POKER PORTAL

When you are learning to deal with any problem, it is very important to have an understanding of the problem. This is especially so of “tilt” when playing poker. A lot of poker players may lose their cool, go off at a tangent and even break something, but feel better and be completely calm afterward. This is actually not “tilt”, tilt is when you continue to play with this undercurrent of anger over loss, wrong poker or whatever it was that caused you to lose it in the first place.

This seething undercurrent of anger, resentment, apathy or anguish, is what messes up your poker game, and this is TILT. It is what is inside you! It seethes, pulsates and possesses you, until you absolutely can’t think, and if you can’t think, you can’t play optimal poker. Tilt amplifies bad or hasty decision making, and most players get a “f*#k you” attitude with it.

Understanding this, recognizing it and not allowing it to take a hold of your game is vitally important to poker players. They need to be cool customers at all times. Admit it; if you can play poker like the ice man or woman, and not be affected, this is too cool for school.

If not then you need to go back to school; poker school, anger management school, Zen or yoga school whatever it takes to deal with whatever sets tilt off in the player. Self control only comes about when the player learns to understand a situation and cope with it. Every player has the potential for tilt, but some players are well balanced, more so than others.

To get a handle on tilt, you need to first identify what causes it, and the number one reason is being beat. Being in a bad beat or rivered by a fish, it makes no difference – never blame your opponent, learn to look at the game through his eyes. Just remember if you are serious about your poker, you may still be playing with opponents who are there to have a good time, they are not aspiring to be a Chris Moneymaker, even if you are.

If they played wrong poker, you played right poker and you got called and beat, tough, live with it. Blaming other players for mistakes they don’t care about is hardly worth messing up your own game.

Don’t let the fact that you had a bad beat worry you, even if it is apathy and not anger you feel, it will still affect your game. For pros, this is like water off a ducks back. You simply move onto the next game and forget the last one existed. There is no such thing as revenge in poker; you lost, so suck it up. The other player will get what is coming to them if they are given enough rope to hang themselves with.

You can’t control everything in a game of poker, even if it is a game of skill, luck also counts big time. Even WSOP pro players have been made by the river. So what if you lose $50 – wait to see what it feels like when you lose $500 000 and a bracelet?!

For centuries and centuries, gambling fascinated the lovers of adventure and suspense even in America, Europe, China or elsewhere in the world. Indeed, these live casino games don’t provide only excitation but also relaxation, fun and big jackpots. And now that casino games are available online, players, wherever they are can play and win money at any time. In fact, there are several ways to make money in casino games, especially in well known online casino. You can collect bonuses, or try your luck in a slot machine and picks up a jackpot. Players of today has more chance thanks to the Internet. They no longer have to travel and visit a land based casino. By being at home and doing their daily tasks, even at their office, during a few minutes of break, they can try their luck and seek pleasure in online casino game. A wide choice of a address wait them !

Governor Chris Christie had 40 days to either allow the New Jersey online poker bill to pass, or oppose this bill, in which case veto it. He was initially believed to be keen to allow it to pass, but if reported rampant rumour has any truth to it he has been seen strongly lobbying against the bill. Apparently March 3^rd is the crunch date; cards will be laid on the table and the microchips played. This would be extremely bad news for US poker players, operators and the tax coffers of New Jersey State.

The new bill is an attempt to open doors for a new and additional stream of revenue for the beleaguered gambling industry in this state – and thereby tax coffers too. Much like Las Vegas, Atlantic City has been supported by income from the gambling industry which is rapidly dropping off and has not proven to be recession proof. Due to UIGEA, unlike land casinos in the UK, US land casinos do not have the option of developing websites for online gambling in order to add support to flagging revenues.

While many residents in New Jersey and indeed in the US play online poker and send millions of dollars in revenue out of the country into offshore coffers; many are unhappy about doing this illegally. Although it does not stop it from happening and estimates say that there are 15 million online poker players in the US.

The New York Post is apparently well informed regarding the current Chris Christie situation and has published information stating that the Governor is being pulled in two directions regarding the bill. They have also strongly intimated that he will be vetoing it and to date the Governor has opted to wait it out until March 3rd to make his decision. His decision was in fact expected by the 24^th February, so, has already been delayed. He made use of state house technicalities to buy more time regarding the decision.

What seems really odd about these reports is the fact that the online poker bill was given a resounding “YAY” and received a huge majority vote for it in both State Legislature houses?! The time extension does however afford lobbyists for the bill to attempt to convince whomever they need to convince that the bill must pass and not be vetoed. The sponsor of the bill – State Senator Raymond Lesniak may not overrule the veto if it takes place and this would see it relegated back to the floor.

Surprisingly, or not surprisingly perhaps, the main opposition is Caesars Entertainment – they own four properties in Atlantic City. But as the Bill proposes that servers for online poker would need to be situated in Atlantic City, Caesars believes this State level bill would interfere with Federal Legislation to allow Caesars to operate an online base from Las Vegas.

Apparently things are not looking good for New Jersey currently, but you know what they say; “the show isn’t over till the fat lady sings” or in this instance until Governor Christie takes to the casino floor on the 3^rd of March.

