Made Moon Blog

A new weekly poker show has debuted this week in Europe. Last week, European audiences got their first taste of thePoker2Nite television show, fronted by Poker Pro Joe Sebok and longtime poker journalist Scott Huff. The Poker Channel Europe is now airing episodes of the new weekly poker news program every Wednesday at 22:00 CET for the run of season. Miss it the first time, and you can catch it again on Thursdays and Saturdays at 16:00 CET on Europe’s largest dedicated gaming TV network.

Sebok and Huff made the transition from radio to television at the helm of Poker2Nite last month on Fox Sports Net (“FSN”). Now entering week five of the series, the show is really hitting its stride amongst audiences, enjoying a growing legion of loyal followers from week to week as the show settles into its timeslot, and as the co-anchors have become more dazzling in front of the camera.

With the Poker Channel Europe launch, Poker2Nite viewer figures are set to skyrocket, as the Wednesday night poker news program expands its reach outside of America, and is now available online to a global audience and to more than 18 million cable and satellite homes across Europe. It should help your poker online game.

Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournaments play differently than other live cash online poker games. For those new to the tournament format, here are few things to keep in mind that might help you advance in the tournament.

1. Be very careful about calling a big bet. It’s much safer to assume that the bettor has a very strong hand and is not on a bluff. Calling big bets is a quick way to lose your chips, and once they’re gone, your tournament is over.

2. When it comes to bluffing, seldom and selectivity are the best guidelines. The use of bluffing in poker online is over-rated and it is hard to successfully do. Bluffing needs to be set up and executed based on careful observation of the table and its players. Unlike a cash game, you can’t reach into your pocket for money to buy more chips. In a tournament every chip you put out can bring you closer to going out.

3. When you do bet, make it a strong one. By putting out a big bet, you gain fold equity because everyone might fold to your bet. Certainly it will narrow the field of contenders. A weak bet is going to get called or even raised. When you bet, act strong – don’t invite bullies to raise you, unless of course, you know you have the nuts.

Don’t play queen six. Seriously. Just don’t. I don’t care if you are heads up against the weakest guy ever, and all you really need to do is raise him into oblivion. Yeah, I know any two cards, etc. But queen six is probably the ugliest of all poker online hands. There’s just no class in winning with it. I’d rather sell my arms to a baby than get caught dead showing this hand down at a table for money. I’d rather run for the Mayor of Pordjbandan, Mexico.

OK, so I’m exaggerating. But seriously, this is one really disgusting poker hand. I can’t stand the way the O of the six matches up with the O of the queen, like two cross eyes staring up at you from the paper. It’s a travesty, a disgrace to playing cards, to math, to logic, to the game. Get rid of this.

In fact, whenever you are dealt this hand, you should take your two cards and burn them with matches. Or if you are playing online poker, you should stand up and slap your cheeks to get the bad luck out. This hand is a sign that everything is awful. Hide from it. Run from it. Don’t let it near your life.

Tight and passive poker online players are grippy when it comes to their money. I used to think that it was tough to shake any chips away from an poker onlineopponent who refused to put any chips into the pot. Flushes and full boats are wasted on these guys-I’ve had many huge online pokerhands wasted on an opponent who would fold to me the second that I made a move for my chips. My problem was that I was approaching tight opponents from the wrong angle. I was always going for the big wins against all of my opponents. The way to beat tight and passive opponents is to chip away at them. If you can’t force them to enter into big pots, just keep taking the smaller pots until their chips are gone. Any time you see a tight or passive player in the blind position you should look at it as easy money. The great thing about tight and passive players is that it’s so easy to get them to fold their hands pre-flop. It’s notoriously rare for players to make their hands on the flop, so even if they make it to the flop, the odds are against them making their hand on it, so another set of blinds may just be a raise away.

Poker players are often advised to change gears and mix up their style to confuse poker online players. How can you do this with your poker game? How to you make deliberate decisions to mix up your play?

