Articles

Poker Room Reviews

Full Tilt Poker Room Review

Full Tilt Poker was launched in 2004 and has quickly become the second largest online poker room. Beaten to the top-spot only by Pokerstars.com. Full Tilt's success has largely been helped by the involvement of some of poker's top professionals such ...

Party Poker Room Review

Party Poker was launched in 2001 under the PartyGaming network.  Party Poker has remained one of the largest online poker rooms despite not being able to accept U.S players due to the UIGEA gaming act being enforced in 2006. Heavy online and tel...

Absolute Poker Room Review

Absolute Poker opened for business in 2003 but only recently has seen a large increase in players. Absolute Poker is one of only a few online poker rooms that have continued to accept U.S players since the introduction of the UIGEA gambling act in 20...

Titan Poker Room Review

Titan Poker was launched in 2005 on the iPoker network and quickly became one of the top poker rooms online. Titan Poker's player base is by far the biggest on the iPoker network and continues to grow daily due to their generous bonuses, great softwa...

Ultimate Bet Room Review

UltimateBet is one of the original online poker rooms and has been operating since 2001, licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. In recent years, UltimateBet has seen dramatic changes in its design and structure. In 2008 UltimateBet merged with ...

Cake Poker Room Review

Cake Poker is one of the newer online poker rooms, launching in 2006 on their own unique Cake Network which includes online poker rooms such as Sportsbook Poker, Doyles Room and PlayersOnly.  Cake has seen a steady growth in the past years but h...

Before You Start

6 Things To Know Before Choosing An Online Poker Room

Being restricted to the crowded, noisy confinement of the casino is a thing of the past. These days, there are literally hundreds of online rooms that allow you to participate in many of the classic casino games. If poker is your game, then finding ...

Poker Bankroll Management for Beginners

Whether it’s a high stakes game in a casino or a competitive battle in an online room, as a poker player, the bankroll is your life support. Without it, you can’t compete for the big pot.Regardless of the facts, many players have yet to r...

6 Tools Every Poker Player Should Have

  More than other forms of gambling, poker is a game of skill and calculating probability.Ultimately, the skilled poker players take home the winnings.   With skill in mind, you need to be armed with the best weaponry available to keep...

Rakeback Makes You Money – Even When You Lose!

The adage, “the house always wins,” continues to hold true, whether you play at the tables or through an online casino.  In fact, even if you win and poker hand, the casino still wins – through their pocket of the rake. The casin...

Summary of Recent Activity by the US Government

As online poker players, we all were shocked to hear the news that the United States Attorney's Office based in New York decided to freeze funds in excess of $30,000,000 inside bank accounts from known payment processors for Full Ti...

Fundamentals

Poker is War

  The game of poker can be played with complete strangers or with good friends. Though you may be good friends with the people you play, you still are at war with them whenever in a poker atmosphere. Specifically against stran...

Basic Play Tips

  You’ve seen it on TV, you’ve watched your friends play it during parties, and you’re absolutely mystified by what is going on and yet feel a strange compulsion to understand it and partake in all the fun. Sure, yo...

The Continuation Bet

  The continuation bet is one of the moves that separates the intermediate players from the beginners at a poker table. Some old school players look at it as reckless, while new players see it as blind aggression. What is really is, ...

Bet Sizing at No Limit Online Games

  One common mistake that new cash and tournament players make is bet sizing. It’s also something that good players will get wrong also because they are either on tilt or just forget the fundamentals. Proper bet sizing is vitally...

Blind Stealing - The When and Why

  In home games, and even in some small stakes live games, blind stealing is sometimes frowned upon and inevitably some jerk at the table says, “Come on man let’s keep this game friendly.” At no point in your poker ...

Making Good Reads

    In this example our hero raises to 3x the big blind from MP (mid position). This is considered “standard” but I really recommend the “4+1” theory of preflop betting in most EP and MP situations where yo...

Reevaluating Your Hand on Every Street (using the Baluga Theorem)

By Sean ‘Icemonkey9’ Gibson   If playing 100,000 hands this year in cash games has taught me one giant lesson, it’s that you have to always re-evaluate your hand on every single street. So often players at the micro limits of 50nl...

