguyen 9 834
9. Barry Greenstein 9 806
10. John Juanda 8 835
11. Erik Seidel 8 802
12. Jennifer Harman 8 206
13. Huck Seed 8 180
14. Dan Harrington 7 342
15. TJ Cloutier 6 281
16. Sam Farha 6 085
17. Howard Lederer 5 596
18. Greg Raymer 5 404
19. Joe Hachem 5 272
20. Antonio Esfandiari 5 129

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WSOP Ladies Championship 2010

French Vaneessa Hellebuyck won the $1,000 Ladies Championship at the 2010 World Series of Poker. After some controversy because some male players wanted to enter this tournament, everything got solved and after taking down 1,053 players, Vanessa became the final champion. Vanessa is a common woman with extraordinary poker gifts; she is the mother of two daughters and works as a web designer. She didn’t only win $192,132, but she also became the fifth French bracelet winner in the WSOP history.

The final game was against Sidsel Boesen from Denmark. Boesen was the chip leader, but lost it and tried to get it back. Hellebuyck defeated Boesen after only seven hands.

"This is my first World Series," she said. "It means the world to me. I can't describe it. Cashing in Europe was very exciting for me. But I don't know what more I can do now, except maybe win another event that is not the Ladies event. That is the next step."

Controversy created by 10 men during this event, ended without major issues after they wanted to enter the event. Nevada gaming laws prohibit discrimination by gender in poker tournaments. Shaun Deeb entered the event dressing like a woman as a result a bet; he wanted to play the event to send a message.

Here are the top 5cresults of Event 22 at the 2010 World Series of Poker:

1.Vanessa Hellebuyck $192,132
2. Sidsel Boesen $118,897
3. Timmi Derosa $74,389
4. Allison Whalen $53,994
5. Kami Chisholm $39,860

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Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo Introduction

This game is also known as Eight-Or-Better, this is one of the many variations that common poker offers. In this game there are no community cards, instead each player gets seven cards. The first three cards are dealt to you facing down and the other four are dealt facing up, you use only five of the seven cards you were dealt to make your hand.

When you are playing the Hi/Lo variation of this game two of the hands at the table will be awarded. Hi/Lo means that both the highest hand and the lowest hand will win and share the pot. These are the same rules that you follow in Texas Hold’em.

There are some differences while determining the lowest hand in Seven Card Stud, first all the cards that you chose as your hand should be lower than 8. Straights and flushes do not count as a Lo hand even when it’s the lowest from all the hands. Also when you have a couple you can’t have the lowest hand, only unique cards can be counted for the Lo hand. An ace can also be counted in a Lo hand because Aces are used as the highest card and the lowest.

When each round ends, each player uses five of the seven cards to make two hands, one Hi and the other one Lo. If a player doesn’t have a Lo hand, the player can only play for the Hi half of the pot. The only exception for this is when no player has a Lo hand, when this happens then all the money goes to the player with the Hi hand.

If you are going to play this game and this variation, you need to keep in mind that to win and make a great profit out of this game you need to have both the best Hi/Lo hands on the table. Remember that if you have both the best hands, you take all the pot, but if you don’t then you need to split the pot.

For this variation you should usually play with fixed limits, but you may find some pot limit games too. In Stud poker there are five rounds of betting, and the blinds are replaced by antes most of the time.

The keys for a major winning at Seven Card Stud are the first four cards, if your first cards develop successfully, you will have a strong hand and have a great chance to scoop the pot. If your opponent is playing a pair as a starting hand, and pairs his door card, the odds are two of three. In general if you are playing this variation, bet instead of checking the hands that you would call if someone is about to bet. Usually when players don’t have a good hand they wait for someone else to bet to fold. Try to eliminate your competition as fast as you can.

If you are about to start playing this exciting variation of Seven Card Stud, keep on checking www.the-royalflush-club.com to get more tips and increase your chances of winning.

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How to Succeed in a Multiple Day Live Event (Part 2)

Once you have made it into the second day, try loosening up a bit, not much just a bit. Steal here and there and try to go after the dead pots where you have a shot. Go like this through day 2 and survive to day 3.

Day 3 is your shot to be aggressive, and since most players in here are skilled this is the chance to steal and increase your pot as much as possible. Shift your way of play during these and the fore coming days, don’t play always the same and be versatile.

During the whole event you must be aware of several things: your mental and body health. When you play in a long event, your body will feel it as you will be playing continuous hours nonstop, so hire the services of masseuse while in the event, all of them have; wear comfortable clothing; seat in different positions; eat properly; take your time to go to the bathroom when needed and last but not least try to rest your mind, listen to your favorite music that will relax you but always focused on what is going on.

This is our little strategy on how to survive a long event, you will now rely on how you plan this ahead, train yourself to be able to do it and use the best of your skills, don’t leave everything to Lady Luck, she might turn her back on you at any moment!

