Freeroll Frenzy is a series of promotions for tournament and cash game players of all stakes and games. For those who prefer cash games, Bet365 is running $10,000 ... more]]> Thousands in cash and prizes are up for grabs with Bet365′s latest promotion Freeroll Frenzy, running now until the first week in March.

Freeroll Frenzy is a series of promotions for tournament and cash game players of all stakes and games. For those who prefer cash games, Bet365 is running $10,000 in rake races for their Premium Tables during Freeroll Frenzy. The rewards are strong; players can earn up to $1,000 a week just by playing at the Premium Tables.

Exclusive to Bet365, Premium Tables are not available on any other iPoker room. That means you’ll only be playing against other Bet365 players, and will have a relatively small pool of competitors for the rake race money.

Tournament players can take advantage of several promotions during Freeroll Frenzy. The one that will be of interest to high-volume players: Bet365 is boosting the amount of Merit Points you earn for buying into tournaments by 33% ñ 20 points per dollar in tournament entries versus 15. Even better, these bonus points do count toward your VIP status and bonus clearing requirements.

On top of that, Bet365 is hosting 360 freerolls ñ one every two hours ñ with prize pools worth thousands total. In addition to what players win in the freerolls, 1500 seats into a series of $10,000 guaranteed tournaments are reserved for the top performers in each weekly freeroll leaderboard. Players who skip the freerolls can buy in directly to the $10k tournaments for $10+1.

Deposit Bonus
Bet365 Poker offers players a 200% bonus up to a max of $1000 on their first deposit at the poker room. Enter Bet365 bonus code PBONUS and remember ñ you’ll be clearing that bonus 33% faster playing tournaments during the Freeroll Frenzy at Bet365.

Sign up for Bet365 Poker ñ Freeroll Frenzy is running now.

Last year, James Bord outlasted a ... more]]> The 2011 WSOP Europe Main Event kicked off on Saturday with 310 players battling it out on the first day of the tournament. Recognized as the best live poker tournament in Europe, this year’s WSOP Europe Main Event championship has taken place in Cannes, France.

Last year, James Bord outlasted a field of 346 players and with Day 1a already nearly surpassing that field size, it’s proof that moving this tournament to France was a good idea. With another few hundred players competing on Day 1b on Sunday, this will undoubtedly be the largest WSOP Europe Main Event field to date.

There were six levels of play during Day 1a of the WSOPE Main Event. By the end of the day, only 165 players remained with Jamie Rosen the chip leader, holding 162,700 in chips. However, Rosen wasn’t the only player with some chips to play with heading into Day 2.

Other notable chip stacks include Dermot Blain with 123,500 in chips, Chris Moorman with 121,775 in chips, Polito Laurent with 120,200 in chips, Mustapha Kanit with 117,700 in chips, and WSOP ME champion Johnny Chan also has more then 100k in chips sitting with 108,350 at the end of the day’s play. Erik Seidel also continued his incredible run in 2001 advancing to Day 2.

During the play on Day 1a, Moorman received a healthy boost to his stack after knocking out well-known poker pro Jason Mercier. A flop of Kh-Jd-4h improved Moorman’s big slick that as up against Mercier’s JT suited. The turn was the 5s and the river card the Qd to see Mercier hit the rail.

Another notable elimination on Day 1a was WSOP Main Event champion Phil Hellmuth. Unlike numerous deep runs at several WSOP Europe events this year, he didn’t make it past the first day.

With the blinds 250/500 Hellmuth was down to 1,600 in chips. After open raising from the hijack position with K9 another player 3-bet from the small blind and Hellmuth called all-in. Unfortunately for him, he was up against Telker’s A9 which had him crushed. The board didn’t improve Hellmuth’s hand and he was resigned to the rail.

Other well-known players to get eliminated on Day 1a of the WSOP Europe Main Event championship included Tom Dwan, Joseph Cheong, Sam Stein, and Justin Bonomo.

The action will commence on Day 2 when the remaining players will return to the felt on Monday to battle it out against the remaining field from Day 1b.

The fantastic range of ... more]]> The Party Poker Challenge II is back!  PokerTableRatings.com (click to see the promotion) is teaming up with Party Poker to provide a ton of prizes to new players that sign up to Party Poker now and play real money hands from September 29^th to October 31^st 2011.

