Poker Reviews

Poker run to help family’s farewell to little boy
With his only son’s health failing fast this past June, Randy Woodcock asked the boy if he could make it to his tenth birthday.

Read more on The Valdosta Daily Times

888poker’s Shane Warne Takes $40,000 in the Victoria Championship High Stakes Hold’em Tournament
It is the Victoria Champs tournament series at Crown Casino in Melbourne, Victoria and Shane Warne has hit big at his second Final Table of his poker career.

Read more on PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance

You may have seen some of the ads and come-ons for major casinos that provide perks and bonuses to their high rolling guests. These can be pretty tempting, and they may have you salivating as you consider what you could do with the free plays, bonus chips and other extras. The only trouble is that the casinos are far away and can involve a lot more financial outlay than you have available at the moment. Okay, maybe a trip to Atlantic City, Las Vegas or Monte Carlo isn?t in the stars for you just yet. Don’t worry, because you can still enjoy online gambling and take advantage of some of the best casino bonuses in the world.

Online casino action is taking the gambling industry by storm, and the different establishments are all vying with each other for your business. To make you become a loyal patron there are plenty of great casino bonuses being offered and the best thing about them is that they are free perks to thank you for playing. Now, come on, just how cool is it that you literally get paid to throw down at some of the top virtual gambling sites throughout the world.

Here is a list of some of the best casino bonuses that you can claim today:

No Deposit Bonus-this is a true freebie deal and is exactly what it says, ‘no deposit’. You are not required to deposit any kind of funds to try this bonus out on any games of your choosing.

Matching Bonus: This is where you will open an account, add some funds to your account and the casino will give you a matching bonus, dollar per dollar up to a predetermined amount. You could very well see your casino money double or even triple in size simply because of the bonus.

Monthly Casino Bonus: After signing up you are promised a certain amount of free chips to play with each month for as long as you continue to play on their site. This is a popular offer among many online casinos as they attempt to keep your business.

Percentage Bonus: This bonus is similar to the matching bonus with the exception that it is calculated to a percentage of your deposit amount. For example, if you deposited $100 dollars, you would receive $50 worth of free chips to play with.

The Cash Back Bonuses: While many people desire these bonuses, they are a little bit on the hard side to find. With the cash back bonus you will be repaid any monies that you lose during a specific time of play.

Refer A Friend: The referral program will add chips or money into your account each time someone signs up as a referral from you. Since you referring the online casino to your friends help their business, they in turn help you a little.

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The traditional venues for playing poker, brick and mortar casinos and poker rooms, can be intimidating for new players. And casinos have also been reluctant to make adequate room for card rooms up until recently, because of the lower profits from poker. Casinos would make much more money if they replaced poker rooms with slot machines or other traditional casino games.

By contrast, online venues are dramatically cheaper because of the smaller overhead costs. Adding more tables costs an online poker room nothing and takes up no valuable space, but makes dozens of players who can sit at those new tables happy. This is how the online venues can let players sit at tables with such low stakes, going all the way down to 1/2, and offer promotions like freeroll tournaments (meaning no entry fee).

Major online poker sites offer features to attract new players. A common feature is the offering of satellite tournaments, in which the winner will gain entry to real-life poker tournaments. Chris Moneymaker, who won the 2003 World Series of Poker, won entry into that tournament through a satellite. The following year saw three times as many entrants into the WSOP. Four of the players at the 2004 final table won their seats through online cardrooms, and the winner, Greg Raymer, was one of those four.

The major online poker sites offer varying features to entice new players. One common feature is to offer tournaments called satellites by which the winners gain entry to real-life poker tournaments. It was through one such tournament on Poker Stars net that Chris Moneymaker won his entry to the 2003 World Series of Poker. He went on to win the main event, shocking the poker world. The 2004 World Series featured three times as many players as in 2003. At least four players in the WSOP final table won their entry through an online cardroom. Like Moneymaker, 2004 winner Greg Raymer also won his entry at the Poker Stars online cardroom.

October 2004 saw Sportingbet, then the world’s largest publicly traded online gaming company, announce the acquisition of Paradise Poker, one of the online poker industry’s first and largest cardrooms. The sale was for $340 million dollars and marked the first time an online cardroom was owned by a public company. Several cardroom parent companies have gone public since then.

In June 2005, PartyGaming, the parent company of the then largest online poker site, went public on the London Stock Exchange. It achieved an initial public offering market value over $8 billion. At the time of the IPO, 92% of PartyGaming’s income came from poker operations.

As of March 2008, there were less than forty stand-alone cardrooms and poker networks with real levels of traffic. There were more than 600 independed skins which group together and form the networks. As of January 2009 most online poker traffic occurs on just a few of the major networks and stand-alones, notable Poker Stars net, Full Tilt Poker, and the iPoker network. Most of the high stakes action takes place on Full Tilt, all top ten winning players from 2008 were on their site.