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How to Succeed in a Multiple Day Live Event (Part 1)

How nice would it be to win a big reputable, televised tournament in front of millions of people around the world and with several hundred thousand dollars or even millions in prizes? Well, it is the dream of most poker players both online and live, and it is only done by those players not only with incredible skills, luck and determination, but with an actual strategy to go through several days playing poker in a single event.

Poker, just like any skill game goes around organization, think of it as chess, not only involves the next play but a strategic list of steps to follow in order to succeed, of course unlike chess a poker plan can end up in a blink, but that is where your skill and how well planned is your strategy comes into the big question.

But what does it take for you to be able to succeed at a several day event? That will depend on the event. We will focus on an event that takes at least 5 days and has a big amount of players; you know which one is it, the mother of all tournaments and the one we all aspire to win someday.

These events are complicated as they are filled with every single amount of players, from free rollers to top shots and legends, but at the end of the day the players that are able to survive through the first 2 days are the ones that win the most. The first players to go out are the ones that are over aggressive, so we recommend for the first day to tighten up and play only big huge hands and don’t risk more than half your stack, don’t try to increase your chips by stealing the blinds or going after an abandoned pot, just hang in there and try to maximize your winnings when you are positive you have the nuts. All this has a simple explanation, all players that don’t really have a reason to be there, will try to double or triple their chip stacks most of the times with no action plan; although some might be lucky 80% of them will be out by the end of the day, so for now relax, enjoy and spot the big players.

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Phil Laak's New World Record!

Phil Laak New World Record!

Phil Laak passed the World record of playing poker continuous after clocking 115 hours! He played $10/$20 full ring NLHE and he chose the Bellagio for this special occasion.

Laak will donate the money to the Camp Sunshine organization, which holds summer camps for children with life-threatening illnesses. During this time donations were being received, and some players at the Bellagio also donated part of their winnings for this good cause.

Laak accomplished this new world record by planning his eating schedule and doing yoga. He was allowed to take 5 minutes every hour, or accumulate the breaks and take 30 minutes after 6 hours.

The previous record was set by Paul Zimbler last year in London; he held a record of 78 hours.

Congratulations Phil Laak and we hope to see many other players helping charity organizations and of course breaking world records.

Enjoy the video below!

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WSOP Coverage – First time Bracelet winners!

WSOP Coverage – First time Bracelet winners!

WSOP just started and already have many bracelet winners. It was Matt Matros at the WSOP Event#12; $1.5k Limit Hold’em who took his first bracelet and $189,870. Matros already have some history at the WPT Championship 2004 were he took the 3^rd place. On Monday it was Yan Chen’s turn that won his first one at the $1.5k NL 2-7 Draw Lowball event.

As you may recall last year Phil Ivey was the winner of this event, but wasn’t part of it this year.

It was a very close match among 3 players, but it was Chen that took the lead and dominated the game when he called Wattel who lost his last 90k.

Here are the results of the WSOP Event #14 -$1.5k 2-7 Draw Lowball (250 players):
1. Yan Chen $92.817
2. Mike Wattel $57.375
3. Nicholas Binger $37.857
4. Derric Haynie $25.839
5. Todd Bui $18.096
6. James Bord $12.997
7. Alexander Kravchenko $9.568
8. Daniel Nicewander $7.215

On another note the WSOP announced their decision about what to do with the final exemption for its 27-player Tournament of Champions. It will be the winner of a nine-person sit&go who will be awarded with the final spot, mainly from all the poker pros that have never won a bracelet.

The list includes Tom Dwan, Andy Bloch, Bertrand “ElKy” Grospellier, Gus Hansen, Michael Mizrachi, Liv Boeree, Paul Wasicka, Sorel Mizzi, and Don Cheadle. Of all these players only Mizrachi won a bracelet, but he is not eligible to receive votes because he won it a week ago in the $50,000 Players Championship.

The winner will play with 20 bracelet winners who were voted by the public, divided into automatic entries and an online qualifier.

The event will be filmed on Thursday and it will be shown on the WSOP Academy. The WSOP Academy runs instructional seminars during summer.

The Tournament of Champions will be held on June 27^th and will have its final table on July 4^th. Some of the players earned automatic entries; Mike Matusow, Mike Sexton and Duke are some of the names in this Championship.

Twenty players will have the chance to be part of this event through public vote. The voting ends on June 15^th, so keep on voting for your favorite player.

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Are you a No-Limit or Limit Texas Hold'em Player?

Are you a No-Limit or Limit Texas Hold'em Player?

There are many differences between No-Limit Texas Hold'em and Limit Texas Hold'em even when their dynamics of game are the same, while playing strategies must change. Position for example, is a very important factor that you need to keep in mind while playing No-Limit Hold’em because of the impact that your decision will have on your stack, while in Limit Texas Hold’em, it is a great advantage to have a good position, but you are still able to save your stack if you make a mistake.

