Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category

PostHeaderIcon Are you a “bingo donkey” player in facebook poker ?

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To know whether or not you’re a facebook poker bingo superstar, you must first understand exactly what a poker donkey is. A donkey in poker is someone who plays loose and wild, but always manages to catch his card on the river and win the hand aka “river rat”. He’s the guy (or girl) who wets themselves with joy when they get dealt Ace – King because they just cant wait for the Ace to fall on the flop so they can go all in and win it. But when the Ace doesn’t fall, they go all in anyway because – hey…the Ace *always* comes right? Well in the case of a facebook poker donkey, yeah .. it usually does.
The Ace – King all in is a classic facebook poker donkey move, but they also have other moves that can help distinguish them. If any of these seem familiar to you because they’re part of your playing style, you might be a facebook poker donkey:
You chase anything and everything.

When you get 7 – 2 offsuit, the first thing that comes to your mind is “I should fold this…but what if 7 – 7 – 2 comes on the flop? The poker donkey is the eternal optimist, unable and unwilling to put down any cards because of the 3% chance that he might land a huge hand on the flop.
You were born to call.

Did someone who has been raising the entire hand just go all in after the river? They probably have a very strong hand, but what the hell right? Call their bet and show ‘em whose boss with your monster pocket pair! A donkey will call just about every raise if there is the smallest chance that they might hit their flush or straight, however slim the chances. Donkeys love the excitement of being “in the pot” and to them poker is more of adrenaline rush then a game of skill and discipline.
You love to bluff.

The poker donkey is a master of bluffing. The worse their hand is, the more they feel the need to bluff with huge raises. They watched a video on youtube about how to bluff in texas holdem and they believe they’ve mastered the most difficult maneuver in poker in 10 minutes of study. This particular breed of donkey can be distinguished by their nervous “chatter” in the chat box, something along the lines of “GO AHED AND CALL I DARE YOU” or “I HAVE ACEZ LOLZ!!”.
You’re always begging for chips.

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This is perhaps the most telling and obvious characteristic of the facebook poker donkey. No matter how hot of a lucky streak a donkey might catch, in the end the odds always catch up with them and they lose all their facebook poker chips. Thats when they start out on their mission from room to room announcing to all their friends about how they almost won a huge pot but instead lost all their chips, and if they could just loan them a few million they will get paid back right away. Yeah..sure thing donkey, just let me finish this hand.

PostHeaderIcon Are you playing against a bot in poker?

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There are a lot of rumors and misconceptions about bots in Poker, ranging from how they work, to what exactly they are, and whether or not players should fear them. Bots in competative games aren’t a new trend, they’ve been around for years dating back to artificial opponents in chess. At its core, a poker bot is a simple program that tracks and translates the cards dealt into mathematical equations and acts (ie. raises, folds etc.) according the odds of each possible outcome. But they’re far from a ’set it and forget it’ program to rake in poker chips.

Most experts in poker seem to agree that poker bots are only ever successful in Limit Texas holdem due to its primarily mathematical structure, and that they seem to lag behind human players in No Limit Texas Holdem due to the large “all in” variable that bots have trouble dealing with. But this doesn’t mean that they’re not out there being used in both real money and facebook texas holdem rooms to win poker chips.

No hard statistics exist about just how much bot play might be out there in poker rooms across the internet, obviously because such a thing is nearly impossible to gauge. Most real money rooms ban players accounts and freeze their funds if they’re caught using bots, because players feel that it might give others an unfair advantage to have a computer calculating odds for them. Poker pro Barry Goldstein has a different view on bots in texas holdem however:

“I believe poker sites should allow bots, but only on clearly defined tables. Players should know who the bots are, and have the choice if they would like to play them or not.”

But most regular folks feel that bots offer too much opportunity for collusion, where a bot operator might be running 4 or 5 bots at the same time, sharing hand knowledge between the bots to fleece unsuspecting players who wander into the room. Anyone who has ever played facebook texas holdem poker has probably come across a bot at least once or twice, especially in the mid level rooms. All the tell tale signs are there: mechanical better, never talks to other players, never buys any gifts or drinks, no friends on their friend list etc. The next time you’re grinding in the rooms trying to win some facebook poker chips keep in mind that the disciplined player across the table from you may not be a human at all.

PostHeaderIcon Everyone thinks they’re a pro in facebook poker.

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Anyone who watches an episode of the world series of poker thinks they’re a seasoned pro. But if you find yourself playing like a donkey, here’s some tips to improve your game and help you win more facebook pokerchips:

Minimize losses while maximizing gains.

