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Poker is a world-wide phenomenon. Fortunes are won and lost everyday. If you are keen to start playing online poker, it can be challenging at first with many poker rooms and bonuses available to choose from.

There are many common mistakes and pitfalls that can be easily avoided and this article aims to deliver over ten years of experience in an easy to follow guide.

1) Select a popular, reputable poker room – Obvious but often overlooked. The most popular poker sites are also the most reputable and these include Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet and Cake Poker. Choose one of these to start with.

2) Sign up for a deposit bonus and rakeback deal – The first time you sign up with a poker room, you have the opportunity to set up your account to make extra money for the rest of your life. This requires a Rakeback Website and the most popular are Rakeback Power, Raketherake, and Rakebrain. When you sign up you will usually receive a) Deposit Bonus, b) Rakeback c) Rake Races / Chases and sometimes Freerolls as well. Check out a few providers and find the one that suits you best.

3) Practice with play money – This is essential to get a feel from the poker room controls and graphics. Set up your design to a way that suits you. Once you are comfortable, it is time to consider a real money deposit and to start earning your deposit bonus. Most bonuses match you initial deposit i.e. deposit $500 and receive $500 bonus. Bonuses are released slowly as you play a set number of poker hands.

4) Money and Finances – There are many deposit options available. A recommended and reputable option is Neteller. Take the time to read through different financial options. Most charge a small fee.

5) Poker Forums – I highly recommended the Two Plus Two forums. The oldest poker archive on the internet with every possible answer to every possible question.

6) Poker Books – There are numerous books around to improve your poker skills. I recommended starting off simple with either Doyle Brunson’s “Super System” or Dan Harrington’s “Harrington on Holdem”. There is no bad book on poker, the more you read, the more you will learn.

7) Essential Poker Software – Many programs exist to make pokering easier or to make you a better play. Table Ninja is a creative tool that uses hot keys to bet for you. Holdem Manager is a crucial database and HUD program that allows you to see player statistics in real time.
Training Websites – Numerous poker training sites exist to make you a better play and the leading site would be Card Runners – packed full of poker training videos for all games and skill levels, blogs, strategy forums and coaching also available. Worth checking out. Other training sites include Deuces Cracked, Poker Savvy, Grind School and Poker Pwnage.

9) Bonus Whoring – As crude as it sounds, collecting multiple deposit bonuses is a very legitimate and recommended way of generating a bankroll early in your poker career.

10) Take the time to enjoy yourself – Poker can be riveting, frustrating, infuriating and confusing all within five minutes. Remember poker is to be enjoyed, you will lose hands and win hands but hopefully still be smiling at the end of the day.

Want to find out more about Online Poker Tips, then visit Rakeback Power’s site on how to choose the best Online Poker Deposit Bonuses and Rakeback for your needs.

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You are probably not familiar with Badugi with its weird betting structure and moves but it is big in Asia and is becoming more well known in North America. The game consists of four cards and three drawing rounds in which bets are placed and players begin to assemble that fine Badugi hand into showdown. The game is usually played as fixed limit with two blinds and similar playing methods to other poker variations. Badugi games may also include pot or no limit play, most often seen in tournament play.

Badugi Goes Like This:

To start the game, the dealer deals four face-down cards to each player, round one of betting follows starting with the player right ahead of the large blind. One can call, fold or raise up to the house limit. Players who stay with the game post-round one betting can then draw no cards at all or up to four cards. These drawn cards are not played. All players must be very cognizant of their discards and update their odds accordingly. Interestingly, similar to the streets used as terms for rounds in Texas Hold’em, Badugi uses the time of day to describe rounds.

Of special note is that successful hands are valued very differently from your usual poker version. You must be very clear on how hands are ranked, do not play Badugi unless you are. In Badugi, the only cards that count are those with distinct values and suits. So duplicates, or pairs and dual suits are worth nothing in your hand. The very name Badugi refers to the hand comprised of separate and distinct suited cards. As you compare hands, first consider the count of live cards, then the lower value of the highest card, realizing that ace is low. So, the epitome of the winning hand would contain ace, two, three and four, all unsuited. At the very bottom of the scale lies the hand of four kings.

