PokerStars Blogger Championship Blog

Welcome to the official blog for the PokerStars Online Poker Blogger Championship. Here you will find real time news and information regarding the event. Check back often, as we will occasionally post updated tournament details and bonus promotions or prizes.

We sincerely hope that this tournament gets off to a great start and wish all of you the best of luck in the tournament!

Lets get playing!!!

Think About Winning

Winning at Poker
What are the best strategies for winning at poker? Where's the best place to find winning at poker? Ever wonder if the winning at poker are legitimate and worth following?

Well, now you can answer all you winning at poker over the Internet. Yes, that's right. Your own personal computer offers the answers to all your questions about winning at poker. All you have to do is enter the term "winning at poker" into a search engine and you will have thousands of results in a matter of seconds!

Oh, but use caution when trying to figure out who has the best winning at poker stategies. Some sites that say they have all the right strategies for winning at poker wouldn't know winning at poker from Donald Duck. They may know the strategies for winning at poker from Bugs Bunny, but not from everyone's favorite duck.

But do not despair. Help is on the way. There are heard rumors of the development of a brand new software package that will separate cartoon animal from real life situations. So, no more will you be confused when looking for something on the Internet and finding nothing except information on Deputy Dawg, Quick Draw McGraw, or Mozilla the Gorilla. You will actually be seeing what you are looking for, expecially winning at poker. Take heart, be of good cheer the help you need will soon be here. Be it good, or be it bad, the help you get will not make you sad. Mad, perhaps, but not sad.

Your Strategy????

The most obvious strategy makes the most money. Deviate from it only if there's a reason to do so, such as being deceptive for future profit or making extra money right now. That's a tough thing to teach, because skillful players often enjoy making unusual plays. The trick is to mentally condition yourself to make these plays only for profit, not for show. If there isn't a clear and compelling reason to play a poker hand in an unusual way, don't.

Texas Holdem Odds

Number of outs On Turn or River On River Only
Percentage Odds Percentage Odds
1 4.3 22.4 2.2 44.5
2 8.4 10.9 4.3 22.3
3 12.5 7 6.5 14.4
4 16.5 5.1 8.7 10.5
5 20.3 3.9 10.9 8.2
6 24.1 3.1 13 6.7
7 27.8 2.6 15.2 5.6
8 31.5 2.2 17.4 4.7
9 35 1.9 19.6 4.1
10 38.4 1.6 21.7 3.6
11 41.7 1.4 24 3.2
12 45 1.2 26.1 2.8
13 48.1 1.1 28.3 2.5
14 51.2 0.95 30.4 2.3
15 54.1 0.85 32.6 2.1
16 57 0.75 34.3 1.9
17 59.8 0.67 37 1.7
18 62.4 0.6 39.1 1.6
19 65 0.54 41.3 1.4
20 67.5 0.48 43.5 1.3

FAKING BODY LANGUAGE

Body language is a must when you are bluffing.The human mind seems to possess a fail-safe mechanism that registers ‘tilt’ when it receives a series of incongruent non-verbal messages. There are, however, some cases in which body language is deliberately faked to gain certain advantages. Take, for example, the Miss World or Miss Universe contest, in which each contestant uses studiously learned body movements to give the impression of warmth and sincerity. To the extent that each contestant can convey these signals, she will score points from the judges, but even the experts can only fake body language for a short period of time and eventually the body will emit signals that are independent of conscious actions. Many politicians are experts in faking body language in order to get the voters to believe what they are saying and the politician who can successfully do this is said to have ‘charisma’.
The face is used more often than any other part of the body to cover up lies. We use smiles, nods and winks in an attempt to cover up, but unfortunately for us, our body signals tell the truth and there is a lack of congruence between our body gestures and facial signals.

Playing the Turn

The turn card is the fourth card dealt face up and is common to everyone's hand. Some poker pundits have suggested that the turn plays itself. While you can't play the turn on autopilot, you shouldn't get yourself into too much trouble unless you've already made the mistake of seeing the turn when you shouldn't have. If that's the case, you've already thrown good money after bad. Much of the time you won't even see the turn. You'll have thrown away most of your hands before the flop and released others once you saw that the flop didn't fit. If there's no logical reason to be in the pot by the turn, you should have folded. It's very easy to squander your bankroll one bet at a time. Poor players do just that, calling one more bet and then another. While calling and one bet may be insignificant by itself, collectively it can break you. If you've made it to the turn you should be holding a good hand, a promising draw, or believe your bluff can pick up the pot.

The Betting Rules for Pot‐Limit Texas Hold’em

Minimum eligible raise: The raise amount must be at least as much as the previous bet or raise in the same round. As an example, if the first player to act bets $100 then the second player must raise a minimum of $100 (total bet of $200).Maximum eligible raise: The size of the pot: The size of the pot is defined as the total of the active Pot (which can be either the main pot or the side pot depending on whether anyone has gone “allin”) plus all bets on the table plus the amount the active player must first call before raising. As an example, if the active pot is $200 and the first player to act in the round bets $150 and the next player calls $150, the third player has a maximum eligible total bet of $800. The $800 total is made up of the $150 call and $650 raise.The $650 max raise portion is equal to the pot of $200 + first playerʹs $150 + second playerʹs $150 + his own call of $150.

A Key Element In Poker Is Deception.