The fantastic range of prizes includes an iPad 2, iPad Nano, $400 Cash, $200k GTD Party Poker Ticket, $1,000 Freeroll, Exclusive Entry to the Baller Freeroll and up to 3 months of PTR Gold for Free (worth $127 value).

The last Party Poker I Challenge had a total of 1600 entrants with more than 700 prizes given away!

In order to participate in this promotion, all you need to do is sign up an account at both Party Poker (includes $500 new player bonus) and PTR.com and collect a series of special “badges” awarded for different themes in the real money cash games.

The first 25 qualifiers who collect 4 Badges (Rookie) will receive a $10 Amazon gift voucher, 1 month free of PTR Silver ($19.99 value), 100 Party Point and entry to the $500 freeroll with a 1^st place prize of a $200K GTD Ticket (worth $215).

The first 10 qualifiers who collect 8 badges (Pro) will receive $250 cash in your Party Poker Account, a free iPod Nano, 1 Month of PTR Gold (worth $49.99) and entry to the Exclusive Pro Freeroll with $1,000 in prizes and a 1^st place prize of a $200k GTD Ticket ($215 value).

Finally, the first  5 qualifiers who manage to collect 12 Badges will receive an iPad 2, $400 cash in your Party Poker Account, a $200k GTD ticket, 3 months free of PTR Gold ($127 value) and entry to the Exclusive Baller Freerol with a $1,500 guaranteed prizepool and a $200k GTD ticket to the 1^st – 3^rd place.

How Do I Collect Badges?

Badges are awarded to players for completing a range of conditions (see the full list) in the $0.05/0.10 or higher cash games.  For example, you can earn Badges for doing the following things:

• Limp with AA
• Play 300 Hands per Day for 5 Days in a Row
• Play 5280 Hands in a 7 Day Period
• Win a Pot with J-5 (not in the BB)
• Win a Pot with the Hole Cards 10-2 (not in the BB)
• Win a Pot where the Community Cards are all of the Same Suit
• Seven Straight (e.g. 2-3-4-5-6-7-8)
• Win a Pot in a 4+ Player Showdown
• Win a Family Flop (e.g. when 5+ Players see the Flop)

How Do I Enter the Party Poker II Challenge?

Entering the Party Poker II Challenge is very easy.  All you have to do is sign up to Party Poker and follow the instructions on this page.  You can start signing up for the contest on the 15^th September and you’ll be eligible to start receiving badges on the 29^th September at 5PM GMT.  The competition ends on Saturday, October 29^th at midnight.

The use of a poker HUDs (heads up displays) has proliferated amongst serious, winning poker players.  Roughly 50% of winning online poker players used a poker HUD in 2010, which is probably around 10% of online players overall.

Essentially the benefits ... more]]> Is it Fair to Use a Poker HUD in Online Poker?

The use of a poker HUDs (heads up displays) has proliferated amongst serious, winning poker players.  Roughly 50% of winning online poker players used a poker HUD in 2010, which is probably around 10% of online players overall.

Essentially the benefits of using a poker HUD, which have been discussed in specific articles on this site, have almost become requirements to become a winning poker player, at least above $1/$2 anyway.

Sure, if you’re only playing two or four games of $3/$6 than your mind can absorb enough information and reads on the various players at your table to not need one.  However anyone multi-tabling (which most pro players making more than $50,000/yr are) will NEED to use a poker HUD.

Debates about whether using a poker HUD is fair in online poker have been going on for many years.  In fact, you can read a massive 20+ page 2+2 forum thread on poker HUDs here (it even includes references to our own site).

One of the funny things about the debate however if that 90% of the new poker players who are being disadvantaged by regulars who do use a poker HUD don’t know about it.  Thus, the ball is very much in the winning players’ court since they’ve got a big advantage against new players who don’t actually know it.

An interesting turning point about Poker HUDs and live tracking technology came about at the beginning of 2011 when Bodog Poker released a statement that they would no longer allow players to use live tracking software at their poker site.

Unlike most other online poker sites world wide, Bodog Poker are one of the only sites to actually prohibit live tracking software which draws statistics from how other poker players play.  Sharkscope for example will no longer be able to collect SNG and MTT data from Bodog’s poker players.

The news is great for new players in general because it means that they can play at Bodog’s low stakes games without being “tracked” or disadvantages by better players who pay for such software.  However it will also piss off many regulars who have become practically dependant on such software to maintain their high win rates and exploit fish at the tables.