As of February 2010, there are about 550 online poker websites. 16 of those are stand-alone and the rest are skins that operate on 21 different networks, the largest being iPoker. Poker Stars net is now the world’s most highly trafficked online poker room.

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The different Texas Hold Em Poker hands are exactly the same as normal poker hands. If you don’t know these don’t worry because I am going to explain them all. There are ten different hands that you can have. In order from worst to best, they are: low, 1 pair, 2 pair, 3 of a kind, straight, flush, full house, 4 of a kind, straight flush and royal flush. I will explain each of these in detail. The person with the highest hand wins.

When people talk about cards in text they will type the number of the card, and also a letter denoting the suit. H=hearts, D=diamonds, S=spades, C=clubs. Jack is J, Queen is Q, King is K and Ace is A. So for example a nine of clubs is 9C and a queen of hearts is QH. Some people put a hyphen ‘-’ in between, some not. For multiple cards in a hand some people will just use a space i.e. 7D 8D 9D 10D JD or some people will use a hyphen i.e. 7D-8D-9D-10D-JD. Sometimes people wont put anything and this is usually hard to read. It takes a little getting used to but you should be able to decode most peoples explanations with little effort.

Now for all of the Texas Hold Em Poker Hands:

Low: This hand is very bad. A low hand is essentially nothing. You have no good hands. An example would be 7D-5S-4C-3C-2H. Its nothing. Although for the most part this hand is very bad, if two people have a low hand the person with the single highest card wins.

1 Pair: This is the first hand you will usually make. A pair is having a single pair of a type of card. The number must match and obviously the suit won’t be able to. An example would be 2H-6H-10C-JC-JS. So in this example the player has a pair of jacks. When two more more players have a pair the person with the highest pair will win.

2 Pair: This is a fairly good hand you can usually get quite easily. 2 pair is just like have a pair two times. An example would be AC-7H-7D-QC-QH. So in this example the player has a pair of 7’s and a pair of Queen’s. When two players both have 2 pair the player with the single highest pair out of all of them wins. It doesn’t matter if his second pair is lower then the other players.

3 of a kind: This is a good hand that you can make quite easily if you start with a pair in the hole. This hand is simply having three cards all of the same, like JH-5S-8C-8S-8D. This player has three 8’s so has 3 of a kind. If multiple players have 3 of a kind the player with the highest wins.

Straight: Here we deviate from the standard number matching. A straight is any five consecutively numbered cards. It doesn’t matter what suit just the numbers must be consecutive. For example 7D-8H-9S-10C-JH. If more then one player has a straight the player with the highest overall card at the end of the straight wins. An Ace can be used as either a low ace, like 12345, or a high ace, like 10JQKA. It cannot be used in the middle. QKA23 is not a valid hand and would be considered a low hand.

Flush: A flush is simply any five cards with the same suit. It doesn’t matter the number of the cards they just all have to be the same suit. An example would be AS-2S-6S-JS-9S. See how they are all spades? That is a flush. If two or more players both have a flush the person with the highest overall card will win. So having just one Ace, King or Queen in your flush tends to pay off.

Full House: A full house is a 3 of a kind plus a pair. An example is KD-KH-3S-3C-3D. See the 3 of a kind of three’s and the pair of king’s. This hand is very good but harder to get. The more important numbered card is the one in the 3 of a kind. If there is a showdown the player with the higher number in their 3 of a kind will win.

4 of a kind: As the name suggests, this hand is having 4 of the same kind of card. Like QC-QD-QH-QS-10C. Four queens makes 4 of a kind. Like with all the other hands, if two players have a four of a kind the player with the highest numbered card in their 4 of a kind will win.

Straight Flush: This hand is extremely hard to get and is a combination of the straight and the flush. So the numbers of the cards must be consecutive and all the suits must be the same. James Bond wins with a straight flush in Casino Royal. An example is 4S-5S-6S-7S-8S. Consecutive numbers plus all spades. If more then one player has a straight flush the player with the highest numbered card on the end of their’s will win.

Royal Flush: This is just a straight flush but at the top end. Its essentially the highest straight flush you can get. Its the ultimate: 10H-JH-QH-KH-AH. Nothing beats this hand. This is the best hand you can get.

Still with me?

So I have explained all of the different Texas Hold Em Poker hands that you can get. I put them in order from worst to best. Of course, each better one beats any one under it. So a 3 of a kind beats a pair automatically, and a flush beats that easily. Take the time to read through them again to remember them better. Its worth memorizing these so you immediately know who has won a poker hand, without having to refer to anything. Always remember, when two people have the same hand the winner is the person with the highest overall card making that hand.

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