Bluffing is the quintessential trick in poker. Of course, the reasoning for a bluff is to deceive the other players into thinking you have a better hand when you actually do not. For a bluff to work, you need the other players to think you actually have that
better hand. Many beginning poker players love this idea of bluffing and often misuse it. The value of the bluff increases under certain general circumstances that often have a lot to do with information you assume about the other players. This vagueness makes it difficult to give definitive reasons or places to bluff.
When the flop isnʹt so great.
Some players will fold automatically if all they have is an over
card. With a rainbow flop of 2, 6, 9, not many players will have
much. This is another example of a bluff that can go horribly awry.

Playing Online Casino Continued

Went to GP and played vacation station, betting .05 on each line total bet $1.20, and hit for $200.00

Blackjack at GP has been paying off, and so has baccarat. I notice that sometimes you have to stick and move on these games. If you hit pretty, and you notice that it's sucking it up, don't keep playing move to another machine. Or exit out of the game and re-enter the game.

Two weeks ago I was playing win a million dollars. I had already played about $60.00, I noticed that my money started getting low, so I decided to just keep playing. I thought to myself. "have patience, and maybe you'll hit. Well the patience paid of because I hit for 5 sleeping men and won $500.00. Then I turned around and hit five diamonds, which paid $125.00, and another hundred and something. By the end of the night I had gotten up to a little over $800.00.

I noticed that when you're playing at GP if you have won and cashed some of your money in, and wanted to play what you have left. It seems to suck up all your money, and you're off that winning streak. But when I win, and don't try to cash it out, I will keep hitting. OH YEA!!

My Online Casino wins and falls

I went to gp last night played win a millions dollars, and 5 million winning streak, and lost $80.00 bucks. I then played another $40.00, on Highway kings and hit for $125.00. After that I was back in business, so I went to 5 million winning streak, and it for $150.00. Then I went to golf game, and hit for enough to give me a total of $310.00 dollars. Not a bad night.

Just what is OMAHA??

Not the D-Day invasion of WWII silly Omaha A variation of Hold'em where each player receives four down cards and must use two (and only two) of those cards with three of the five common cards on the board. Can be played high only or high-low with &or-better low.

Any two will do?

"Any two will do." Refers to the concept that any two cards in Hold'em can theoretically win the hand. Used as a justification to play truly wretched starting cards. However, we all know that good starting hands are the key to winning at poker in the long run.

Poker hand selectivity

Hand selection is one of the most important keys to winning. Most of us play
too many hands. I'm not referring only to beginners. Some players have been
at it for years, and the single most important flaw in their game is that they
still play too many hands.After all, the majority of poker players are recreational players. They're not playing poker to make their living; they play to enjoy themselves - and much as they'd have you believe their goal in playing is to win money, that's
really secondary to their main objective: having fun. The difference between
a player who has come out to have fun and another who is playing to win
money is that the recreational player will look for reasons to play marginal
hands and to continue playing them even when subsequent betting rounds are fraught with danger. The money player will look for reasons to release hands, avoid unnecessary danger, and dump speculative hands whenever the potential reward is overshadowed by the risks.

Something about Video Poker

The average video poker machine look a lot like a regular slot machine, and can either a tabletop form or an upright desktop unit.

Denominations of the video poker machines are nickels, quarters, dollars and sometimes five dollars. Most video poker games are based on five-card draw poker. To play five-card draw, video poker players are dealt five cards and can throw
away any of them to try to better their video poker hand. New cards are dealt to replace the discarded ones, and the final five cards decide the winner.

To begin playing video poker, first determine how many coins you are going to play and insert your money and push the deal button. After your five cards are dealt, determine which video poker cards that you want to keep by pushing the video poker hold button associated with that card.

After selecting the cards, always double check to make certain that every card you want to keep is held. Once you push the deal button every card that you have chosen to discard (not hold) will be replaced with another card from the video poker deck.

Instead of playing against an opponent's hand as in a typical poker table play, you win when you have any of the five-card combinations listed on that particular video poker machine’s payout table. If your hand is a winning video poker combination
your account will be credited according to the payout schedule listed on the machine.


Pick a video poker strategy and stick with it.

Poker is the name of the game

Whether played as a casual recreation or as a cutthroat profession, poker endures as America's most popular card game.Its been estimated that 70 million Americans are familiar with the standard rules of poker, marking it as quite the socially acceptable gambling activity.The game is incredibly adaptable, and the growing popularity of online poker attests to that.The game of Poker has evolved through the years, through many backroom games to the present day casinos around the world.Its history is rich with famous places and characters.For example, during the Wild West period of United States history, a saloon with a Poker table could be found in just about every town from coast to coast.

Today, Poker is carefully regulated by gambling laws, and saloons have given way to casinos and cardrooms, but Poker is played more than any other card game in the world.It has grown into a sporting event, with competitions and tournaments all around the world.Tournaments take place almost every week of the year somewhere in the world.If you compare the prizes of major sporting events around the world, you will find that the monetary outcome of any given event in Poker would (pardon the pun) stack up.Poker today is one of the fastest growing, but hardly recognized sporting events.The pinnacle of the poker world, The World Series of Poker, attracts players from all over the world every year to compete for money and titles as the world's top Poker players.Poker will always be around and will continue to grow and flourish like so many other past times.There will always be a poker game to play, money to be won, and crowns to be worn.