In many ways, if Poker HUDs were suddently prohibited at all major poker sites (which would never happen) than many of these high stakes multi-tablers would be forced to cut down on how many games they can play simultaneously with the same win-rate.  Thus, their income levels would be severely effected, possibly by 50% or more.

Personally, I think that using a Poker HUD is fair within reason since it only gives multi-tablers information that they would have been able to obtain naturally anyway by playing lots of games against the same opponents.  To put it bluntly, using a poker HUD isn’t “cheating” since it doesn’t let you know what cards your opponent has.  All it does is allow you to play more tables without having to concentrate as much at each table.  The advantage from using a Poker HUD comes mainly from knowing how to use it and apply it to your game, not just relying on it to tell you what to do at different streets.

Your Poker HUD is only as good as the data and hand history that you have to analyse.  The majority of players who use a Poker HUD regularly import hand history by buying it from sites such as PokerTableRatings.com, who provide a very small charge for ... more]]> Buy Poker Hand Histories

Your Poker HUD is only as good as the data and hand history that you have to analyse.  The majority of players who use a Poker HUD regularly import hand history by buying it from sites such as PokerTableRatings.com, who provide a very small charge for up to 1 million in hand history charts.

How to Buy Hand Histories at PokerTableRatings.com

PokerTableRankings is my recommended source for buying poker hand histories.  The homepage sates that over 15,500 players have bought hand histories from them, and they offer so many options including the ability to see how fresh the hand histories are.  This is great because you know the hands will not be outdated and you can be confident relying on their data.  You can select how many hands worth of history you want, for a particular room, at the particular stakes.

Buy Hand Histories at PokerTableRatings Now!

Steps for Buying Hand Histories

• Visit PokerTableRatings.com
• Select Which Poker Room (includes PokerStars, Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker, Cake Poer, Party Poker Bodog and iPoker).
• Select Which Type of Games (Holdem cash games, SNGs or Omaha)
• Select Betting Structure (Fixed Limit or No limit)
• What Game Stakes ($0.01/$0.02 up to $50/$100)
• Table Stakes (any, 1-2, 3-6 or 7-10)
• Select Quantity of Hands (Recommended 1 million but you can choose from 200,000 up to 10 million).
• Checkout to Pay and Download.

How much does it Cost to Purchase Hand Histories?

The hand histories that PokerTableRatings offers is around $50 to buy; however it also depends on how many you buy and for which specific stakes etc.  That being said, most players tend to go for the 1 million hands option which cost $50.

Do I think the price is worth it?  It depends on how often you use your HUD and how big your existing collection of data is.  If you’re looking to buy hand histories than in my opinion this is a very fair price.  Using a Poker HUD is all about the data and stats collection that you have.  If you don’t have enough raw data than it will almost be pointless to use a HUD until you manage to start collecting a large amount from your games.

Advantages of Buying Poker Hand Histories

The more hand history and data you have, the more reliable and accurate your Poker HUD stats will be.  This is especially true if you’re decided to start playing at a new poker room such as UB and you want to get some quick stats on your opponent rather than building them up from thin air yourself.

Whether or not you think buying hand history if you’re using Poker-Edge than you don’t need to because Poker-Edge uses a remote central-database for its data.  However for anyone using Poker Tracker, Holdem Manager or Poker Office then buying poker hand histories will be very advantageous.  The more hand history and data you have, the more useful and accurate your poker HUD will be.

The continuation bet is one of the simplest bluffs that you can make in poker, and if you’re used to playing live poker at the casinos you’ll find that it happens a hell of a lot more in the online poker games.  Players raise flops out of position because ... more]]> Continuation Betting

The continuation bet is one of the simplest bluffs that you can make in poker, and if you’re used to playing live poker at the casinos you’ll find that it happens a hell of a lot more in the online poker games.  Players raise flops out of position because they’re too scared to check it and end up losing to a raise behind them, or players in position use it because they know they’ve got virtually nothing to lose.  But what exactly is the right way to continuation bet in the micro-low stakes games?

