holdem poker Archives - Page 4 of 4

Full Tilt Poker Take 2

April 7, 2011

Full Tilt Poker introduces Take 2. This painless promotion requires you to only opt into it. Take 2 is a cash ring game promotion. There are two parts to the promo. One side of the coin gives you double Full Tilt Points for playing either two standard ring games at the same time, or one Rush Poker game any time from April 08-April 17, 2011. The second part awards cash for playing multiple days. The qualifying is still the same, two standard rings or one Rush game, but the number of days played determines your cash. Play 5 of the 10 days and get $5 cash. If you play 9 of the 10 days you will receive an additional $20 cash for a $25 total. There is a certain number of points to get the double points and the “day” recorded.

How to Participate in Take 2
Follow these steps to participate in Take 2 and claim your cash and bonus points:

If you haven’t done so already, download Full Tilt Poker and set up an account.

Click on the My Promotions box and then the Take 2 link.

This will lead you to your personal Take 2 page. Follow the instructions on this page – you must elect to participate in this promotion or you will not receive cash or double points for your play during Take 2

The Full Story from the proverbial Horses Mouth:
Take 2 at Full Tilt Poker to earn up to $25 AND double the Full Tilt Points that you’d normally receive for playing in your favorite ring games.

Running from Friday, April 8th to Sunday, April 17th, play at least two standard ring-game tables at the same time or any Rush Poker* table during Take 2 to receive double the Full Tilt Points. Play as often as you can during Take 2 and we’ll also reward you with up to $25 in cash, depending on how many days you play.

Earn up to $25 in Cash
The more you play during Take 2, the more you’ll earn. Earn at least five Take 2 bonus points on any five days during Take 2 to get $5 in cash. Do so on nine of the ten days to get an additional $20, for a total of $25:

Level 1: Play on any five days during Take 2 and receive $5
Level 2: Play on nine of the ten days during Take 2 and receive an additional $20, for a cumulative total of $25
Earn Double the Full Tilt Points

There are two ways to earn double the Full Tilt Points during Take 2:

Play TWO standard ring-game tables at the same time and receive double points at BOTH tables. For example, if you earn 60 points while playing on one table and 40 points while playing on the other, you’d normally receive 100 Full Tilt Points for your play. During Take 2, you’ll earn a total of 200 points – 100 points for your play and an additional 100 bonus points.
Play any table of Rush Poker* – the world’s fastest poker game – and receive double the points. For example, if you earn 100 points while playing at a Rush Poker* table during Take 2, you’ll get an additional 100 bonus points for a total of 200 Full Tilt Points. Rush Poker* is the fastest way to earn double points during Take 2.
You can use your bonus points to get some great gear from the Full Tilt Poker Store, including plasma TVs, iPods, custom Full Tilt Poker jerseys and more. You can also use your points to enter special Full Tilt Points Sit & Gos and Multi-Table Tournaments.

Stealing the blinds in No-Limit Hold’em Poker

April 5, 2011

Most players these days are aware of stealing the blinds in no-limit Texas Holdem play. But yet I do feel that there is an awful lot of misunderstanding with regards this part of the game. I think that some of the reason for this is based on general misunderstanding with regards to the form of poker being played. In fact I have seen many articles written that simply referred to hold’em without any mention of whether the game that was being played was limit, pot-limit or no-limit.

Stealing the blinds in limit poker is a very important part of the game simply because the blinds represent a very large percentage of the amount of money being risked. Let us say that the game is $2-$4 limit holdem and the blinds are $1-$2. A pre-flop raise would be to $4 and this $4 wins $3 if immediately successful. That $3 represents 75% of the amount that is being wagered. But in no-limit play then the situation is somewhat different and also in pot-limit too.

In this form of poker then making a double the big blind limit type raise would not get most players to fold and your bet could even get re-raised by many players. So most players when raising to steal the blinds tend to raise to either 3x the big blind or 3.5x the big blind which is a pot sized raise. So if the game were $1-$2 no-limit Texas Holdem then the stealer would be risking $6-$7 to win $3 which is only between 43-50% of the amount being wagered. This is vastly different to the 75% in limit hold’em.

Of course the obvious flip side to this is that your opponents need to risk more money to call or raise you but that is also offset by you risking more as well so it is a chicken and egg type situation. But the deciding factor is that as the most skilled player then you ideally want to be getting your opponents to put more money into action and raising achieves this objective.

Good no-limit players do not raise from position just to steal the blinds. They raise from position for a multitude of reasons of which stealing the blinds just happens to be one of them. Usually good players see it as being in their interests to escalate the stakes while being in position and they do this with great skill. Mediocre and poor players just “steal blinds” and then make blind continuation bets and try to blast the opponent away. This often works but it is very risky and also very expensive when it goes wrong.

It can also serve to tilt a player as well when they lose a big chunk of money through being overly aggressive. So simply raising from position to steal the blinds in no-limit Texas Holdem is not as appealing from an expressed odds sense and so other plays have merit if you have an edge over your opponents post flop. Limping is an often underrated play in no-limit but if you can out play your opponents post flop then it certainly has merit.

Texas Holdem preflop hand rankings

April 5, 2011

Texas Hold’em Pre-Flop Ranking of Hands

Premium Hands
The very best of the best starting hands. It’s viable to raise or re-raise these hands in any position.
• AA
• KK
• AKs (the s refers to both cards of the hand being the same suit, which suit doesn’t matter for this discussion)
• QQ

• JJ

Good Hands
These hands are often worth a raise if you’re the first one to enter the pot. With some of them, it will often be right to just call or fold with them if someone raised in front of you.
• AK,
• AQs, AJs, ATs
• AQ, AJ
• KQs KJs, QJs, JTs
• TT, 99

• AT, KQ
• KTs, QTs

Solid Hands
These hands should generally be limped pre-flop, and should usually be folded to a raise
• 88, 77
• J9s, T9s
• 98s, 87s
• Ace with any other card of the same suit as your Ace

• KJ, QJ, JT

Decent Hands
These hands that are best played only in late position, usually only if there are several limpers in front of you.
• Low Pairs (66 or lower)
• Suited Connectors like 76s, 65s, 54s (don’t usually play anything lower like 32s)
• KT, QT
• K9s, J8s

Hands not mentioned are generally trash hands and should only be played in situations where you have a big advantage over your opponent. For example, when you’re trying to steal the blinds, or are up against a very weak player.

While narrowing your starting hand selection is important, doing so is just the tip of the iceberg. After choosing which hands to play, you next have to know how to play these hands, before the flop, on the flop, and further on into the hands. You have to decide whether the best play is to call, bet, raise, or fold at each stage of the hand. As you progress and learn how each of these options works best, your chance of winning the hand increases tremendously.

After you have strengthened your fundamentals through each stage of the hand, you should be looking for other ways to win hands. This could include things such as bluffing, reading your opponents, and using your table position to your advantage. Adding these tools to your arsenal will greatly improve your chances of winning hands and, eventually, the size of your bankroll.

Go back to Poker Strategy