So people tend to use this game as a regular income, but that also means that you have to be a good poker player and take the whole thing seriously. This means that every game you play, you must be sure of that you are giving your all in that moment. Otherwise, you might as wel just play for fun and be done with it.

A lot of players even were sunglasses or in some cases even huge goggles, so that their competioners will not see their reactions to things that happens during the game. This might work on increasing your chanses of winning, but you will also need a hell lot of big luck if you want to win the big money.

So, what can you sell then? Basically anything, is the simple answer. There is a big interest for everything vintage these days, especially in Europe. This vintage trend is not only noticeable in the clothing domain, but also when it comes to biking. If you have vintage spare parts, like a hub or a crank set in a box somewhere in your home, you might be able to sell it to a European.

Europeans also love all kinds of sportswear with team names on them. It doesn’t matter if the team is known by anyone at all or not; as a matter of fact, the less known the team is, the better. So if you have a t-shirt or two from your school baseball team, sell them. You might actually make enough money for some more games in the process, and keep playing poker as the Lord intended you to.

In fact these days then players who struggle to beat the game are the fish of today compared to players of a few years ago who were absolutely terrible. If a player is a break even player or thereabouts then many people would argue as to how you could call these players fish if you cannot extract money from them. Well the fact of the matter is that you can. Let us look at a player who we shall call “Joe”. This guy breaks even but he breaks even in a way that is beneficial to stronger players. He makes $1200/month in rakeback but that is offset by him losing $1200/month on the tables.

The end result is that he breaks even but he is still putting $1200/month into the poker economy that the better players will pick up. In fact in this instance then the poker site is actually helping the good player to make money. The act of giving this player $1200/month is helping to keep a fish active in the games and any player who is not losing money will likely keep on playing. In their minds (and they may be right) then with a little work and perseverance then they could easily be making money.

However even winning players can still be “fish” for good players and it is easy to see why that is. Imagine a player who makes $1500/month in rakeback but loses $500/month on the tables to better players. This player is not only making a profit of $1k/month but he is also contributing $500/month to better players than himself. Also winning players are less inclined to change their games because why should they……they have the game cracked because they make $1k/month. So in a subtle roundabout way then the site is collecting rake, awarding a percentage of it back to the player and then you as a hopefully stronger player get some of that.

This is why it is not automatically correct to view winning players as having no value in the game. In my experience then weak-tight players can and do make money online because they can make money from the really terrible players at the lower levels. This doesn’t allow them to be +EV in the games but to lose less money than they normally would. Then in turn they pass this money back to stronger players or a percentage of it.

So in order to score (win pots) you need to understand poker hand rankings and what beats what. In poker a hand is comprised of five cards. For ease of understanding let’s start with the worst kind of hands and work our way to the best.

Many times a hand will be ranked just by the high card in the holding. The Ace is the high card in the deck, followed by the King, the Queen, the Jack, and all the numbered cards in order 10 down to 2. In a high card hand, say King-10-8-6-2. The hand would be called King high. If an opponent also has a high card hand and it’s topped by a Queen or less the King high would scoop the pot. If both players held a King and nothing else, the tie would be broken by the kickers (the next highest cards). If both hands are identical they split the pot.

It is fairly common to have at least a pair in the holding. This is also called two of a kind. If the hand was King-King-10-8-6, a player would have a pair of kings. A player with just a pair of queens or worse would lose. If both players had a pair of kings, again the kickers would come into play to break the tie.
It’s important to remember as we go up the scale, any hand type one rank above beats a hand below it no matter the cards in the hand. For example a pair of twos will always beat just Ace high because a pair is higher than no pair.

The next hand up the rankings is three of kind. Instead of a pair, a player would have three of the same card. Here it could be King-King- King- 10- 8. As there are some games were cards are community cards and are shared by all the players, like Texas Hold’em, it is possible to have the same three of a kind and kickers also come into play to break ties. Again, three of kind 2-2-2 will beat a pair of Aces as three of a kind is higher in the rankings.

Above three of a kind is a straight. A straight is when a player has five consecutive cards. An example is: King-Queen- Jack- 10- 9. Having two, three or four consecutive cards is irrelevant and usually those holding are just ranked by their high card. A straight must have all five cards in order. If two players have straights, the straight that starts with the higher card wins. Since an Ace can play on either side of the straight, Ace-2- 3- 4-5 or Ace-King- Queen- Jack- 10. The first straight would be ranked five high and the Ace, for that hand, would rank as the lowest card in the deck and that player would lose to straights starting from a six or higher.

One hand higher is a flush. A flush beats all straights, just as all straights beat all three of a kinds and so on. A flush is when all five cards are of the same suit (all diamonds, all spades, all clubs, or all hearts). Ties are broken, again, by the high card in the holding. And just like straights, all five cards must be in play or else it isn’t a flush.

