iPhone Jacks or Better Poker

While this application is actually for video poker, not standard poker, it can still be a lot of fun and a great way to kill down time. You’re not playing against live opponents, so you can pick up or put down the game at any time and start again where you left off. The rules are the same as normal video poker. You can replace any of the five cards dealt to you to make your best five card hand, and are paid off according to how strong your final hand is.

Apple Texas Hold’em

This application features standard poker, and the graphics and gameplay are top notch. You can use this application to play poker with friends who also have Apple Texas Hold’em for the iPhone, or you can play computer opponents if no real players are handy.

Zynga Live Poker

Zynga Live Poker is as close to the online poker experience as you are going to get with an iPhone. You can play opponents from all over the world, just like with online poker, and the application hooks into social networks, increasing your player base and adding some fun features, like the option to turn your Facebook profile pic into your avatar.

With all iPhone poker apps, it’s important to note that you are not playing for real money. Apple simply doesn’t allow it, so if you are looking to play real money mobile poker, you will have to look somewhere other than the iTunes store.

Texas Holdem Betting Strategies #1: Feeler Bet

The first of the betting strategies involves the feeler bet. The feeler bet will always let you know WHERE YOU STAND in the hand. If you never put out a feeler bet about 1/3 the size of pot, you will never know what other players are holding in their hand. It’s for this reason you use it to get a “feel” for the strength of your hand also the strength of your opponents hand.

Texas Holdem Betting Strategies #2: Check Raise

The check raise should be used to extract additional chips from your opponent who wouldn’t more often than not commit many chips to a particular pot. The check raise works by acting weak in hopes of hiding your strength. With any luck, this will induce a bluff or at least a misinformed bet from your opponent to get him to commit his chips to the pot. Use the check raise for only the stronger hands, and never use the check raise if you think your opponent is on some kind of a flush or straight draw, which would allow him to catch up and beat you. The check raise is useful against a tight opponent, where you give him a free card hoping he might catch up and encourage him to bet.

Texas Holdem Betting Strategies #3: Stealing the Blinds

As you develop your game over time, one skill you need to develop is taking the pot without cards. It is betting about 1/3 the size of the pot with the intent of taking down uncontested blinds and pots! To utilize this bet you must have position on your opponents.

Texas Holdem Betting Strategies #4: Continuation Bet

Continuation bet is showing strength before the flop, most often with over cards. Oftentimes you will miss the flop, but continue to show strength through betting, as if you have a real hand. The key to successfully pulling off the continuation bet is to narrow your opposition down to one or two at the most. Here is the rule of the continuation bet: If you raise before the flop, you must bet after the flop. Period. Even when you miss on the flop.

Texas Holdem Betting Strategies #5: All-In Bet

Among good poker pros, betting all of your chips on a single poker hand are rare until they get short stacked. The reason is simple. When you gamble all your chips, you are risking your tournament life and leaving no room for other options. Honestly good poker players do not like to do this. The all-in bet can be very useful when played properly. Before you do though, several things need to be in play before using this strategic move: 1. If you are short stacked this can be good move. 2. If you have been re-raised and you have the absolute best hand. 3. Not usually looking for more action, just want to win the pot. 4. You have the best hand at the flop and one of your opponents is on a draw of some kind, the move can be a deterrent to a probable call. The above texas holdem strategies will help you toward becoming a more profitable poker player. So now take these strategies and use them next time you play. Good luck and see you at the tables.

Whether you play poker online or at a live table, you always here some players complain that they have bad luck, that cards are running against them or that poker is a rigged game. Of course, Poker is partly a card game and therefore sometimes the cards will be good for you and sometimes not. However, you must understand that Poker is mainly a ‘Peoples game’. Playing your opponents at the table is much more effective than just playing the cards. If you know your opponents, you will be able to read them, put them on hands and outplay them, whatever they are holding.

A simple example

Player 1 is playing poker as if it were primarily a card game. He holds QQ in middle position and is facing a small raise from under the gun and a fairly large reraise from the player in front of him. He’s thinking: I have pocket Queens, shall I call here or push all in? After he looks at his queens again he decides to push all in. The player who initially raised under the gun goes all in too, as does the initial reraiser. Player utg has AK, the reraising player turns over AA.