First of all, in the micro-stakes games of NL10 up to NL50 there’s a strong argument to continuation bet around 90% of your hands.  At least for the time being players at this level haven’t adjusted to this sort of aggression.  You can start popping away at the flop with all kinds of hands, pocket pairs, gutshot straight draws, overcards, A10s, etc.  You have to quickly realise that the majority of players in the micro-stakes games are nits or play far too TAG like.  If you’re using a HUD (which automatically puts you in the top breach of players for that category) then you’ll probably find most players are playing with a poker hud top line that reads 12/10, i.e. they’re only playing 12% of their starting hands.  Compare this to a regular in the NL100 games or mid-stakes, with a 30/27 VPIP/PFR%, and you can see the difference. The TAG micro-stakes player is extremely one-dimensional, and while there’s an argument that if he’s only calling the blinds with strong hands he’s more likely to hit something big (TPTK) on the flop, he’s actually likely to re-raise you with these types of hands or at the very least make it very obvious when he’s struck gold.

What are the best boards to continuation bet?

The best boards to be continuation betting are those with unconnected, unsuited, non-dangerous cards e.g. Q28.  These types of cards are not going to punish you for making a continuation bet.  You’re never going to get re-raise with these cards, there are no straight draws to worry about, and even if your opponent has top pair there’s still a chance that you can bluff him off the pot with pressure or force him to fold to an over card.  Other similarly good boards to c-bet like this are A84, J47, K82.

Another type of board I enjoy continuation betting are either when the flop brings 3 suited cards to the board or brings a pair to the board.  With 3 suited cards such as 7s-3s-Js, it makes it very hard for any of your opponents to make a call without the nut flush.  Also, even if they’ve made a good hand such as top pair or even two pair then may realise that they could be drawing dead and will give the hand up pretty easily.  In terms of c-betting a pair to the board (e.g. 22Q), what I like about this move is that your opponent’s pre-flop calling range is extremely unlikely to catch it.  This gives you greater fold equity particularly in position, although you have to bear in mind too that you’re also less likely to hit this type of board, so it works both ways.  Either way though, it’s always best to bluff these types of boards that your opponents will give up easily on.  Particularly in heads up games, most opponents will be prepared to lay down their cards if they’ve missed this sort of flop and don’t have any high cards.

Worst types of boards to continuation bet

Finally, the worst types of boards to continuation bet are wet boards that make it easy for your opponent to hit or catch something with. Any flop which brings two or more broadway cards (QJ8) or lots of middling cards (586) is horrible to bluff because they are so many hands that your opponent can call with.  If you study your opponent’s pre-flop calling range, you have to realise that a large proportion of his hands are going to be high broadway cards, mid-pocket pairs and suited connectors such as 6s7s.  These are the types of boards he’s going to hit strongly, and even if he doen’t make top pair there’s a big chance that he’ll peel up enough call equity with a straight draw or mid pair etc..

Full Tilt Poker’s Rush Poker has become addictive for many players. The problem however is that it is actually a very difficult game to navigate if you’re not using a HUD. You are always switching tables and coming up against new players which ... more]]> What is the Best HUD for Rush Poker?

Full Tilt Poker’s Rush Poker has become addictive for many players. The problem however is that it is actually a very difficult game to navigate if you’re not using a HUD. You are always switching tables and coming up against new players which makes conventional reads on your opponents without the use of software very difficult. If a player re-raises or 3bets you out of position, for example, then you really have nothing to go on. That’s why anyone who plays Rush a lot should start to use a Rush Poker compatible a HUD.  The detailed statistics that a Heads Up Display provides you with will help you combat opponents and increase your bb/100 win-rate in Rush.

Compatible Poker HUDs for Rush Poker

Poker-Edge 5 users will be happy to hear that the PE HUD is 100% Rush Poker compatible.  You can instantly start playing Rush Poker games without having to make any adjustments or alter the settings when using Poker-Edge.  This is much better than HM and PT’s Rush extensions for example which require you to customise the display to work properly in Rush Poker games.  Read the Poker-Edge Review.

The best thing about using Poker-Edge’s live tracking software is that it uses a central database that already contains billions of reads on players, rather than having to import and rely on your own limited desktop data. Using the Poker-Edge HUD in Rush Poker is therefore a massive advantage in comparison to HM’s and PT’s. Considering there are thousands of players in the Rush games, your regular desktop data is unlikely to cover everyone. 

Poker-Edge 5 will do this for you and provide incredible HUD stats on all of the opponents in your Rush games.  The micro-stakes Poker-Edge package is available from just $4.95 per month, and is definitely worth buying for Rush Poker in my opinion.

Buy Poker-Edge.com (5 Day Free Trial)

Read the Poker Edge Review