Above a flush is a Full House. That’s when you hold three of kind plus a pair. A hand would look like this: King-King-King-two-two. Here ties are broken by the higher three of kind. If they are tied, then the ties is broken by the higher pair.

Above a Full House is a four of a kind. Obviously, that means having four of the same card in your hand. Ties are broken by the fifth card. So King-King-King-King-10 would beat King-King-King-King-9. Again, this only comes into play when the game of poker uses community cards like Omaha.

A straight flush is five consecutive cards (a straight) all of the same suit (a flush). The highest straight flush is a royal flush, when the player has A-K-Q-J-10 all of the same suit. Straight flushes and four of kinds are very rare.

When you are ready to play poker online just head over to some of the bigger and better poker sites such as: https://www.bwin.com/texas-holdem-poker. See you there!

There are simply things that you cannot do and you need to admit this to yourself. You simply have to find your optimal level and this is where you can really start to blossom. At the lower levels then you simply do not need to make fancy plays. Let us look at an example here to show fancy play in action. You open raise from the cut-off with 10c-8c and the big blind calls you. The flop comes Jd-Js-2d and the big blind leads out with a two thirds pot sized bet. You call looking to try and represent a possible slow played jack and to scare your opponent.

The turn is the 4c and your opponent bets again and you raise and your opponent thinks for a while and then shoves all in. You have to fold of course but you could have easily folded to your opponents flop bet. Your opponent flashes you A-J and they simply bet their strong hand on the flop. So you were trying to represent the hand that your opponent actually had which was actually quite funny. But this was a fancy play but yet when you see high stakes games then you often see plays like this but this is because the games at those levels are far more aggressive.

In areas like full ring then you simply do not need to make plays like these. Also if you are making fancy plays like these in situations where your opponents play very tightly then you are going to be bleeding money playing in this way. It is for this reason why I like to play full ring because there tends to be someone somewhere who is prepared to do something that they shouldn’t. In full ring then you obviously have more opponents sitting at your table. In six handed games then you see more hands per hour on your table.

This may seem as though six handed games are better but yet in full ring games then you are compensated by having more players on your table and more players have the chance to make more mistakes. So one form of poker really isn’t superior to another and it is what you really make it and how you fit your own style around that.

Firstly we have individual skill which is clearly different from player to player. Then we have the differences in poker sites. Believe it or not, there are differences in skill from poker site to poker site based on numerous dynamics. Another factor that influences earn rates is what time of day you play as there can be weaker fish at certain times of the day over others. Another factor that affects earn rate is your level of concentration and this can differ from player to player and I suppose that this can be put down to skill as well.

Some players look at rakeback and sign up bonuses and include them in their earn rate while other players don’t. So when you see an earn rate by a player who is quoting say 9ptbb/100 over 75,000 hands at NL50 while you are merely making 3ptbb/100 over the same sample size then you do not need to start fretting about this. Remember one very important thing, if you are making 3ptbb/100 over 75,000 hands then you are in very elite company simply because you are a winning poker player.

I have heard of players who have had totally different sample sizes of 100,000 hands. Top professionals have run good for 100k hands and then broken even over the next 100k hands. Many players simply refuse to accept that variance could last as long as 200,000 hands. Imagine if you started your career with a break even stretch of 100k hands? How would you feel after embarking on such a run? Could you cope mentally with not winning over 100k hands?

This is where rakeback and sign up bonuses increase in importance hugely. Let us say that you go on a huge 100,000 hand break even stretch and you play 25,000 hands per month. If you make $1000/month in rakeback or sign up bonuses then you are ahead by $1000 at the end of the month despite breaking even. This is a huge cushion on your psyche because in your mind then you are not encountering a losing run. This is why I would include rakeback and sign up bonuses in my earn rate.

I know that a lot of players refuse to do this but I believe that it isn’t a bad thing to do if you are a relatively inexperienced player or you have yet to experience a really bad run.

If you have Jc-3c on the button and you are thinking about open raising then what are your reasons? Are you attacking the blinds trying to create some dead money in the pot if the small blind folds? Do you think that the blinds play badly post flop and play far too tightly? If you want to play effective poker then planning will be critical to your success. Often when you multi-table limit Texas Holdem games and especially six handed limit games then it can be easy to slip into automatic pilot and simply make bad decisions because you are called upon to make too many decisions in such a small period of time.

If you have A-J and the flop comes J-9-4 and you bet the A-J then why are you betting it? Are you betting for value or are you betting to protect your hand or both? Knowing why you are doing certain things will help you to react to events when they happen instead of wondering what to do. However it is not much use setting out a plan for the hand if you do not know how to achieve that plan. Once you have a plan then you are going to have to come up with some objectives to help you achieve that plan.