Player 2 is in the same situation as Player 1, and also holds QQ. But Player 2 has just opened Poker Software that gives him about 100 stats on each opponent. He sees that the raiser under the gun is slightly loose and calls a lot. He figures he might lay ahead with his QQ but it could also be a 50/50 deal. If he would have been heads up he might just call here and see a flop. But because there is a reraise he now looks at the statistics of the reraiser. Sure enough, he checks the preflop raise percentage of this guy which turns out to be only 2%! Player 2 is now sure he must discontinue playing QQ in this pot as he puts the reraiser on either KK or AA. After he folds he smiles at the sight of Aces winning against the AK with board 410552.

Why a Player who Plays with tools and thus plays the peoples game will win

Online Poker is one of the biggest gaming industries out there. Millions of players play on hundreds of thousands of tables. This being said, it’s true that reading players becomes almost useless as players change tables often and you can’t remember all the names and historic plays. This is why you need Poker Software. Not just random tracking poker software that tracks all the players you play against but tries to track all players online and stores all data in a central online database so that you only need to open the Poker Tool and immediately receive statistics on all tables and players at hand. These kind of Poker Programs are also called Poker Stalking Tools.

Imagine having over 100 stats on each opponent and knowing exactly where the fish are sitting and bad players before you seat at a table.

These kind of Poker Tools form the definitive step to online poker domination as you know who you are playing against, regardless of how many times new players join your table, regardless of how many times you change from a table. And by this, you will know what to do in any hand. Tough decisions instantly become easy ones.

Most Internet Poker sites feature Omaha and Omaha hi-low. Omaha is a variant of Texas Hold’em where you get four cards instead of two, and must use exactly two of your cards in combination with three on the board to make your best hand. This game lends itself well to Internet play because you are not required to remember four cards or continue to look back at your hand, which can be awkward and unwieldy. All four of your cards are displayed on the screen and of course no one else can see them. Be careful when switching from Texas Hold’em to Omaha. Because so many cards are in play, you need a much stronger hand to win in Omaha than in regular Texas Hold’em. If there is a pair on the board, you need a full house to win. If the are three of a suit, you must have the nut flush. Also be careful when reading your hand. Remember that you can only use two of your cards and three of the board cards. If there are four of a suit on the board and you have the ace of that suit in your hand, you do not have a flush as you would in Texas Hold’em unless you also hold another card of that suit. In Omaha hi-low, the best high hand splits with the best low hand, with aces counting as low and straights and flushes not counting against your low, so the best low hand is ace through five. Again, usually the best possible low is required to win the low half.

Some sites also feature Draw poker. If you are a Draw player, one of the only places you can still find a game is on the Internet, so keep an eye out for those sites that feature this classic poker game. You may also find Pineapple, another Hold’em variant, this one with three cards, one of which is discarded early in the hand, or even Badugi, a somewhat complex four card low poker variation.

Of course most sites have the classic Seven Card Stud variety of poker. This is another good Internet game as it is easier to keep track of all the cards that are out on a computer screen, and this is a crucial ability for successful Seven Card Stud play. While these tables don’t see as much traffic as the Texas Hold’em tables, the bigger sites usually have plenty of good Seven Card Stud tables on which you can try your luck.

So get out there and start playing some Internet poker. It’s not just for Texas Hold’em specialists anymore (and it really never was). Also experience the online multiplayer poker, and poker etiquette is part of playing poker. Whether you’re playing off or online.

Do a web search for online poker sites and find the one that you think will suit your needs the best. When you are going to download a Texas Holdem game, research the various sites available. See what other people have had to say about the different sites. Since you are going to download a Texas Holdem game, you’ll want sites that have a wide variety of Holdem options. Fortunately, as Holdem is the most popular poker game today, you should have no difficulty finding sites like this.

To download a Texas Holdem game, click on the link of the poker website of your choice for downloading software. In a few easy steps you will be able to get the entire poker software on your home computer. An icon will appear on your desktop that represents the site. Click on that, and you will be instructed how to get started. Once you’ve provided all the necessary information and loaded your account, go to the section on Texas Holdem, click on a table, and start playing!

If you don’t have access to a casino or your home games are few and far between, it can be a great idea to download a Texas Holdem game from the Internet. You will be able to play on your own time and improve your game so that you will be a force to be reckoned with when your friends can finally find time to come over for that home game you’ve been waiting for.

Remember that when you’re playing Texas Hold’em poker you are trying to create the best 5-card poker hand from a total of 7 cards. There are 2 hole or pocket cards and 5 communal cards. You may use any combination to create your best hand. You may even use all five communal cards.

Poker Hand Rankings are as follows:

Royal Flush
This hand is the highest ranking hand possible and cannot be beaten A Royal Flush is made of 5 cards of the same suit, Ten, Jack, Queen, King, Ace.