Poker rooms and casinos attract players with every possible way. They offer drinks, hotel stays, free or with special discount, buffet, a points system and all types of tangible rewards. The online poker rooms do not have the same capabilities, right? They are in fact in a virtual environment.

While one of the great advantages of playing online poker is its incredible convenience, the poker rooms need to offer users the same things to entice them to deposit money into their account and play. So instead of drinks and free buffet, they offer sign up bonus for registration and deposit bonuses for loyalty and regular deposits made.

In order to make a profit, an online poker room takes a percentage of the premium. This is the rake! It is generally about 5% of each prize, in terms of real money that could mean up to $ 5 per hand. If you are a winning poker player, this obviously concerns your winnings substantially.
The online poker players are becoming increasingly sophisticated, they play a lot; they know their rights and those of the poker room. In short, they are very demanding. That’s why many sites are now offering incentives and rake far better than a deposit bonus. This is really good for your bankroll, much better than the normal bonus system.

A “Rakeback Bonus” means your bankroll receives refunds of a certain percentage of the contribution from the players for the rake, and this is a fixed monthly return. A site like Full Tilt Poker offers a rakeback of 30%, and this is one of the many reasons that it is a popular site. Unlike a bonus, rakeback not diminish over time and is not only an initial offering. The share offer, in this case 30%, remains with the player all the time in which he plays at that site. If the player plays $ 1,000 a month, at the end of the month over $300 will be repaid to his bankroll!

The advantage of the rake is that for each hand of poker, the payout increases by 30%, so there is no point in playing an online poker site that does not offer a bonus rakeback. The rakebacks are calculated in a variety of ways and each variation has its advantages. If you are playing on a site that doesn’t offer rakeback you’re losing a lot of money over time, so maybe it is time to make a change.

Video poker is one of the most sought-after game in every casino, preceded only by themed slot machines. Even in online casinos you can usually find tens of types of video poker games designed for both moderate players and high rollers. An interesting, recent report from the US state of Loiusiana is present a tell-tale image of this trend. Here, gamblers in the cities of Terrebonne and Lafourche threw over $1 billion in video poker machines in the 4 preceding years. Last year local citizens spent more on video poker than on clothing sales or on furniture. Only cars seem to enjoy more of the people’s wallets than the popular casino game. And indeed, the lure of the game played for money must be huge, as big online casinos are already offering the game even for free.

A new attractive poker TV show is being made ready for next year. The series will be titled Young Guns and its aim is to deeply explore the lives and minds of four poker professionals from LA. The concept of the show is similar to the one called 2 Months $2 Million aired last year. Unlike the latter, Young Guns will be focused rather on the process of playing than on the goal. The participants will be moved to a villa in Hollywood Hills where they will spend the next two month living together under one roof and one landlord, who is promised to be a well grounded man not quite endorsing the lifestyle of his tenants. Certainly, there is a lot to look forward to.

Virtually all online software developers of casino games offer live dealer games today. At least all the good software developers offer these games. Playtech is fortunately in the class of a good developer and they also offer live dealer games. Blackjack is a very popularly played game world-wide, so it makes sense for this designer to offer live blackjack games to their casino operators. Members at online casinos enjoy these games; they are more interactive as they are dealt and played in real time. The player watches the game on a window through a live video stream places their bets according and plays much as you would play any version of online blackjack.

Live dealer blackjack at Playtech is a single hand game, which plays according to Vegas Strip Rules. These are very simple rules and there is no option for a late surrender. There is only one Playtech variant of blackjack which includes this rule and this is Blackjack Surrender. Which by the way is an excellent game to play if you want to grind out small profits with small wagers and not risk losing it all if you think you are going to lose anyway.

When you play live dealer blackjack with Playtech, the game makes use of six decks of 52 regular playing cards. Sometimes the amount of decks in the shoe varies, but this is only with other variants of the game, and the only time the amount of cards varies is with Spanish Blackjack. To our knowledge, Playtech does not offer a version of this game. So live dealer blackjack uses 6 packs in a shoe and all the cards are shuffled before a new hand commences. It pays 3/2 for a Blackjack which is an Ace and a face card, not an Ace and a 10. An Ace and a 10 is merely a normal hand of 21, you have to get a “natural” for blackjack.

The dealer in this game is forced to stand on all 17′s whether soft or hard and they may not draw another card. The maximum bet is $/Euro/GBP 300 and the minimum is $/Euro/GBP 1. You play with up to 6 other players per table and are also able to interact with the dealer and the other players by means of a chat window.  Playtech strategy charts may be used and splitting rules dictate that any pair may be split. If Aces are split only one more card will be dealt to those hands and the player is then forced to stand. There is no re-splitting of any more hands.

Doubling down applies to the first two cards dealt and these rules dictate that the total card count must be 9, 10 or 11, for this bet to take place. A double down wager is the same as the original wager on the table and this can also take place after a split. No doubling down is allowed on a Blackjack. After a double down wager has been placed, only one more card may be dealt to the hand, and that in a nutshell, is Playtech Live Dealer Blackjack.