One way is to follow this tip: Play the same hand differently; and play different hands the same.

What does that mean? If you always play the same poker hands in the same way, then you become easy to read. For instance, if you always raise 3x the big blind with a big pocket pair or AK, then your opponents get a better idea of what they are up against. By varying your betting, it makes it more challenging to get a read on you. So when you get big hands, vary your betting. Put out the three-bet sometimes, others times make it 5x and sometimes just limp in. Don’t become too habitual and predictable in how you bet the same hand.

You should also play different hands the same was as you play other types of hands. For instance, if you tend to bet 3x the big blind with pocket faces, then sometimes put out that bet with pocket 2s. Play your lesser cards sometimes as you would the big hands. Make it impossible for your opponents to know if you’re holding a big pocket pair or more humble cards.

By playing the same hand differently, and then playing different hands the same, you can camouflage your hands and intentions.

One of the most profitable kind of online poker tables in all of Texas hold ‘em is when a table is frequently loose and passive before the flop (or ‘flop crazy’ as I like to call it) and then excessively aggressive and willing to play a wide variety of hands badly after the flop. This allows a smarter, tighter player (like myself, of course) to limp and see a wide variety of hands for small investments that, when they hit, get paid off, which is about as great a situation as you can ask to be in. While the value of online poker hands like single pairs and weak kickers, etc., in this situation goes down, the value of made hands and bigger holding is so drastically increased that it makes playing a wider range of hands very valuable. When you see players who’ve watched a whole table of others see the flop then put all their money in with just a pair, you know you are in a great spot to get paid, and so trying to see more hands with those flops for small amounts is smart, as your implied odds are through the roof. Playing the wider range of online poker hands, though, you have to be more careful with what hands you do push that aren’t huge, and have to be willing to be bluffed in certain spots of favor of knowing that when you do have a sure-thing, you will get all the money. In fact, getting bluffed and bragged over can be a valuable thing, in that players will think, “Oh, that guy is easy,” and then try to run at you while you wait and catch them with the big net.

As likely any poker professional or even serious hobbyist of cash game and tournament poker would tell you, one of the most important factors in a player’s tournament success comes down to a matter of bank roll management. With each buy in or entry fee that you put up in any one event, you are essentially risking a percentage of your bankroll, which, if too high could, in the short run, get you broke when the cards are cold. It is of utmost importance, then, to only be risking a certain amount of your bankroll at any given instance. Though the ratio here tends to vary depending on your ask, most rigorous poker players would agree that you need at least 50-80 buyins in your bankroll for the type of tournament you are playing, and at least 30-40 full buyins at a cash game. Risking only this amount therefore flattens out the variance you experience when things don’t go your way, and you always have the backing funds to continue to come back to the table and play winning poker. Though it can be tempting to play outside your means, especially when your means are limited, giving in to this is essentially asking to have your bankroll dwarfed. Though you can’t control how the cards come, you can control how much you let them take from you when you hit a bad spot.

Most online poker casinos offer the player the chance to choose an avatar before entering into game play. An avatar is the image that other poker players will see as you when you sit down to a virtual poker table. This is how you present your image as a poker player to the world, so it is important to choose an avatar that projects the image you want.

One of the time honored strategy is to choose an image of an attractive woman as your avatar. The thought process behind this decision is that men at the table will not play as aggressively against a good looking woman. The theory goes that they would be willing to let an attractive woman take more pots if the woman seems friendly towards them. Flirting successfully is the key to this strategy.

Because of the popularity of using women avatars, most players out there are beginning to realize that the image of the attractive woman may not translate to a woman outside of the online casino. Be extremely wary of choosing an attractive female avatar, as most players will just assume that you are using it as a bluffing mechanism.

You should pick an avatar that projects a specific image rather than trying to use gender as a tool. For example, you could choose avatars that look professional if you want to appear as a professional player. It is all up to you. This is your chance to control your image.