Winning Badugi Strategy

Badugi is somewhat like 2-7 triple draw poker in it shares with it the three drawing rounds. The hand rankings are nothing alike as the no duplicate rule in Badugi is certainly not the rule in triple draw. Most poker variations will stress the importance of the player’s position at the table and with Badugi position is even more critical in determining the strength or weakness of opponent’s hands. If a player can see the draws his opponents make, he can determine the value of their hands relative to his own, many draws show a weak hand, few draws a stronger one.

Assume you have a complete hand of four cards, i.e. a Badugi and are curious about the odds of your opponents drawing to a Badugi themselves. The odds can be calculated thusly. If a player swaps a card, he must hit upon the one that does not match a suit already in his hand. The odds in this case are 10 to 52 as the player will be unable to match any of the three cards present in his hand. Also to be considered are the odds of the player drawing a card with a lower high value.

Suppose you hold in your hand a four-card ten high. In this case, the player has a 6 in 52 chance of hitting a lower, discrete value as any card higher than ten in the correct suit will not make his hand better than yours.

As the first betting round is starting up, a player has little better than a 50% chance of drawing to a unique four-card hand over each round, and little better than a 20% chance in each round.

For other poker articles or to sign up for Rakeback visit Rakeback Solution.

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Five Card stud goes back a long way in the annals of poker and remains very popular even today. Stud games include many varieties such as spread limit, fixed limit, no limit, pot limit and mixtures of all the above. Do not be misled by its relative simplicity, winning strategies demand more than a surface understanding of betting, positions and card combinations. As with any form of poker, the successful players will vary their strategies and tactics and will calculate odds at each move.

Texas Hold’em is the most popular form of poker played today with 5-card stud also popular in cash and tournament play. Five Card stud is not usually present in major tournaments, however it does show up quite often with traditional and cash players and those tournaments whose sole offering is 5-card stud.

The Way 5-Card Stud is Played

To begin the round, each player is dealt a face-up card and then a card face down. The rules can be such that the player with the lowest visible card antes up and the first betting round takes place. If there is a tie for the lowest card, the player with the largest ante begins the betting. After this betting round is done, another card is dealt face up and the player with the best visible hand starts the next round. Two more rounds of face-up cards are dealt and the best hand of 5 cards wins the game. All 5 cards are made visible at the end to determine the winning hand.

Maximum Winning Strategies for Five Card Stud

Because the game consists of only five cards in a hand, you can pretty much forget about drawing to straights and flushes. This fact may seem to make 5-card stud more straightforward than other poker types, but really all it means is that you need to concentrate on drawing to three of a kind, pairs, high cards or any combination thereof. It is a wise move to restrain your betting toward draw hands with their low odds, but you should bet with less constraint toward dual draws where the odds are far better to draw a straight or a different, stronger hand altogether.

The first rounds of the game will find most players betting towards pair hands, high cards or a mix of the two. Observe closely the hands of your fellow players and go for the pot only if you don’t draw an ace or a pair in your first three draws. Stud is a rather conservative game and does give you many chances to bluff, and revealing your bluffs can add to your ability to create even more effective semi-bluffs and/or aggressive strategies when you do draw into a strong hand.

There are many out there who play stud for its directness allowing them to readily pick up on tells and cues. Ergo, as a player you should carefully heed hands that your opponents fold on to pick up data on them for the upcoming rounds. As in all varieties of poker, observing and gaining insight into opponent’s moves can give you a major advantage.

For more information on how to play other poker games like Royal Holdem or Omaha Holdem please visit Rakeback Solution.

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Omaha is an interesting game and, as many attest, is quite profitable, but there is comparatively little material you could find to learn safely from, and Hold’em is in fact a good place to start for anyone. At the present time Hold’em ranks as the most popular game in casinos and online and has received much attention in media and literature (online and in book form).

Okay, now that Hold’em is the game of choice, which form of Hold’em suits you best personally? Do you gag on risk or thrive on it?

If you are the one that goes sky-diving and opens your parachute at the last minute, you thrive on risk. If the mere thought of sky diving at all makes you quiver all over, you do not. If you fall into the first category of risk but cannot control your impulses, just watch other people play the game the game and stay out of it yourself. If you are unable to figure out the degree of risk you are comfortable with, there are tests available to help you determine this. For the risk takers, no-limit cash and tournament games are the best bets.

