Poker Concorde

The history of online poker is relatively brief compared to the history of the game itself, but already, online poker has changed the face of the game.

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Poker was not all that well known 12 years ago, when the first small rooms began to offer a basic playing site online. In the present day, poker is a huge industry online, with thousands upon thousands of players logging into poker rooms every day. Not long after the first room opened online, PartyPoker opened it’s doors to players. They quickly became the leading competitor, and set about outstripping their rivals in much of what was offered. To this day, PartyPoker remains a great poker room, but it has to be said that bigger names have overtaken them in terms of renown.

The past decade has seen online poker rooms opening up one after another, to the point where it could now be argued that the industry has become somewhat flooded with online operators. Even so, the demand for poker still appears to be expanding, along with the games popularity, and so a mass of online poker room closures is very unlikely.

Instead, many poker rooms are thriving, and offering their own answer to the WSOP in the ‘WCOOP’ series, and have continually offered bigger and better tournaments over the past few years. The history of online poker will be an interesting one as it has brought the game to the masses, in such a way to alter the face of the game forever. Let us hope that despite the success of the online game, it never completely eclipses the need for the live game.

Generally speaking, poker sites that concentrate solely on free play are hard to come by. The key reason for this being that people enjoy the thrill of playing for money, and the game carries more excitement with it that way. More importantly, people play their poker hands to the best of their abilities and with the utmost thought when there is money concerned, and this is not usually so when it comes to free games.

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Regardless of this, there are still sites dedicated to offering free poker games to players, often for points instead of cash. There are not only poker sites that revolve around cash changing hands to be found online, there also numerous informitive sites and poker schooling sites for those that have a passing interest in the game.

Even those poker sites that are purely for playing the game itself have free play on virtually every one of them, meaning that the game can be enjoyed without financial risk. Players can even play in ‘freeroll’ tournaments on such poker sites, where they pay no money to enter a game, but still have a chance of winning a small cash prize. Free poker sites may not be abundant online, but free poker in general, can be found quite easily. The possibility is there to earn a small amount of cash with a starting investment of nothing at all if you have the poker skill and dedication.

In the modern era, where you find gambling sites of all natures, you will find computerised versions of favoured gambling pastimes. You can find many enjoyable games in compterised format, including Blackjack, many poker variants, and even horse races.

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Generally, these ‘video’ versions of gambling favourites, are played against the computer with no human counterpart needed. In order to make a profit the gaming site has to make the game such that the odds are slanted in their favour a little, so it is probably not wise to play these games with a mind to making money over the long run. Even if your skill as a poker player is considerable, you will still find video poker gets the best of you in the long run.

The fact is, that video poker is luck, and whilst you can play these games for fun, it is often best to quit if you manage to get ahead financially. Video poker has not had the same explosion in popularity that regular poker has, and the reasons for this are obvious. Real poker offers the chance to pit your wits against real people across the table, and you can give yourself an advantage by playing superior poker to the player next to you.
Most poker players realise that video poker is essentially a less enjoyable form of the real thing, and with odds slightly against you before you even start. Despite all this, it can be enjoyable to play a few hands of video poker for fun, and there are some interesting different formats of this type of game available.

Learning to play poker has become easier with the introduction of online poker rooms and the wealth of information regarding the game that has followed it’s popularity increase. Texas Holdem has become the most played and enjoyed card game in the world over the past ten years, and the rules of playing are made much more simple if you already understand the hand rankings.

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These hand rankings determine which hand beats which, and the list of these hands can be found online at any site that specialises in poker schooling. There are several variations of the game of poker, but with Texas holdem, each player begins by placing blinds which are forced bets to the left of the dealer button, which moves one place around the table each hand. Then each player is dealt two cards face down and the rest of the table then decides whether to fold their hand, match the blinds, or raise.

Once the raising is complete (if there is any), the ‘flop’ cards are dealt. Three cards are dealt face up in the middle of the table. By looking at these cards you should start to make the best five card hand you can with your two, and the three on the table. After a betting round on the flop, a fourth card is turned up on the table. this is the ‘turn’. One more poker betting round follows, before a final fifth card is dealt face up. This card is the ‘river card’. After a final round of betting, players turn over their hands with the best possible five card poker hand from the seven cards available, taking the pot.

Online poker is a relatively new development within the game, and it has altered the way poker is played, as well as bringing it into the homes of thousands of players that might otherwise be too scared to go into a casino.

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Stepping through the doors of a casino with little or no poker experience would be very daunting, but with the arrival of online poker, anyone could learn the game.For the moment when online poker truly arrived, we have to look back 10-11 years ago. It is astonishing to think of the comparison between the multitude of online poker rooms and thousands upon thousands of players now, and the fact that online poker simply didn’t exist 12 years ago.

Technically, the first online poker room to open it’s doors to players in the current format was ‘Planet Poker’ although as you might expect, the graphics were poor, and there weren’t exactly players fighting to get in through the door. PartyPoker.com were the first of the big name poker rooms to open, and subsequently build a strong following of poker players in 1999.

Over the next seven years, pokers popularity grew massively, partly thanks to the inceased interest in television companies to air tournaments, mostly in the U.S. In 2006 however, things changed, with the departing U.S government at the time, forcing through a final piece of legislation effectively banning it’s players from online play. The republican governement had been trying to do this for quite some time, and finally managed it. Despite all this, most online poker rooms are still holding their own, and many predict that they will continue to do so until the current governnent has the time to review it’s current legislation on the subject.

