The UK Poker Guide and Online Poker Sign Up Codes

So every day from now until until June 27, 2008 PokerStars is running free-to-enter qualifiers where you can win a World Series Main Event prize package worth $12,500 or £ 6260! Altogether, PokerStars is giving away over One Million in free Main Event prize packages. Yes they are increasing their odds of putting more players at the final table.

* World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (“Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with, PokerStars or its products, services, promotions or tournaments.

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The FTOPS stands for Full Tilt Online Poker Series. Full Tilt Poker created this event to give the feel of certain tournament that takes place in Vegas every year. The FTOPS is one of the best online poker tournaments available to the regular joe player. Basically you will enter the tournament of your choosing, but there are standings and people try to win as many FTOPS victories as possible. The prize pool is a guaranteed 10 million dollars and takes place over the course of several days. The prize pool will obviously go higher.

You want to win this series of round robin tournaments against the Full Tilt Professional line up?

Use the code EUROKING when you make a new account at Full Tilt and find out if you have an ounce of cajones to go against the best that Full Tilt has to offer.

Sign up and check out the FTOPS

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The idea that poker is a game of luck is a badly flawed one.  If you play bad cards hoping that luck will save your hand in the draw, then you are going to be out of a lot of money with no one but yourself to blame.  Likewise if you let an amateur opponent betting on luck chase you down on every hand, you still have yourself to blame.  Skill wins poker, not luck, and letting yourself or anyone else believe otherwise is going to undermine how you play.

Some players never learn.  Time and again you hear them complain about losing when they started with a pocket pair of faces.  It isn’t bad luck.  It’s bad playing.  The only way to protect your hand is by playing it.  Sitting on a good hand when you could be betting on it is a flat out waste.  You open yourself to chasers when you should be betting them out of the game early.

If you don’t move aggressively on an early advantage, then don’t be surprised if ultimately another player draws out on top.  There is no rule that says you must play to the last card; the sooner you can take the pot the better, especially if your hand is at risk.  No reasonable player will beat you with what started as a weak hand unless you let them stay in the game.

Don’t slow play your own hand if the draw has been good to you.  For example, if there is potential for a straight in the draw, and you already have one in hand, then don’t let chasers ride it out hoping the draw will make a combination for them too.  This applies to online play as well. Often, in online poker, you will get fed a nice string of hands that tend to crush the table. You gotta hope that players at the table have weaker, but still decent hands that will induce betting into you. However, some players will wait for the draw anyway, but if you bet hard you will eliminate most chasers and stand a good chance of profiting from those that remain.

Betting is your hand’s best security.  If your hand is good but vulnerable, then bet to use your current advantage.  Don’t bet low hoping to string along a player waiting for their one out, because sometimes they get it.  Winning a small pot early in the hand is far better than taking a small loss at the end of it.

That said, it all comes down to risk.  You have to know what a good hand is, and you have to know when a good hand is really good enough to go the distance, or when it’s best to make your move early.  If your good hand stands to get better with a draw, then there is no sense in betting everyone out early.  The idea, after all, is to take the biggest pot possible.  If you can safely see all five cards drawn, then by all means let the other players pump your pot.  But if you’ve got a nice pocket pair and the other players are betting weak, don’t wait and see with the rest of them.  The point of all games is winning, but in poker it’s about winning big.

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Ten Basics for Building and Protecting Your Bankroll

Any player entering the competitive world of poker needs to decide a few things before starting regular play. One of the most important parts of your over all poker strategy is bankroll management. Learning to pace and protect your money early on will benefit you greatly later. The way you play your money is a personal choice, but good money management can be achieved simply and without cramping your style.

First. You must determine your end goal. Why and what are you playing for? Is it more about ranking or is it purely for money? Do you want to become a professional, or are you just playing for entertainment?

Second. You must devise a strategy for meeting your goal. At this stage you are determining the size of your initial bankroll, which will depend largely on how big you want to get into the game. Obviously high stakes play is going to require a greater initial investment than low stakes play.

Third. Open a new bank account to be used only for playing poker. This helps you to track what you spend and what you make. It also helps to view your earnings and your losses as a separate income.

Fourth. Your bank account is your bankroll. Don’t borrow from it for anything else, and always play with your bankroll in mind. Your bankroll should increase to meet your goals.

Fifth. Determine how your earnings will be divided in advance. What percentage goes into the bankroll, and what percentage are you taking as a profit to place in your personal account? Again, keep your goals in mind; if you want to play higher stakes then a larger percentage of your initial profits should go toward building your bankroll.

Sixth. Stay organized. Record all of your wins and losses, deposits and withdraws as if you were balancing your checkbook. This will show you how successful you have been thus far at moving toward your goals.

Seventh. Give yourself a budget and stick to it. It sounds rudimentary and many players find it limiting, but it’s easy to get excited and lose more than you planned. You will never do that if you determine what to bring to the table in advance and leave when it’s gone. It also makes figuring winnings easier if you know exactly what you started with.

Eighth. This is really just the second part of the last step. As you improve and get closer to your goal, you may want to increase your limits. You may also choose to divide your money differently at this point; once your bankroll is built up, you can take more of the profits for non-poker use.

Ninth. Update and upgrade your goals as you reach them, and likewise devise new strategies to keep you on track.

Tenth. Now that you have developed your strategy, it is time to put it to the test. It is important that you use self-restraint when playing. Many players get loose when they are both up and down, but you should play each hand with the same level of focus and consideration, regardless of your position at the table. Never stray from your bankroll strategy, and you’ll never lose your bankroll.

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