Determine whether you are best at “math” or “psychology”: if you are a human calculator, best try limit games; if you can read the opponents hands by reading his body language, your best shot is at no-limit and in multi table tournaments(MTT).

Should you really want to invest some time and brain matter in the game, the complexity of no-limit and MTT games give you the best shot at developing as a player. For the dilettante, stay with sit-and-go tournaments and limit poker.

The least potential for players reach the heights of fame and fortune is in limit poker. The best games for would-be poker champs are tournament games and high profile no limit games.

Limit poker is becoming rarer in casinos and clubs and is more accessible online. Tournament poker is the only form of the game officially considered a sport, so that it may be important to pay attention to tournaments in public establishments.

Those considering poker as a profitable career should focus on those games with a high percentage of weak players. Hold’em poker involves the fewest of the weaker players due to the widely available literature devoted to the game. No-limit and tournament poker should be your target, as long as you have made the decision to educate yourself on it and continue to do so. The beginning player should play limit poker in games with limits below 1$/2$. If in a SnG game, the novice should stay below $20+$2 and in a no-limit game, below $100. If you want to play in games below these levels, just a basic knowledge of the rules of poker is probably sufficient. More intense study is required of higher limits and even the most apt student of the game is incurring risk.

These considerations are a good preliminary to your first games, but the answers to the questions will become clearer as you accumulate experience.

The author is a full time online poker player and makes the majority of his income from his online play and rakeback at Gutshot Poker. To sign up for a Rakeback account of your own visit Rakeback Solution.

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Poker is as complex a game as any and it would not be an exaggeration to call it an art. And as any art, it requires a bit of philosophy. Because unless you are a machine you need more than the electricity running up and down your spine to motivate you towards genuine love (of a game as well as of a person) and true accomplishment. Naturally, you don’t have to be a “philosopher” to have a philosophy and if the term makes you uncomfortable you might as well change it to “imagination” or “psychology.”

Everything starts there and to learn to make yourself do what you dislike in order to improve substantially it helps to envision the task from any favorable perspective most convenient to you. For example, you might compare developing communication skills to taking cold showers: these are an unpleasant shock every time when you first begin to take them, but after a month or two (which is not at all much!) of such very brief ablutions twice a week you become, in a sense addicted, because there are definite results and pleasure involved: few things compare with hot water after 30-60 seconds of cold water.

Learning any new skill is applicable to the cold shower story. Most of us like the challenge of learning something new even though there is some stress involved.

Try cold showers and, with the perspective of the enterprise washed in healthy glowing colors, with this philosophy in mind plunge into whatever poker areas you most dislike.

Okay, no more lessons on philosophy, it is now time to consider more pragmatic advice. A good way to acquire meaningful expertise is by hiring a professional trainer to give you private, hands-on lessons without the embarrassment to you caused by onlookers. The coach will point out your weaknesses, most of which you are probably unaware of, so you can learn from them and move on. A good trainer will have you make notes of your play so you can continue to learn from both your strengths and weaknesses.

A professional trainer can be a budget buster, but you can get the same experience and knowledge by acquiring some poker playing pals. The give and take of play with others who enjoy the game, even if their play is not so hot, will improve your technique and insightfulness. Don’t overlook the value of online poker forums. There are some crackerjack players who love to post their knowledge and experience on these boards.

Keep notes. Even during offline games, note down your games so that you can review it later the better to realize where you did wrong and remember it. Notes help you realize that there are often more possibilities that you might first think. They help acquire the keen self-consciousness necessary to learn to ask yourself why you made the move. The same applied to the moves of your opponents. And it is a sign of significant progress to be able to ask yourself those crucial questions before you make the move.

Ask yourself the following questions during the game: What do you expect your opponent’s reaction to be? Did he react in a manner consistent with your perceptions of him in that situation? Did he bet or raise as expected? What cards do you want him to think you are holding in your hand? Under what circumstance do you want him to call or raise?

If you continuously ask yourself questions like these, while cumbersome and difficult at first, they will become second nature. After a while, this questioning process will become a welcome challenge and this is when you become a genuine player of the game of poker.

The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Poker Nordica Rakeback and Red Star Poker Rakeback.

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