Counting Outs and Pot Odds

  The definition of “outs” is the number of cards that will improve your poker hand that can come on the turn or river (in some cases the flop). Beginning players often don’t know how to calculate outs and the &ldqu...

The Stop n Go Play

  You might have heard of the “Stop n Go” maneuver in poker but it’s important to remember it’s true definition and proper usefulness within your poker arsenal. It is primarily used in tournament play but there...

Preflop Play Cash Game Theory

  When you start out playing cash games at the micro stakes (10nl, 25nl, 50nl) you will notice there are really just two types of players preflop. Lets take a look at two generalizations of players and then take...

Microstakes Advice and Examples

  You’ve made your first deposit and taken our advice and are playing 10nl cash game poker on your favorite poker site. Now it’s time to break yourself of bad poker habits like calling too much, having too wide a range of...

Don't Fall in Love With Trips on a Bad Board

  Here’s a great example of a very poorly played hand by a hero. On the button with 77 our hero flats – and this is just horrible. First, we likely have the best hand and can steal the blinds. If our opponent 3bets us (...

Multi-Tabling Basic Tips

For both tournament and cash game players, as soon as we play one single table well at an online poker room, we think to ourselves that if we were to add one more table that we could double the amount of money we would take in for...

Using a HUD While Playing Online Poker

Many players once they've played online poker make a few friends that show that sitting at two tables and grinding micro-stakes tables is a great way to bore yourself to death. Adding tables is such a key skill in increasing your $/hr that every sing...

Using a HUD to Make Decisions in a Hand

If you have not already read the primer about using a HUD (Heads Up Display) then you’ll need to read it before going further. If you are familiar with a HUD or have already read through the article, what we are going to do in this article is r...

Basic Pot Limit Omaha Strategy

    If you’re sick of the grind of No Limit Hold’em and the monotony of full ring play, you’re definitely not alone. As you go up in stakes you’ll find the biggest game in most major casinos or even at the ma...

Playing Specific Hands

Pocket Aces - How To Play Them and How NOT to Play Them

  Having grinded the microstakes levels for the last nine months I’ve seen some good learning players play pocket aces in horrible fashion.  Some players just will not let go of them post flop even though an atomic bomb sized w...

Playing Low Pocket Pairs in Full Ring and 6 Max

  Before I got up on the whole internet poker thing I was about the tightest nit you would ever see at a table.  It was for good Darwinian reasons too – usually I played at my local card room or home games where everyone would ...

Additional Theory: Playing Low and Mid Pocket Pairs

  With the exceptional feedback I received from my previous previous article (click here) about playing low and mid pocket pairs for set mining value, I’d like to follow it up to answer your questions about the other “wha...

Fundamental Play with Ace-King

By Sean ‘Icemonkey9’ Gibson   Nicknamed “Big Slick” the hand of Ace King will either win you a ton of money or lose you a ton of money depending on how well you play the hand. Inexperienced poker players tend to overplay the...

Playing Pocket Jacks – The trickiest pocket pair of ‘em all!

by Sean “Icemonkey9” Gibson   Playing pocket pairs in no limit Texas Hold’em is usually done for one of two reasons – for set mining value (typically done with the low pocket pairs) or because you have a significant preflop ...

Trouble Hands

  Surprisingly, some poker players have never heard of the term “Trouble Hands” and are unaware of its true definition. It’s true that anyone can have trouble with playing any specific hand, even the best hand (po...

Playing Specific Situations

Common Situations - When to Fold or Bet (Part 1)

  One skill a player must learn while playing the micro-stakes of online poker is knowing when to fold. Too often the biggest downfall of a new player is calling too much, especially when the signs are there that he or she is beat. Y...

Common Situations - When to Fold or Bet (Part 2)

  The microstakes are usually where players begin their fortunes. Personally I started at 10nl, meaning the blinds are 0.05 – 0.10 and the max buyin is $10. If you have a bankroll of $200 then you can properly play this level, ...

The Three Bet (3bet) – What it is and How to Use it

  The three bet is defined in the following manner: The “first bet” of a hand (for this example we will go with preflop action) is the big blind. The “second bet” is the first raiser. The “three bet&rdqu...