Let us say that you have J-10 and the flop comes A-K-Q giving you the but straight. There are two other opponents and you plan to maximise your winnings in this hand. This is your plan but how are you going to reach that plan? If your opponent raised from the cut-off and the button called with you calling from the big blind then are you going to check to induce your opponents to give you some action on your hand? Or did you check-raise the last flop only to see your opponents fold and so you want to trap them on the larger betting rounds?

You decide to check-call and then check-raise the turn. So here your very simple plan is to maximise your profit on the hand and the way that you set about doing this is to check-call the flop and then check-raise the turn. It doesn’t really matter if this line of play does not achieve the optimal value but the most important thing is that you have a plan. Remember that it is better to have a bad plan than no plan at all.

But look at this another way, if aggression was the be all and end all of poker then it would be all too easy to become good at the game and there would be no point in trying to teach people the finer nuances if all they had to remember was to be aggressive. Let us look at an example to show what I mean here. It has been folded around to the button who blindly raises with any two cards and in this instance has a weak hand like 8-4.

The small blind folds and the big blind calls and the flop comes K-9-2. The big blind checks and the button player bets and takes the pot. This looks like a coup but on the next hand, this happens. Once again this player raises from the button with 7-2 and the big blind calls. The flop comes 4-4-3 and the big blind checks and the button bets and it gets called. The turn card is the Jc and the big blind checks again and the button continues the bluff and gets called again.

The river card is another bad card for the button and is the Kd. The big blind checks again and the button shoves all in and this final bet induces a fold from the big blind. This once again looks like a great play from the button. On the next orbit they raise again with J-3 and the big blind calls again with A-6 and the flop comes 7-6-2. The big blind check-calls the flop and the turn comes another seven and the big blind check calls again.

The river card is the Qd and the big blind check calls again to win the pot with two pair sevens and sixes. The aggressive button starts to deride the big blind in the chat box by calling him a fish. However what he has failed to comprehend is that the big blind and probably other players on the table were starting to spot patterns in this blind aggressive play of raising pre-flop and then betting on every street post flop.

Better players will be better bankrolled and will be prepared to make lighter call downs. Tools like aggression are just like any other tool in that they are good tools to have but they need to be used at the right time and against the right opponents.

I had a player contact me last year who had made around $4000 in the space of a year simply by playing freerolls. Some people may look at that and think, yeah but how many hours has he played and what is his hourly rate?

But is this really the way that we should be looking at his achievement? If you turn $2000 into $4000 then you have shown a $2000 profit on $2000 so your ROI (return on investment) is 100%. Now 100% is an unbelievable return on investment! If you turn $1 into $4000 then your ROI is 4000%. But turning $0 into $4000 is a return that is infinite. Any poker player who has made money without having to invest anything is to be commended in my opinion.

Sure the regular players and the professionals may knock them but they are wrong to do so. There have been numerous bankroll challenges over the past few years where players have tried to turn mediocre sums of money into huge amounts and succeeded. The strong base that is needed is iron money management skills.

You must keep discipline at all times but if you can do this then you really can make money out of nothing. I tried my own bankroll challenge a couple of years ago and tried turning $1000 into $100,000 over the space of a year and had to pack it up through other work commitments. Once you get into the proper mindset, you can do this but the difficult part is ploughing through the first few months where you basically have to play poker without making any progress whatsoever.

There may be several thousand players in these freeroll poker tournaments and it is going to take you a ling time in all probability to be able to get away from ground zero or in this case… $0. But sooner or later you will cash in a freeroll event and you will be on your way. Then it is a simple case of grinding at the lower limits at a game that you are strongest in.

Say for example that you have cashed in a $1000 freeroll for $50, you then have numerous ways to go. You now have something to work with and if you can now take advantage of a rakeback deal as well then you are on your way. I would now be looking to fragment that $50 into at least 10 buy-ins and play $5 no-limit games.

The level of play in these poker games is very bad as you would expect and a decent player could make something like10 to 20 buy-ins over the space of a month depending on how many hours they put in.

Let us say that you made the lower end of that figure and made ten buy-ins during the next month after you cashed in your freeroll for the $50. Now you have $100 in your bankroll and you could either stay at the $5 level and be even better bankrolled or move up to the $10 games with the same ten buy-ins.

If you dropped down from $100 to $50 then you could drop back down a level to the $5 games where you would have the same ten buy-ins again. On sites that have micro levels then you can play really low levels like these and slowly build yourself up. Once you get to the $25 level with a bankroll of between $250-$500 then you can start to make some decent progress very quickly and the $10,000 mark will seem a whole lot nearer when you are multi-tabling making something like $10/hour.