Deposit bonuses have become an important part of online poker rooms, as the percentage paid for first time deposits is often the first thing you see on arriving at a poker rooms home page.

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Of course there are lots of finer details involved in these bonuses, but players will inevitably be instantly lured by a big percentage bonus. These incentives are offered by online poker rooms for two reasons really. Firstly, there will always be a contingent of players who enjoy the game but are not overly interested in playing for cash. Provided they are not resolute in a desire to not play for real money, they can be persuaded to make that first cash deposit by the allure of free bonus cash.

This online poker deposit bonus taps into the potential of new players developing their game onsite, and offers them a chance to get started at cash play with a generous boost to their first real funds. The other clear reason that springs to mind is purely competition between poker rooms online. With the rising popularity of poker over the past decade, lots of online poker rooms have appeared, each hoping to fill the space in that particular market. It only takes one poker room to offer a percentage cash bonus to new players depositing for the first time, and suddenly the rest must follow suit so that they are not left behind.

Whatever the reasons, the players are obviously happy to receive these welcome bonuses. Most poker rooms offer around 100% on top of the amount of the first deposit. You will usually need to play for real cash in order to activate this bonus.

Online poker schools can be found at most poker rooms online, and offer an important service to players, especially ones who are new to certain poker games.

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Almost every player who logs into a poker site or poker room will know how to play one form of poker, but they may want to experiment with other types of game. Without a poker school showing you the basics of the game, it would be a much harder task to understand the subtle tactics and strategies of a game.

I would certainly have to say that the amount you can learn simply by reading about poker is limited, although as far as understanding the basics, reading is a good start. If you are looking to improve your game much further, then there is no substitute for experience and spending time at the tables. You can learn to play poker by both speaking with other players, reading up in online poker schools, and of course playing the game. It is important to remember that developing your skill as a poker player is a work in progress, so do not feel disheartened if you read everything you can find in online poker schools but still do not win consistently.

Perseverance and time spent playing the game are the finest ways to become a better player overall, but taking the time to read through online poker schools can often be more helpful than you might think. Even the most experienced players can still pick up information to consider from reading about the game.

Online poker forums are being found more frequently online, on informitive poker sites, as well as online poker rooms too.

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The primary purpose of any forum is to allow people the chance to communicate freely with each other, and poker forums are no different. Whilst it is true that most of the conversation topics revolve around poker, that is not always an exclusive subject of an online poker forum. Poker forums will often have areas which are off topic and you can usually find plenty of interesting discussions going on here.

If you are a new player at an online poker room, or are new to the game entirely, you will find forums particularly useful. Players discuss strategy ideas and thoughts here, giving new players a simple way to understand the basics of different poker games. When it comes to forums attached to poker rooms, you will often find particular tournaments or events advertised here. So if you are looking for a special tournament, you might find one listed here, often with a password for forum users only.

Forums have their place and purpose within online poker rooms, just as chat rooms do. The difference between these though, is that chat rooms must be watched much more carefully on a constant basis, and are more likely to make players sit and talk rather than play poker. This is likely to be the reasoon most online poker rooms use forums instead of chat rooms predominantly.

The 2009 World Poker Tour has seen the tail end of last season take place, with January 19th seeing a winner crowned for the Southern Poker Championship in Minnesota. Allen Carter took victory there, along with a cool $1,000,000 in prize money.

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February saw two events taking place, on February 26th Cornel Andrew Cimpan won the LA Poker Classic to pick up over $1.6 million. Then on February 28th the Celebrity WPT Invitational saw Freddy Deeb win the title and $100,000 prize money.

March and April finished the World Poker Tour season off, with the Bay 101 Shooting Star event being won by Steven Brecher. In April, Vadim Trincher won the Foxwoods Poker Classic, and at the end of April, the World Poker Tour, World Championship, was won by Yevgeniy Timoshenko who picked up over $2.1 million for his 1st place finish.

The WPT Venice event took place on May 10th and was won by Sven Ragnar Astrom, who took home 397,960 Euros in prize money. The Barcelona open was the most recent event to take place in this season, with Mark Randel Flowers taking the title, and 277,000 Euros for his win. Several more events are scheduled over the summer, with Las Vegas being the venue for many of the events. We may even see some players who arrived for the WSOP, stay a little longer to try their luck in the WPT too.

Most of the winners in this years WSOP have now been decided, and there are some players who have had a remarkable year.

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I spoke recently about Phil Iveys achievements in picking up two poker bracelets this year, but another pro player called Jeff Lisandro has just picked up his third bracelet in a single year. This kind of feat is a rare thing, showing Lisandros mastery of Stud based games.

The first of his WSOP bracelets came in the event 16, $1,500 Seven Card Stud. He beat a field of 359 players to take down what was the second bracelet of his career, the first also being won at seven Card Stud two years previously. The second of his bracelets this year came in event 37, the Seven Card Stud 8 or better World Championship. Lisandro beat 163 players to win his second bracelet this year, picking up more than $430,000 in the process.

The third bracelet of the year for Lisandro came in event 44, the $2,500 Seven Card Razz. 314 players fell by the wayside as Jeff Lisandro completed his astonishing three bracelet triumph, netting a total of over $742,000 for these three events alone.

These victories cement his place in history, as he is now perhaps the best player of seven card games, and particularly stud, in the world. Added to this, you have to say that early in the poker tournament during the Seven Card Stud World Championship event 6, his finish of 10th place out of 142 only adds weight to this argument.