One slight disadvantage that you have when tangling with fish is your lack of statistical evidence concerning how they play. Fish are fish primarily because they do not play often enough to become good, so you won’t have a lot of hand histories on them. Luckily the lack of stats is balanced by their lack of ability.

When using a Heads Up Display (HUD), a passive fish is recognised by having a single digit PFR (pre flop raise) percentage and a high VPIP (voluntarily put into pot). A good example would be 40/8 and you can start picking up a feel for this type of player with a sample size as small as 20 hands. Fans of Betfair WSOP will know better plays don’t have these stats.

The maniacal fish are a little tougher to pick out of the poker line up. A good rule of thumb would be a VPIP of 35+ and a PFR of 20+. The difference between the two should be at least 15 and you should have 100 hands before you can confidently stack off against them for 100BB or less based on these poker online stats.

To help improve the accuracy of your river reads Jackson makes sure you have the Bet River Stat on your Heads Up Display (HUD). Not a lot of people pay much attention to this statistic, but it is a great one for helping to determine ranges on the river at the extremes.

Just a few stats to help you find the juicy waters next time you go fishing.

As poker evolves it is becoming more aggressive, making a three-betting strategy a must have for any serious poker player. Your primary strategy should be different at each level of the game; because the player pool is stronger the higher you play. So if you are playing 50NL and below it is correct to play an exploitable game where you can fold over 55% of the time to a three-bet. You are allowed to play an exploitable game because at this level very few players are going to exploit you. If your opponent is not exploiting you there is no need to defend widely. Fans of the Betfair world series of poker need to remember this.

As you move up to 100NL and higher you need to make sure that you are not being exploited by folding too often. This means that you need to reduce your fold to three-bet statistic to a range somewhere between 50-60%. Where your defence ends up depends on your profitability. There are two defences to be used against players who are seemingly three-betting you light. You can call or you can four-bet in online poker.

Calling becomes a range issue. You simply need to estimate the range of hands they are three betting then choose a stronger range to flat with. Obviously flatting three-bets when playing out of position must be based on a very tight range. As playing out of position is so tough it becomes a much better spot to four-bet bluff. When four-bet bluffing make sure your opponent has shown a tendency to fold and that you have hands like Ax (because of the card removal effect) and possibly suited hands like Kxs and 76s-T9s just incase the unlikely scenario of receiving a call takes place.

If an opponent is raising from under the gun, in a six max cash game, then you should assume that their range is heavily weighted towards premium hands. If you are facing a professional or semi-professional player then you can expect them to be opening as few as 12-15% of hands. As an example, a 12% range of hands consists of 22-AA, ATs+, AJo+ and KQs.

Facing a range that tight you have to be aware of a few things. Firstly, you need to be wary about your cold calling range. A hand like KJ will be in terrible shape compared to the dominating hands of the 12% range of your opponent. So if you are going to cold call then you must do so with a range similar to the raising range of your opponent. Anyone with a Betfair Free Poker Bonus should bear this in mind.

Secondly, you need to be aware what a three-bet says to your opponent. A decent regular will know that you are mindful of his tight opening range and therefore your three-bet should equate to strength. Those with a Betfair Promotion Code should remember this.

You could say that this argument lends weight to have an increased bluff three-bet range, but there just aren’t enough situations where your opponent is going to fold. Therefore a great strategy for dealing with under the gun opens is to flat or fold. This includes flatting with your very best hand such as AA-QQ and AK. By playing in this way you can eliminate a potential bluff three-betting raise, which would be burning money.

If you have not heard the old adage about the young bull and the old bull, then let us enlighten you. For the sake of modesty we will replace some of the more controversial words.

There was once a young bull and an old bull overlooking a field of cows. The young bull turned to the old bull and said, “I am going to run down to that field and make love to one of those cows.” The old bull listened intently before replying, “I am going to walk down and make love to them all.”

