Lucky Streak Poker

The hand rankings for Five Card Draw are the same as in other well known games such as Omaha and Holdem, but the different nature of the game calls for differing ways to play these hands. If you are going to be dealt a very strong hand, it is probably better to be dealt Four of a Kind than a Royal Flush. This is because the fact that you will be drawing one card disguises your strength and makes it appear you have a two pair or drawing hand.

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If you are dealt a ‘pat hand’ such as a Flush or Straight, you should be raising strongly preflop, because once you choose not to draw any cards, your opponents will know that they are almost certainly up against a very strong hand.

If you have got some chips into the pot before the draw in this situation you have done all you can, but be aware of the possibility that another plyer may be dealt a pat hand too. I recently had to fold a low Straight against a Flush in this scenario, but that is a rare occurence.

You do not find yourself being dealt strong poker hands all that often in Five Card Draw, so I generally like to play pairs of Jacks and upwards strongly. Of course if you are reraised with Jacks you might want to consider folding it, but generally I will call a raise with Kings or Aces and examine how many my opponent draws. This will usually show what hand they have, and ideally they would draw one with a Two Pair, and you would make a strong two pair or better after the draw. The most important aspect of this game I feel, is always reading what your opponent has by how many they are drawing and their raising previous to the draw.

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Pokerstars.com – Shane Warne has been the face of 888.com for quite some time now, and is used to being a star in his own right. After years spent being renowned as the best spin bowler ever, he has turned his attentions to achieving something similar in poker.

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Other poker stars would probably not class him in the same category as the best names in the game, but we all have to start somewhere, and Warnes performance in last years main event, shows that this is a man who is learning poker fast. I suppose it is open to interpretation what makes a poker player a poker star, but if it is being recognised wherever you go, then Warne already qualifies. If poker stardom means being among the best in the world, then I think Shane warne still has a way to go yet.

In many ways, I think it is good for poker when well known names from other walks of life start playing the game seriously. For one, it raises the profile of poker in general and attracts more followers. On the negative side though, I have to say that personally, I would not want to see a star from another sport or the film industry turn up after a few months playing poker and win a major event.

I don’t begrudge them success, but you have to say that it adds weight to any arguments that poker is more luck than anything else. I always prefer to see those who have put at least 5 years work into the game winning big poker tournaments, for this reason.

This is a hand which has played it’s part in my last two PokerStars.com tournaments, with a mixture of fortune. In my weekend live game, I picked up (Ad,Kd) very early on and could only extract a few hundred chips due to the size of the blinds, despite flopping an Ace and a Flush draw, completing my Flush on the turn.

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Later on I doubled up the shortstack whilst holding (Ah,Kh) against his (Ac,Qs) and then picked up the blinds later on when I found (Ad,Kd) again. I finished an online tournament a moment ago in which an interesting hand took place with me holding (Ac,Kc) in the big blind. I had been thinking about this hand recently and how I almost always play it very fast preflop to prevent having to play it on the flop if I miss. I had decided though to try playing it differently next time, taking a flop. As the player under the gun raised to three times the big blind preflop, it was folded around to me, and I decided against a reraise.

The flop fell (3,6,J) with no clubs and I decided to try something creative. Having checked to my opponent, I felt certain he would raise, and he did, betting 300. I then reraised it to 750 and after some thought, my opponent called. I could now eliminate overpairs to a Jack and (A,J) from his potential starting hands as I would have almost certainly been reraised had this been the case.

I checked the Turn of a (Q) as did my poker opponent, and I felt he was weak enough that an (A),(K), or (10) would win me the pot. Unfortunately, I missed the river and we both checked. He showed (10,10) but it’s important to see how my reraise on the flop changed the way the hand played out. It gave me a great deal of information about my opponents hand, and gave me a chance to hit one of several outs on the Turn or River. My opponent had me outchipped 2 to 1 at the start of the hand and if I had pushed preflop, I probably would have lost it all. As it turned out I lost around 1,300 from my 6,500 stack.

For some poker players at FullTiltPoker different hands will hold memories for them whether they are fond ones or otherwise. Personally I only really had one hand that brought back memories, and that is (As,10s).