Another important thing about No-Limit is that it is more profitable per hour than Limit Hold’em, even when the bankroll is the same, because the pots are a lot bigger than when you are playing Limit Hold’em, but also the risk of losing the pot increases.

If you are new at playing poker, then your game is Limit Hold’em for the simple reason that you are not under so much risk and you have more time to make decisions. When you play Limit Hold’em you don’t need to be so much aware of how much money your opponents have and how much money you have, but only on the blind level you are playing at.

It is a bit harder for you to recover from a big loss if you are playing Limit Hold’em, on difference from the No-Limit tables where you can recover everything you lost with just one good hand. The good thing about Limit Hold’em is that you can manage your bankroll a bit better and if you suffer of bad beat is not going to be as bad as if it was in No-Limit Hold’em.

So whatever it is your game, we are sure you will find the perfect site to be profitable here at www.the-royalflush-club.com

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Tournament vs. Ring Game Strategies

Tournament vs. Ring Game Strategies

Cash vs. Buy-ins what is better? This is the question most poker players do to themselves and experts very often. But in reality what is better than the other will depend on your game style and time you are able to spend playing; and whether it is live or online play you are deciding to play.

We will start by analyzing online play. Cash ring game tables have a very suitable advantage for a player that is used to risk his money and has a bankroll to do it. It will depend on the stakes you are playing at but just like many other experts we recommend the 100 blind rule, which is start up your play with at least 100 times the big blind. This will give you enough time to play the max amount of hands possible without been in a position where with a small bet you are forced to move all in. Another situation you must consider is the limit, as it will define the max you can put in. Online there is an edge you will not find offline and that is playing multiple tables at once, this can be good for the mid to experienced player so be careful you have the focus and the bankroll to do so.

At online tournaments there is a big edge and that is the chance of qualifying to bigger events in matter of minutes without moving from the comfort of your home, and of course having a whole lot more traffic in buy-in events than at a local casino, and even most Vegas ones. This will make prizes bigger than most games out there from a couple hundred ones to even several millions. Another big advantage when you are starting up building your bankroll is freerolls that will give out money for free for you to enhance your stack. For those player looking for more action are sit and go’s that are tournaments that don’t start at a specific time but instead they start once a certain amount of players make it in, this makes these tournaments particularly popular as they are fast and normally small and involve players with the same characteristics as you.

On live tournaments and cash games the story is other, you will find the need to transport yourself to the casino/poker room and spend a certain amount of hours in the place. Although they are build to make you believe hours don’t pass by with a certain number of lights and sounds that trick your mind, this can be very tiring for your mind and body. Pokerwise, the will affect you as the more tire and beat up you are the worst you play. There is also the alcohol factor, that casinos use to keep players playing long hours, and in poker is no exception. Cash games will be fill up with experienced players, looking to make big amounts of winnings and trying to trick inexperienced players. On tournaments you will find buy-ins is higher than the average player can afford, normally around the $200 to start and up from there. The advantages are the amount of time you play with the buy in and the good time you can spend at the casinos while playing.

As you can see both world have their things, and both games have their advantages as well, disadvantages are many, but your game style will define them and you must make the choice which choice suits you best.

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When to move up on stakes

When to move up on stakes

Once you reached the middle poker player level and you are trying to make your play a bit more profitable, then it’s the right time for you to move up on the stakes you are playing to increase the chances of winning on every hand. It is very important for you to understand that when you try to do this you need to have a good control of your bankroll and understand everything that is involved on the bankroll management. It is a matter of trying at first and see how it goes, if you think you are not able to control yourself and just play a few hands just to try how well you can do it in that level.

The reason why you need to have a middle level to be able to move up is because you need to have a decent bankroll to do it. If you are starting and you have $100.00 and you pretend to play on $1.00 no limit tables, then it is very possible that you will only be able to play a couple of hands and drop your game for at least a week. The key of bankroll management is that you need to only bet a certain amount of money per day and not spending more than that, this way you will be able to play more hands per month and increase the chances of recovering the money you lost.

Another thing you can try is for example if you are on a 2/4NL table where you play 20 hands every day, you can try at 4/6NL playing 10 hands a day, that would be the same amount of money but if you play it ok you will increase your profit. There are many rules to apply when you play poker, some of them are a bit too over the top for my taste, like the one that says you need to have 100 times the amount of the stake to enter a table. If you are a beginner or even a mid player, it is very hard for you to start with that amount of money.

Another factor that will help you is that once you have some experience on playing poker you become more confident and a bit more secure, let’s say it like this, you are more aware of the situations and you are able to recognize and to choose which hands to play, which will allow you to save your bankroll money and invest it well.

Remember that the important thing here is to take care of your bankroll, once you can control how many hands you play and you understood how the majority of the odds you can go up and probably don’t stop increasing your winnings in an incredible way. Try to remember your own rules instead of following someone else. Higher stakes will always be there, so take your time and enjoy! Once in a while visit the low limit tables, and take advantage of the ones that are still learning.

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