March 13, 2009
For many years, people did not consider poker an honourable game. Far from enjoying celebrity status as they do today, many poker players were embarrassed to tell their friends and family about their chosen profession.
Today people recognize that it is a great game, a popular way to enjoy competition and a fun form of entertainment, and that you need a solid poker strategy to be successful in the long run. It can also be a great teaching tool.
Poker and Math
Poker is an ideal way to teach practical applications of math. Calculating poker odds is all about using mathematical functions such as ratios and percentages, which in turn requires mastery of basic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Poker and History
Poker has a rich tradition, from the game played on riverboats in the American south in the 19th century to the Internet phenomenon that poker has become today. The evolution of poker and how historical events and advances have affected it is a great way to teach history.
Poker and Science
Modern poker would not be as popular as it is today without scientific advances in technology, such as the hole card camera and the Internet. Poker is a great way to show the value of understanding science and creating new technology.
Poker and General Cognition
Poker emphasizes memory, in that players must remember previously exposed cards, betting patterns and observable behaviour of their opponents. It requires psychology in understanding how people can elicit certain responses and how you can elicit certain responses from them.
It requires critical thinking skills, an ability to analyse new data and use it to formulate the best plan. Poker players learn how to work for a goal and how to integrate their experience to improve results.
Using poker as a teaching tool does not have to involve gambling. Poker principles can be taught in the classroom with tokens of no monetary value for the same learning effect.
Furthermore, even though the essence of poker is in the betting of money, thanks to the popularity of tournament poker, kids and adults alike can have a great time playing poker with the purpose of being the last person standing and not worrying about money at all.
January 07, 2009
What really sets apart the winning players in no limit poker tournaments?
Here is a list of 20 key areas that sets apart the winning players from the rest.
You should review each of these areas, evaluate yourself on a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest)
and work on improving your game for 2009.
1. Entering an event with the right mental approach-playing to win and not just to cash
2. Entering an event with a plan–when will you play tight, loose, aggressive, solid, etc
3. Embracing the risk in the game and realizing that you can’t beat the luck inherent in poker
4. Identifying betting patterns of your opponents
5. Identifying tells of your opponents
6. Identifying your own betting patterns
7. Identifying the tells in your own game
8. Your skill at how to play pre-flop based on the strength of your hand
9. Knowing the importance of chips stack sizes on your decisions
10. Knowing how to adjust your game based on your position
11. Knowing how to make plays when you are card dead
12. Realizing the importance of and frequency to bluff successfully
13. Knowing the right time to push all-in
14. Knowing the right time to fold and realizing that sometimes it s right to fold when you are ahead.
15. Accumulating enough chips so you can survive at least one bad beat
16. Knowing how to play at the final table
17. Knowing how to play heads-up poker
18. Knowing the 101 winning moves you can use in a no limit tournament
19. Not letting your emotions influence your decisions and not going on tilt.
20. Making the best decision for every situation that comes up in a poker tournament
If you scored each area, what is your total score? Which areas do you feel you are weak and which ones do you feel you are strong? Now take your total score and reduce it by 20%. Why? You are not as good as you think. Almost every player over rates their own abilities.
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December 05, 2008
Ever since the creation of the earliest online poker rooms, there have been special images or “avatars” designed to represent each of the players at the table. But what is the history of these avatars, and does the choice of your avatar change the way your opponents perceive your style of play?
Poker avatars at different rooms.
The use of avatars at poker rooms can be split up into 3 separate groups:
- Rooms that do not allow you to choose your own avatar.
- Rooms that allow you to choose an avatar from a selection of avatars.
- Rooms that allow you to create and upload your own avatar.
The first type of room that does not allow you to choose an avatar to represent you at the table is quite a rare breed. There are still a few rooms that actually do not even have characters at the table, which means that you are solely represented by you username and your chips stack.
The most popular room that allows you to choose an avatar from a selection is Full Tilt Poker. This room has a nice set of around 90 cartoon avatars for you to choose from, with each suited to different personalities.
The next step up is a room like PokerStars, which allows you to upload you own images that can be displayed above your name whilst you play. This makes your player account at the room even more individualistic, as it may well be the case that no other player has the same avatar as you.
Does your avatar affect the way your opponents play against you?
In my honest opinion, I highly doubt that your player avatar (at rooms that allow you to choose your own) will have any significant affect on the way your opponents perceive your style of play. Of course a custom avatar may be a slight reflection on your personality, but I highly doubt that any player is going to change their strategy when they are in a pot with you because of an image that is representing you at the table.
If you are letting your opponents’ avatars get in the way of playing a healthy game of poker, you really need to start looking for the options menu to stop avatars from being displayed. You have a lot more important things to think about at the table than the graphics.
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November 10, 2008
Just when we thought there could not be a more infernal addiction, gambling burst on to the scene. At lower levels, it provided great pleasure. Bets were placed in a controlled, calculated and well-formatted way. It resulted in wins and losses; but losses of a large magnitude were not heartbreaking, to start with. Unfortunately, we slowly moved into the era of no-holds-barred gambling, and people started putting in everything they had. The lure of big bucks compounded with the evolutionary patterns of the country resulted in big betting houses. Most of them were regulated and properly policed, but still did not do enough to put an upper ceiling on how much one wanted to gamble.
Let’s take the case of poker to form an idea about how gambling in its various forms have simply taken the sheet from under our consciences and trapped us viciously in its lure. Poker is addictive. It leads to euphoria and trauma, and honestly it is trauma that largely surfaces at the poker table. Statistically (though nothing ever is conclusive in the poker circles) 80 to 85 percent of poker players lose money; this is enough to support the average living structure of the remaining 15 to 20 percent of players. The best players are not the ones always involved in big games, and the poor players are not the ones you would invariably find in small games. The competition at hand is largely the somewhere-in-the-middle- type.
The small, mid, and large games all have their players, and this has resulted in the lavish spread of all kinds of games. Most people enter poker having read just few books on the subject. They assume it would support their stay around the table. What they tend to forget largely is that it is about money, and hence there can’t ever be a quick path to success.
Also, we have professionals, who keep playing at lower stakes almost invariably. Very seldom they do move out to the bigger arena of higher stakes and lose money to the who’s who of the game. Sometimes, with the tide of fortune their way, they also make some money and prefer to move back to their acquainted smaller yards. The problem occurs when they successfully do it a few times, because it is then that they begin to play with the big shots more often and consequently end up losing largesse, in the due course of time.
People tend to lose on higher limits because they are constantly beset with the notion that they are making money - or at least breaking even. With higher stakes, such a notion can be a death-bell.
Another mindset, which causes huge downfalls, is ego of a gambler. Big poker losers would vouch how they wanted to be known as ‘people of the big league’, and hence jumped unarmed, without preparation, into the field of high stakes. This results in an expected abysmal show, and hence loss of a huge amount money. The big players know how to work this out most of the time, and hence lure the rookies by encouraging them with soft statements like “you were good, you deserve more, and perhaps a little more luck would have done it”. With such deceit coming in from the big players in a subtle way, the novices lose their ground and get further trapped in the mire.
Sometimes these rookies move back to the lesser arena only to show-off their newly acquired skills. Unfortunately, some of the players there are too well-versed with the game, and thus the rookies get a beating even here. This compounds their worry and in a fit, they pile on their losses. This is how small poker losers turn into big ones.
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