Poker Concorde

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.

At last years WSOP, we saw a resurgence of the professional players, as several bracelets were won by well known pros. The previous year had seen most of the bracelets won by unknown players. Whilst I have nothing against unknown players making a name for themselves, it is always nice to see those that dedicate much of their life to the game, being rewarded with bracelets.

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This year so far, the professionals have again been picking up a few bracelets, and the biggest success story so far is that of Phil Ivey. At the time of writing this, he has picked up 2 poker bracelets this year, taking his career total to 7. The first of these bracelets came in Event 8, the $2,500 No Limit, Deuce to Seven Draw. He picked up just over $96,000 for his win, in an event that had a relatively small field due to the fact that the game is rather obscure.

This takes nothing away from the achievement however, when you consider that many World Series bracelet hunting pros look to enter this type of tournament due to it’s smaller field. The second of Phil Iveys bracelets this year, was claimed in Event 25, the $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud hi/lo. Again, the starting field of 376 players was relatively small, but there were plenty of pros to be found at the tables.

Phil Iveys second bracelet win also netted him over $220,000, and probably much more in side bets with fellow professional players. Other familiar players to have picked up a bracelet this year include Daniel Alaei, Jeff Lisandro, Roland de Wolfe, and J.C Tran. There are events yet to be played too, so let us hope to see more great plays, and players, at the final tables of this years WSOP.

Many online poker schools will give you the basics of how to play Holdem and Omaha, but not all will teach you how to play Five Card Draw.

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Some online poker rooms will offer Five Card Draw, with single draw being by far the most commonly played. For those who have never played this game, here are a few basic rules and tips. At the start of the game, blinds are placed, and each player is dealt 5 cards. The action moves around the table clockwise as normal, and each player has a chance to put in a preflop raise, with Limit or Pot Limit being the most common formats.

After this round of betting is complete, each poker player has the chance to draw as many cards as they please, once. Bear in mind that you are trying to make all the usual poker hands from the 5 cards you are holding, with the usual hand rankings being the same.

After this, there is one final round of betting before the hands are turned over, and the pot is won.
The draw itself can give you a lot more information than you think, and with fairly low stakes play, you will find these scenarios are common.

If a poker player looks keen to raise or reraise preflop and then draws one card, they are extremely likely to have had two pair pre-draw. The chance will be very high that they still have two pair afterwards too. If a player seems content to flat call or limp in and then draws one, they may very well have a strong draw such as four cards to a Flush or Straight.

Raises followed by draws of two cards usually signify either a set, or a strong pair with a retained high card. Players who draw three cards will almost certainly always have a single pair of some sort. Bear these points in mind, and look for poker schools onsite to give you more detailed information, and you should be beating the Five Card Draw games in no time.

Tom Dwan was born in New Jersey, July 1986, and in the past year or two, has become very well known on the poker circuit. His exploits in the game began with online play, as he quickly moved through to the biggest tables and started to make his living there.

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His erratic plays have certainly provided excitement and talking points on shows such as High Stakes Poker. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether he is very clever and talented, or reckless and insane with his plays. Either way, Tom Dwan is certainly the name everyone has been talking about recently, partly due to his online challenge involving a million dollar side bet.

This challenge has been taking place on Full Tilt, and covers 50,000 multi tabled hands in either Holdem or Omaha. Patrick Antonius is currently undertaking the challenge, and it has certainly made for interesting viewing. Opinion seems to be very divided over Tom Dwan I feel, as there will always be those who think that playing premium hands in the correct way constitutes playing poker well.

Of course they are right to an extent, but these same people cannot see any skill in Tom Dwan getting involved with weaker hands and ending up winning the pot. The point here though, is that Dwan often seems to get involved with a weaker hand, but still outplays his opponents on the Flop and Turn quite often, which is a very difficult skill in itself.
In my opinion, if you enjoy getting involved on the flop, mixing up your play and starting hands, you will always be a dangerous opponent. Tom Dwan seems to mix this, with a fearless nature when it comes to money, and that can be a very difficult combination to play against.

There are a number of different poker game varieties that can be played when it comes to poker, and online play has led to different tournament formats emerging too. The most commonly offered games online are Texas Holdem, Omaha, and Seven Card Stud, in that order. Often you will find hi/lo variations of Stud and Omaha offered, and some sites will offer other lesser played games such as Five Card Draw or Razz.

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Having this choice of game is nice to see from a players perspective, but it is not solely the option of game variety that is available to us. We also have the option of playing a cash game, a single table tournament (STT) or even a multi table tournament (MTT). Within these choices you will sometimes find further options such as bounty tournaments, satellites and other special types of MTT.

In many ways you could say that we are spoilt for choice when we play online, and that is undoubtedly one of the aspects of online play that makes it so popular.

Whilst you might find tables fill more slowly in the lesser known games, I certainly feel it is worth the time to play them as they all involve different challenges. Putting your poker skill to the test with a new challenge in this way is enjoyable, as well as helpful to your poker development I feel.

Apart from anything else, it can also bring renewed enthusiasm to your game if you become tired of non stop Holdem.

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As you play a poker game with opposing players, you should be picking up on their ways of playing draws, mediocre starting hands, and strong hands. I think that multi tabling limits the chances to do this, but I feel it is key in giving yourself some sort of edge in the game, as a recent SnG online demonstrated to me.

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My eventual heads up opponent would not put down any strong starting hand at all, would call most raises preflop with a draw or mediocre starting hand, and was drawing strange numbers of cards with certain hands. This made them tricky to play against, and left me unable to pick up blinds through pure aggression preflop. I knew I had to try something a little different, and sat back to play a patient game, trying to keep my chipstack on an even keel. I knew that my capability of making the right folds would work in my favour against his apparent lack of knowledge about where his ‘fold’ button was situated.

I started with considerably less poker chips though, and knew there was a chance that I might not be able to turn things around in time anyway, but luckily I found a favourable situation in time. My opponent could not fold their Two Pair, and doubled me up, despite having enough chances to sense danger with the game being Pot Limit.

I then proceeded to pick up a few pots post draw when my opponent drew one, as I had seen him often drawing to inside Straight draws amongst other long shots. I walked into a two pair once or twice, but I was adapting my usual play to single out his weaknesses, and was wearing his stack down. I eventually got a little lucky to be dealt a pat hand against his Two Pair, and that was enough to take the rest of the poker chips in play.

With online play, there is always a danger of players being disconnected, and this could lead to a key hand being automatically folded which would be very frustrating for the player involved. Due to this potential possibility though, there have been changes made in recent years to include protection from this eventuality. If a player finds themselves disconnected in the middle of a hand, the hands will be turned over as if the player is already all in and the remaining cards will be dealt, followed by the pot being awarded to the best hand.

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Personally, I am all in favour of having some sort of protection in place for this possibility, but I really don’t feel that the current system is working. Whilst it does serve the function it was intended for, it also opens the door for players to abuse the system. I saw a suspected example of this a few days ago when two players were involved in a cash game.

There had been raises and reraises on the flop and turn, and a big pot was developing. When the river came down, one of the players shoved all their remaining money in. after a few seconds the other player disconnected, the bet was forced to be taken back and the hands were turned over. One player had made two pair Aces up and the player who had mysteriously disconnected, had (A,K) for top pair. I do not know for certain of course, but it would seem that the disconnected player couldn’t be sure if their hand was good, and effectively blocked their opponent from being able to raise them on the river by disconnecting themselves.
If this is what is taking place among a minority of players as I suspect, it needs to be stopped pretty quickly, as it is completely unlawful and unethical.

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