Young and old bulls also dominate the poker scene, and you will find that the old adage also rings true. Sometimes the young bulls expand an awful lot of energy arriving at the same space as the old bulls, and sometimes the steady pace of the old bulls see them lagging way behind. Watch WSOP 2012 and you’ll see this.

Young bulls are more inclined to take shots at higher levels than old bulls are. The young bulls lack the knowledge and experience and are therefore more inclined to take risks, whereas the old bulls just prefer to remain grazing in a familiar field. The older bulls seem to have accepted their place in poker society. They know whom they can beat and whom they can’t and they don’t challenge themselves anymore. The young bulls do not know their place yet and so they will simply go for it. Old bulls don’t like the swings that poker brings to their lives and the young bulls just thrive on them. Anyone with a Betfair Poker Freeroll needs to bear this in mind.

The important thing to remember is that you only live once. There is no place for regrets so be both the young and the old bull – experience it all.

When you log onto play a game of heads up (HU) poker and see 25 tables all with the same guy sat waiting then you should start to worry. In fact, unless you are really confident in your game, then you wouldn’t sit down at all. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening in our HU world.

Nearly everyone in the game realises that something needs to be done about this situation, even the regulars and very best pros and fans of Betfair will know this. If you are the world’s greatest HU player it is irrelevant if you never get to play in the first place! So the HU game is ripe for a change, but what exactly should be changed?

Here are some ideas taken from the mind of one of the world’s best HU players – Phil Galfond.

First up is the ability for people to create their own heads up tables. All of the tables with people sat on them waiting for action will be shown in the lobby. Although Galfond generates this idea for debate he is not in favour of it. He believes that infinite tables will put players off. He is also a believer that today’s fish realise that the HU games revolve around them and ONLY them – therefore they no longer play. http://poker.betfair.com/en/

Then there are king of the hill tables. These are a series of tables where players who will play anyone can take a seat and cannot be removed until they leave. This system would favour the better players in the game, of which Galfond is one, and he admits this as much in his writings.

What will be done about the future of HU action? Who knows but the wind of change is whipping up a storm.

Omaha is not only the largest city in the State if Nebraska, but it is also the name of a form of poker that uses community cards similar to the more famous relative Texas Hold’em Poker. Omaha is located in the Midwestern State of the US, alongside the Missouri River, but the name has no ties to the history of the game itself, unlike Texas Hold’em, which derives its name from Robstown, Texas.

Omaha is a form of Hold’em and in fact the game was originally known as Omaha Hold’em. More recently online poker players are more likely to name the game after the type of Omaha you play e.g. Pot Limit Omaha is known as the acronym PLO. There is no recorded reasoning as to where the name Omaha comes from and it seems just purely coincidental that the US has a state of the same name. The professional poker player and World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Robert “Chip Burner” Turner introduced the game into the mainstream during the 1970s. At the time William “Bill” Walter Boyd (also a professional poker player) was Director of Operations at the Golden Nugget casino and Turner approached Boyd with the game and it was introduced at the tables of the casino under the name Nugget Hold’em.

Omaha is a game played all over the world including the realms of cyber-space. There are multiple derivatives of the game including Omaha hi-low split-8 or better, Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Omaha. The game is most commonly played with each player being dealt four cards with five community cards shared by all players. Hands have to be made by using three community cards and two of the four cards held by each player.

What sets No Limit Hold’ Em (NLHE) apart from all forms of limit poker is the ability to move all of your chips into the middle of the pot at any point in the hand. This difference is the reason Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson christened the game The Cadillac of Poker.

Moving all-in can be a very aggressive move, especially if you have your opponent covered. In a tournament, for example, the players main purpose is to survive and being faced with an all-in shove means death if you get it horribly wrong. Anyone who has made a poker download should remember this.

It is important to realise that moving all-in may only be seen as a sign of strength in the eyes of the recreational player. The professional player will have seen it all before and will have a different view on the decision you have made. Imagine you have found yourself on the flop in a raised pot holding king-queen.