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I once ended up caught up in a three way preflop raising battle in a cash game, and just had enough time to wonder why I had ended up putting in so much preflop with this hand, when the flop came down with three spades. There is a player who occasionally turns up at our live game who is said to always play any hand containing an (8). Needless to say, he is usually out quite early on and so I haven’t had the chance to play against him enough to verify this.

The (A,10) hand aside, I do not attach much sentiment to poker hands, although recently I have had strange things happen in this regard. Since flopping a Straight on Saturday with (J,9) I was strangely hitting every flop in my online tournament today with any hands including a Jack, including a flopped Straight after I had folded, with… you guessed it,(J,9). There is no logic to these happenings though, and it is probably mere coincidence.

There have been others too which spring to mind, including a all in shove preflop when I was very shortstacked with (3,3). I won that hand and everything turned around, as I made it all the way to heads up at the final table. After gaining control of the chip lead, I picked up (3,3) again and my raise was reraised all in preflop. After some thought I eventually put it down feeling there was too much danger of being up against a stronger pair. My opponent had (A,Q) and after hunting through what the board cards would have been, my Threes would have held up. The hand that began my turnaround had returned to give me my only shot at victory that night, but I didn’t take it, eventually finishing 2nd place.

Pokerroom.com – I have just finished playing a lengthy 3 hours and 40 minutes of Five Card Draw, and was hoping to win a seat in a large guaranteed tournament. With a maximum starting field of 6,000 players, I did well early on building a chipstack which I steadily held at about twice the average stack size for the first hour and a half. I managed to pick up extra chips from time to time through making strong preflop raises, standing pat, and bluffing the player out after the draw. This is a good play to use as it strongly suggests you have a made hand dealt to you and most hands will fold to a strong raise after the draw. If used too often though it can arouse suspicion so you must be careful.

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I found some more legitimate hands along the way too though, even being dealt four 8′s on one occasion. With starting stacks of 2,000 chips I was happy to have built a chipstack of 25,000 but I made the mistake of sitting back for a while, allowing others to accumulate big stacks too. When I began to get involved in the action again, I found myself playing more tentatively so as not to lose a big pot. In essence, I was altering my previously successful style of play which was not wise.
With one eye on the remaining players as the number dropped to 500, I was swinging back and forth between 20 and 35 thousand chips when I was unfortunately involved in a hand against the chip leader after being dealt a set of twos. My preflop raise to 5,000 did not deter the player from calling with a pair of Queens, and they promptly hit a set. This did a lot of damage and I couldn’t recover, eventually finishing 254th place. With only 48 seats on offer I came close, but then that almost seems worse than going out early on. Pokerroom

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pokerroom.com – Generally speaking, you do not want to call large bets waiting for cards in poker. Ideally, we want to have some sort of made hand already that we feel is very likely to be the best. Poker doesn’t work out that way every time though, and often there is cause to be a little more creative.

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When looking at Holdem there are probably less instances where chasing your outs is a good idea, but that’s not to say you should play solely on the basis of what you already have.
If for example, we have (7d,9d) on a flop of (6d,8c,9s) we only have top pair with a weak kicker. This in itself is not all that strong, but you could call a decent sized bet to see the turn. We cannot safely count a (7) as an out here as it gives the obvious headache of having four cards to a Straight on the board, but in most cases, we can probably say that a (9) will be good. Also a (5) or a (10) will probably put us in front here. This mans we have 10 cards that can make us a hand which will usually win the pot.

If a diamond falls on the turn, we give ourselves a lot more outs going to the river, as you would have to be unfortunate to find yourself beaten by a bigger Flush if an opponent has bet out on the flop.
In Omaha you can often have multpile outs and draws and there are many scenarios where you can call or make big raises on the basis of these. Holdem might give you this problem less often, but there will still be times when you can call a bet, or as I like to, get aggressive with these type of hands to try and win the pot without having to hit the draw. www.pokeroom.com

www.pokerroom.com – Most of us will have heard the term ‘beginners luck’ mentioned before, but it is difficult to see why a new player might have more luck than most established players. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that when a new player sits down with more experienced players they can sometimes make more money from their hands because they play them in ways which are unexpected.

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Despite this, I can certainly say that I have had my share of luck as a beginner in years gone by. I used to do very well in my early days of Five Card Draw even though I was not overly experienced at the game.
Personally, I have heard new players saying that poker is a game of pure luck, and whilst luck is certainly involved, it is interesting that experienced players never say the same thing.