Different Ace-King Situations and How to Play Them

by Sean Icemonkey9 Gibson   If you haven’t already, it’s a great time to brush up on playing Ace King and start by reading the Fundamental Play with Ace King article . I can’t believe how many people I see at the microstakes limit...

The Float Play

The Float Play by Icemonkey9   The float play is essentially an advanced bluffing technique in no-limit Texas Hold'em that extends from the flop to the turn (or at least, 2 betting rounds). The main theory behind this strategy is to make the villai...

Handling Position + Air + a Draw

  In this hand our hero does the right thing and makes a steal bet of 3x the big blind. The big blind calls, and through the use of HUD (Heads Up Display) stat keeping, our hero knows that this villain is a 70/8/2 fish (meaning he ...

Tough River Decisions Part 1 – What would you do? (Quiz)

By Sean ‘Icemonkey9’ Gibson   It’s inevitable for microstakes and even some low stakes players to be in some weird and tricky situations by the time the river card hits when playing No Limit Holdem. More often than not the situati...

Tough River Decisions Part 2 – More Quiz Questions

By Sean ‘Icemonkey9” Gibson   We looked at some tough river decisions in Part 1 of our ‘Tough River Decisions Series’ and now we’ll look at a few more since the river is often where the most profit and loss for a han...

SNG Strategy: Shortstacked - To Shove or Not to Shove

  We all love an occasionally Sit N Go when playing online poker. They offer up the opportunity to only lose a small amount, win a big amount, and keep us entertained for what we hope to be about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, we don&rsq...

Microstakes Play – Questions from Readers

I was contacted by one of the readers of my articles here at PokerHandReplays.com who asked me to go over some trouble hands he had during a decent session. I thought this was a great way for other microstakes players to get some insight into THE SHR...

10nl Hand Analysis from Custo80

  The very bottom limits at most sites start at 10nl, with blind levels of $0.05 and $0.10 with a maximum buyin of $10. This starting level is where many future cash game professionals first cut their teeth learning the trade of play...

25nl Hand Analysis from The Shrog

  As you start out your poker playing career at the cash game tables chances are you won’t have thousands of dollars to load up into a poker room and you’ll deposit a few hundred bucks and start at the micro-stakes. For m...

Using a HUD - $0.50 - $1 No Limit Hold'em Hands

In this article we'll look at some hands from my hand histories at low stakes, specifically $0.50-$1 No Limit Hold'em (both 6max and Full Ring) and also give HUD stats of the villains and see how that might affect our thinking in terms of making a de...

Using a Hud to Analyze Flop Textures Versus Specific Opponents

If you are going to play poker online and multi-table in order to increase your per-hour win-rate you'll be using a Heads Up Display (HUD). Novice players should read our Using a HUD While Playing Online Poker article, while players that ar...

Fundamentals: Full Ring (9 handed) vs 6 Max (6 handed)

Written by Sean “Icemonkey9” Gibson   After playing an average of 20,000 hands of poker last year into my first foray into online no-limit hold’em, I split the time about evenly between the full ring game and 6max. For those of yo...

PokerStars 210FPP Satellite to the Sunday 200k Tournament Strategy

  Okay, you're wondering why you should care about strategy to the Sunday 200k tournament. Although PokerStars doesn't have a form of rakeback, this is one way you can really turn your FPPs that you accumulate for free by playing in...

Psychology

Psychology – Dissecting Tilt & What it Does to You

  Tilt is the biggest enemy of any poker player. It’s worse than ignorance, inexperience, or bad luck. It’s a time-bomb inside each of us waiting to explode if we don’t diffuse it. There is no player that is above t...

Staying Focused in Online Poker

One of the problems many players run into when playing online poker is a loss of focus. Whereas every player knows the basic texas holdem rules, players are not in an actual casino and never have to handle actual chips or money. It can be hard to rem...

Other

Pai Gow Poker - An Alternative Poker Variation

Pai Gow Basics Pai Gow is a variation of poker although it’s closer to a casino table game like blackjack than Texas Holdem, Omaha or Stud. In the game you get seven cards, which you’re supposed to arrange into one two-card hand...

4 Great Poker Books Every Beginner Should Read

Many new poker players have developed their game through reading strategic poker books. Although many of these books echo the same basic information, a few of them have introduced techniques that can be considered breakthroughs to new and old players...