Straight Flush
A straight flush made up of 5 consecutive cards of the same suit. An ace can play both high and low

Four-of-a-kind
This is any hand containing four similar cards.

Full House
A full house is when you have Three-of-Kind and a Pair.

Flush
A flush is any five cards of the same suit.

Straight
A Straight is five cards of any suit in succession. Straights are very common in Holdem Poker.

Three-of-a-kind
This hand is any three similar cards of any suit.

For example, you are dealt A9 of hearts in Texas Hold’em and the flop comes up showing two hearts. Your odds for hitting another heart by the river will be about 36% or 3 to 1. This can be figured out by finding out the number of outs that you have, that is the number of cards remaining in the deck and which can help you make your hand.

Again, taking the same example, you hold A-9 of hearts and catch two hearts on the flop, than you have 9 more hearts in the deck that can help you complete your flush. 2 hearts in your hand + 2 hearts on the table minus 13 hearts in total = 9 outs. If you multiply your number of ‘outs’ by 4, then you will get an approximate percentage of hitting your hand by the river (9×4=36%).

Poker pot odds is the ratio between the size of the pot compared to how much it will cost you to call a bet from another player. The higher the ratio between the size of the pot and the cost of calling a bet, the better your poker pot odds will be.
If there are $40 in the pot after the flop and a player bets $10 and two other players calls his bet then you get 7 to 1 in pot odds. If you are chasing the A-9 flush draw from the flop than you get a 36% or 3 to 1 in hand odds to catch your card at the river, so calling or even raising this bet will be a wiser decision to make.

There are a few virtues that come into play in Texas Holdem and the fist one of them is Patience. Do not go chasing and playing every hand. Be selective and you will increase your chances of winning your odds greatly.

Be aware of how the other players are playing, whether they are playing loose or tight. A loose player likes to bluff; you can bring him out by raising his bet or by check raising him. Observe how they react so that you understand his style. A tight player generally only plays the “nuts” early on but in the later rounds tries stealing the pot with a big bet. If you have a feeling he might be trying to steal the pot, raise the bet. If a tight player is quick to call, he is likely to fold. Else he may put you on a higher hand, fold and wait until his hand comes along.

Try and understand the betting style of each player. Is he betting on flop, turn and river or slow playing his hand. Does he have a made hand or is he on a draw? This intuitive analysis will help you later on in the game when the blinds are higher.
There are some things to remember while playing Pocket Pairs. The higher number of players the higher the risk. Wait until you see the flop and then if your pocket pair is higher than the board, bet aggressively and see how others react. Do no be afraid to fold if need be. Later in the game and with less players, pocket pairs increase in strength, because you are not on a draw.

Bluffing plays an important part in the game. Since people tend to bluff more online, you need to get a feel if the players’ playing styles so that you can establish whether it is a bluff or not.

Another important aspect of this game is controlling your emotions. All players will have ups and downs, but it is important to keep cool. Think and refocus. Be patient and your chances of winning will increase It’s always better to rake a small pot than to lose a big one.

Some Poker Tells cry out to say – ‘I have a good hand’

• Acting uninterested in your hand is usually the most common sign of a strong hand. He may even tend to shrug away his cards saying that they are bad. Although he is pretending he does not care, he is excited about something in his hand
• Shaking Hands – When a player has a fantastic hand, it is often that he will exhibit this through trembling hands unable to contain such excitement.
• Rapid Breathing – Some players are unable to control their heart beating rapidly while seeing pocket aces or hit the flop really hard. If you can see a player’s chest visibly rising and falling, they have an excellent hand
• Glancing at Chips continuously – When a player looks down and sees strong hole or pocket cards, he will keep glancing at his chips to see just how much he can bet.

Some Poker Tells that cry out ‘I Have a Bad Hand’

• Staring down Other Players – If an opponent is staring you down, he’s trying to represent strength which is typical when he has a weak hand.
• Holding Breath – Often, inexperienced players, incapable of lying, will hold their breath if they are bluffing.

Some Poker Tells that cry out ‘I Have a draw’

• Checking Hole Cards after a Flop – If the flop shows the possibility of giving someone a flush or straight draw, players will start re-checking their hole cards to ensure that they are not missing out on some vital card.
• Taking your time to call a Bet – If a player looks into the pot and seems to be doing some calculating in his head, he probably is. He’s most likely figuring out the pot odds to see if it’s worth it to try and catch the cards he needs to complete his drawing hand.