Poker Articles

Basic Draw Poker – Lesson #4: Draw poker strategy

The main principle in poker is not to follow any rules. Change your tactics, be flexible and unpredictable. In the early stages of the game play tight and enter the game only with very strong cards. Then change your strategy depending on the habits and the actions of your opponents. Use their tactics and try to turn it into your benefit. If you notice that other players analyze your play, use it. Make them think that you play in a certain style only and later make totally opposite moves – that will bring you profits for a long time. When other players find out what you do, return to the old style of playing.

Here’s a simple scenario of possible tactical actions.
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Basic Draw Poker – Lesson #3: Draw lowball

Draw lowball or simply lowball is more popular than the standard draw poker. The difference between the two games is that in lowball the winner is the player with the lowest combination. In lowball aces play low. Two aces is the lowest pair. In most games straights and flushes are not considered combinations, and the lowest combination of cards is A, 2, 3, 4, 5 regardless of suit. If you consider straight a combination, the lowest combination is A, 2, 3, 4, 6.

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Basic Draw Poker – Lesson #2: Jacks to open

Jacks to open is a variant of draw poker where the game can be open (the betting) only by a player who has a pair of jacks or higher combination. If nobody opens the game, all the ante bets stay on the table and players add to it their new ante bets (re-ante), cards are shuffled and dealt again. If any of the players has a pair of jacks or better, he opens the game and the game goes on following the usual rules.
Note: anyone who opens the game must prove later that he had a pair of jacks or higher combination. In order to do that, when the game is finished, the player shows his cards to other players and to the dealer. If the player who opens the betting wants to break his pair (for example, if he has J, J, 10, 9, 8 and he wants to replace one of the Jacks), he has to put the discarded cards in the middle of the table next to the pot and inform the dealer that these cards are not to be moved to the muck. Doing so, the player shows his initial combination to his opponents, so such a breaking is usually not done. If a player accidentally has opened the game, not having the desired combination, noticing his mistake, he should say about it and then the player to his left is to act (if he has the required combination) and the game continues. In this case, all players (except the mistaken one) are returned all their bets. If no one of the players opened the game, the pot (all ante bets and the bets of the player who made the mistake) stays for the next game.

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Basic Draw Poker – Lesson #1: Five card draw poker

This is the first of a series of articles about Draw Poker. We hope you enjoy the reading and find all this info helpful to put your game in shape 😉

The game is known also as California or Californian Poker. Before the beginning of the game and before the cards are dealt, all players place their ante bets i.e. they put the chips in front of them. The dealer, making sure that all bets are correct, moves them to the center of the table. This order of placing the bets (through the dealer) should be observed in the course of the game. All bets placed in the center of the table are called pot. All the players try to win the pot. After placing the ante, the dealer deals each player five cards face down. Thus, each player sees only his /her own cards and has no idea what cards other players hold.
Then the first betting round begins. The player who’s been dealt the cards first should act first.

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The Actual Effects of Poker Prohibition

The debate about legalization of online poker still continues in the US.

But let us take a look at the overall effect of poker prohibition so far. The ultimate goal of the US Justice Department and the UIGEA was to eliminate the money flow that went into gambling websites, with hopes of bullying them into shutting their doors to American consumers. Let us grade them.

1. Eliminating money to poker websites on the internet was a complete failure. Merely several days ago, a friend of mine tried to make an account on Epassporte and then he deposited money into it through his bank that was issued with a Visa Debit card, so that he could get money into Absolute Poker. And after fifteen minutes, he succeeded in doing this whole process, with no problems whatsoever.

2.  Bullying poker websites into shutting their doors to American players ended up being merely below average. Although they convinced Party Poker and handfuls of other smaller websites to shut their doors to American consumers, other websites such as Full Tilt, Poker Stars, Absolute Poker, Bodog and Ultimate Bet still stay open to American players. This is solid proof that legal issues that face online poker did not get much of their desired effects.

So what exactly has this ban actually accomplished?

1. They have made it difficult for people to transfer their winnings into their pockets since some taxes cannot be paid unless they are obtainable from the bank.

2. They have caused the highly reliable and respected e-wallet called Neteller to completely close down its operations in the US, giving space to tons of scam operations.

Will US Government succeed in facing the fact that a wide array of American citizens thinks that poker on the internet should not get banned and a lot of poker websites, as well as online casinos, all around the world still accept American players?

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