There are 2,000 chips in the middle and you have 4,000 in your stack. The flop misses your hand and when the action falls to you, you decide to move all-in. Now why would you move all-in for twice the size of the pot? Unless you are in a deep thinking meta-game with your opponent, he will likely see this move as the bluff that it is, and call with a much lighter range of hands. This is what is called polarising your range – when you play pokeronline you either have it or you don’t.

So just be smart and retain an element of composure when deciding to move all-in. Ask yourself am I going to get called or not? Do I want to be called or not?

Each and every one of us will have memories of being on the wrong side of one thing or another. Maybe you were the last man standing by the wall when the two captains picked the football sides in school? Maybe you remember having your dinner money stolen? Perhaps you remember your big brother always changing the TV channels?
Perhaps we are all gambling to try and recover all of these losses we incurred as a child?

We believe that when you are playing poker far worse things will happen than good. Anyone looking at a Betfair poker download should remember this.

You will fold more hands than you play, and you will lose more than you win when you do play them. Poker is like that – it can be a real nightmare. This idiom means that you need to keep your inner child under control at all times. There is no room for him at the table and if he starts to surface then get up, head to the toilet and wash him away with some nice cold water. http://poker.betfair.com/en/how_to_play/

Playing the victim may work if you want a hug from your loved ones, but there is no room for it on the felt. By playing the role of the victim you are releasing your responsibility and handing it to the rest of the players in the game. You will stop caring and will wallow in your own self-pity.

Put simply if you play the role of the victim you are very likely to end up going broke.

The waters of the United States online gambling industry are very turbulent at the moment. If you have been hiding under a rock for the past few weeks let’s bring you very quickly up to speed.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) released to the public a formal legal opinion on the scope of the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 concluding that, “intrastate transmissions of wire communications that do not relate to a sporting event or contest fall outside of the reach of the Wire Act.”

Almost immediately various States started to prepare for the onslaught of legalised online gambling. It has often been thought that intrastate gambling would produce a fantastic profit base for the States but the New York Times is taking a different angle on it. Fans of www.betfairpoker.com will no doubt be keeping an eye on things.

The New York Times are saying that although the States will in fact create a new revenue stream, the stream will not be juicy enough to solve critical budget issues. The writer Michael Cooper starts his investigation by comparing online poker with the State lotteries. He writes that multi-state lotteries such as Powerball and Mega Millions pull in revenue upwards of $18 billion per year, much more than online poker would achieve.

Cooper looks at the state of Iowa as an example. The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission recently carried out a study based on the revenue and taxation of online gaming and believe the state could pull in somewhere between $13 and $60 million annually. Fans of Betfair Free Poker should remember this.

With some States looking to plug gaps in their budget’s tottering around in the billions, all of a sudden online gaming doesn’t look like it will tick all of the boxes.

When a truly great poker player is playing poker they never get lost. They know exactly where they are, what their surroundings look like and where they want to be.

Let’s use the example of a Texas Holdem poker tournament spread over a period of five days as an example. On Day 1 the player will probably start with 30,000 chips, a 60-minute clock and blinds at 25/50 with no ante. This gives each player 600 big blinds to begin the first hand with. Let’s imagine a very inexperienced player finds himself or herself in this situation and are dealt pocket kings in the very first hand of Day 1. How are they going to play the hand with 600 big blinds? Are they going to get lost?

The experienced player will realise that whatever they do with those pair of kings they are not going to win the tournament for them. They understand that poker tournaments are not won or lost on day 1 of the tournament. This means that because an experienced player knows where they are they will play the hand much slower.

Experienced players use a wide variety of different signs to help them understand where they are in a game. One sign is the number of big blinds that they or their opponent has, the particular day of a tournament that they are in, understanding that they are approaching the bubble, understanding they are playing the bubble and so on and so on.

Knowing where you are in the game of poker is gained through experience. So start playing and continually ask for advice and eventually you will create your own poker sat-nav and getting lost will be a thing of the past.