In orther words, make strong bets on hands that have the highest odds of winning, while letting go of and folding the weaker hands that people tend to chase unsuccessfully. Whats this mean for you? Don’t call huge raises when you only have a pair, hoping to land the three of a kind. You’re just wasting your facebook poker chips. On the other hand, if you flow the flush or trips, bet strongly with guns blazing. This is how facebook chips are won.

Learn patience and self discipline.

This ties in with the previous point about playing good hands strongly. But in order to get those strong hands you must show disclipline and patience and fold a lot of weaker hands that only serve to whittle away at your facebookpokerchips stack when you chase them. While this sounds like an easy concept, it is in fact, one of the hardest principles to learn in facebook texas holdem poker. Players chase garbage hands all the time simply because they want to be involved in the hand “just incase” their cards fall. The few times that they kick themselves for folding because their flush showed up only strengthens the “I shoulda played it out” mentality, because they forget about the 1000 times they actually did play it out and lost.

Manage your facebook pokerchips.

Doyle Brunson once said “texas holdem is like a job, the more hours you work, the more money you’ll make” Facebook chip management means, to put it simply, knowing when to get out of the game and when to stay in. If the table is hot and the other players are loose and wild, stay. If you notice theres some really skilled players sitting with you, get up and look for another table.

Observe other players

If you don’t waste too much time getting involved in weak hands that never materilize, you can spend more time observing the other players at the table. This is infinitely more valuable than chasing hands and will make you a better poker player in the long run. Pay close attention to what they’re doing right and the mistakes they make. Winning facebook poker chips is all about correcting your own mistakes.

Don’t be too predictable

Try to vary your play. Even if you aren’t paying attention to the other players at the table, you can be sure that the more skilled amongst them are watching you carefully. So while you’re watching the latest episode of House on hulu.com, they’re watching how you react to big raises, all in bets, reraises, etc and making mental notes. If you play too predictable, they will be able to predict within reason the type of hand you have. This is why it’s important sometimes to just “go nuts” without sacrificing too many facebook poker chips. If you have an opportunity to do something illogical and unreasonable without risking too many facebook chips, and if it offers a reasonable chance that you might win a big pot if it turns out the way you hope, go for it. It’l keep your opponents from labeling you as any specific type of player and the next time you make a big raise or go all in, they won’t know if its just another crazy move or if you really have the best hand.

PostHeaderIcon Top 5 Reasons Beginners Lose all their Facebook Poker Chips

poker-loser-209x3001) Beginners tilt in poker very easily – As undisciplined beginners, players tend to tilt very easily every chance they get. All it takes is a slight change of luck and a few bad beats to put us in tilt mode, as we attempt to win all our facebook poker chips back in a single, glorious hand. As we all know, this almost never works out.

2) Beginners tend to hope for too much – Instead of playing to win facebook poker chips, we sometimes play just to get lucky. The thrill of landing the flush on the river and winning the huge pot of facebook chips seems to outweight the thrill of playing with discipline and winning smaller pots. But going for huge pots of chips always ends the same after a certain amount of time, with zero facebook poker chips. Then we beat ourselves up as if we didn’t see it coming.

3) Beginners don’t think enough – Sometimes all we see is a big pot of facebook poker chips and all we can think about is win win win and lose all focus on the game. What about our opponents cards? What about how many outs we have or what the odds are? Should we fold or hold? As soon as we see that big pot, all logic goes out the window.

4) Beginners don’t fold enough – As beginners, we see folding a hand not simple as just folding, but rather we see it as losing the hand. Knowing when to fold is an important tool for the texas holdem poker player, not an admission of defeat. One of the biggest mistakes a beginner can make is simply just not folding enough.

5) Beginners are too focused on winning – I know this sounds ridiculous but it’s true of all beginners. They’re so busy chasing the big win that they never stop and think what might happen if they actually lose the hand. They never play defensively to ensure that they keep some facebook chips aside to play another day. All they can think of is how great it will be when they win the huge pot, but if they don’t they’re always left wishing they had used better judgement kept some chips aside.

PostHeaderIcon Tom “Durrrr” Dwan wins a $920,000 hand (real money)

Tom “Durrrr” Dwan wins a $920,000 pot (Real Money) while playing in a televised high stakes game in this clip, the highest amount ever won in a televised game. Fast forward to around the 5th minute of this clip to see the hand.

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