Phrases such as "any two cards can win" are in fact true of course, but to maximise your profits over the long run, you need to understand which hands win against other hands more often.
This idea that fluctuating fortunes level the playing field for every player are naive I think, even though it is sometimes difficult to continue believing this when you see a weak player hitting cards. The best way to rationalise this is to to look at how much more money that new player could have made from their hand had they been more skilled.
Also, when a beginners luck runs out, they do not usually have the skill to lose the minimum with their hand. Pokerroom.com

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Currently, www.pkr.com resides at the top of my list of favourite poker rooms. I prefer my live play generally speaking, but when I do sit down to some online play, it is pkr poker which Holds the greatest attraction for me. Many players might argue that visual aspects of a site are not all that important when it comes to playing poker.

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The aim is after all, to make money as often as possible. Despite this being true, I think enjoying the experience of playing the game is a very important part of the game. Apart from anything else, if you are comfortable and really enjoying the game I feel you are more likely to produce your best poker. All the background sounds, player comments, gestures and movements have become part of the experience of playing online for me. It also helps when some of the newer players seem to be concentrating much more on the many options of gestures to be made and comments to make, than their cards.

These days, when I go back to the more original style of online poker, with lifeless avatars and almost silent play, I get bored very quickly. Playing the game just doesn’t hold the same social enjoyment as it does on pkr.com.
This admittedly, isn’t quite the same as my favoured live play either, but within the constraints of a computer, does everything you could realistically hope for.
Overall, I feel this type of interactive experience is the future of online poker, and although some poker rooms have tentatively followed, I really think most have been slow to react.

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www.pokeroom.com – Having seen some playable hands in quick succession on a three handed table last week, I picked up (A,5) and decided to make another raise. This isn’t a particularly strong hand in most circumstances, but with only three players left at the table, I felt it was worth making a raise. I was called by one player, and the flop came down (3,6,J). I checked at this point, and my opponent checked too.

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The turn card brought a Queen, and I decided I should see if I could pick up the pot. The raise was not a particularly large one, but I was surprised when my opponent reraised. The first thought that went through my mind was that he was raising purely because I had been making raises with such high frequency in the past ten hands or so. He was right of course to read me as being on a bluff this time, but I was reading him as being weak too. I reached for my chips and began to count out a reraise, but something made me stop and reconsider.

If I was wrong and he assumed my raise meant a pair, then he could feasibly reraise me on the turn happily, if he had caught the Queen. After some deliberation, I decided to do the sensible thing and fold. Of course my opponent then showed a hand of (7,9) meaning my initial read of the situation was perfect and he could never have called a reraise.

The problem is, that to make a raise, then be reraised, then come over the top with another big reraise when you have absolutely nothing, seems like insanity if you sit and think about it for too long. The fact is though, that if you read a situation a certain way, often you have to just be brave and go with it, as this are how some of the truly great poker plays are made. www.pokeroom.com

pkr.com offers a number of opportunities for it’s players to both expand their bankrolls, and to qualify for major land based tournaments through promotional offers. Alongside this, are promotional bonuses for new players joining the site, which serve to give these players extra funding to get them started. With the first time deposit bonus, a 100% cash match is given to players once they have earnt the required amount of points once they join the site. What is more, these points can be gradually accumulated over your time playing on PKR, and eventually exchanged for merchandise from their very impressive store.

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I am currently saving for a pkr poker hooded top, but there are a great number of things you can buy here, the biggest of which is a full sized poker table, or entrance into a $1,000 event at the Grosvenor Poker Tour. Satellites to other large land based events are also running all the time, as well as tournaments with gauranteed prize pools, and freerolls to help the smal stakes players along the way.

Also offered, is a poker school for the new players, a forum for players to discuss anything to do with poker, and an excellent refer a friend bonus scheme. For each friend referred, you will receive $50, and your friend will receive the same amount. This is dependant on your friend making $50 in deposits (which most players will anyway sooner or later) and 1,000 points being earned. I do not play for particularly large stakes, but it has not taken me too much time to reach 17,890 PKR points, so 1,000 should be easy enough.
Overall there are good promotional offers going on at PKR, and there should be something to cater for the smaller, as well as the larger bankrolled players. www.pkr.com