Poker Room Radio

Bodog provides it’s players with many reasons to keep playing their poker there each month, but the tournaments offer would have to be one of the key reasons I feel.

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Every day at www.bodogpoker.com you will find a tournament schedule packed with small to medium buy in events, with some bigger events sporadically appearing throughout the day. There is a tournament leaderboard running too, which is a great chance for those who think themselves the best tournament players around, to prove it. There are numerous guaranteeds for thousands of dollar prize pools running on a day to day basis here, with plenty in the way of Holdem events too.

Qualifiers are running regularly to the ‘flight club’ promotion here, where players get the chance to win a package at a major event somewhere in the world. Accomodation and expenses are paid for, as one lucky player every month will get their shot at taking down a big event. Qualifiers are also running to events on the Poker Tour, as well as the WSOP, during the year. This means that those serious about their poker can make it big, through www.bodogpoker.com.

If you like large guaranteeds, you will find a weekly $100k guaranteed event taking place every Sunday at Bodog.
bodogpoker.com are already offering players the chance to compete for a 2010 WSOP package, but if you are aiming a little lower, there are plenty of regular tournaments of differing varieties running every day.
Overall, a good schedule of tournaments to be found at www.bodogpoker.com.

Pokerstars are perhaps the best poker room you can find for tournaments I feel. Their schedule is extensive and has a little bit of just about everything crammed into each day. Pokerstars have even taken a new type of tournament known as the ‘double or nothing’ and turned it into an intrueging ‘triple or nothing’.

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These changes may seem small, but they show a willingness to offer customers every type of tournament they could want. There are regular tournaments, extended, speed and turbo. Multi or single table SnG tournaments are here too, which compliments the already packed schedule of MTT’s.

The game types on offer at Pokerstars all have their own tournaments scheduled for different times, and there are even mixed events for those who enjoy that type of challenge. On the tournament menu you will find several different tabs to filter out different tournament types, which is advised, because of the sheer number of Pokerstars tournaments running each day. Those that require cash buy ins have a good spread of low and high buy in tournaments, which is good, and there are many Pokerstars freerolls here too.

These freerolls range from points buy in tournaments, through to play money tournaments, satellites, and regular freeroll tournaments. Pokerstars reload bonuses can be found on a regular basis too, and in general, Pokerstars are one of the finest poker rooms around today. No matter what your favourite poker game is, you are almost certain to find it here, as diversity in terms of game choice, tournaments, and freerolls is what Pokerstars is all about.

Pokeroom.com offer a great deal of tournaments to keep their regular players happy, with these being over a number of different games too. There will always be plenty of Holdem tournaments of course, but at www.pokerroom.com, there are also Omaha, Five Card Draw, and Seven Card Stud games going on too.

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SnG tournaments are here for those that enjoy that format, and there is a great deal of choice to be had when it comes to MTT’s. Guaranteed prize pools normally go up to a mouth watering $50,000 here, and there are special tournament types such as the $100k guaranteed bounty tournament too.

This involves all the usual aspects of a large guaranteed tournament, but with the pokerroom.com sponsored pros each having a hefty bounty on their head. If the $100k guanrateed bounty doesn’t catch your attention, then there is also a $300k ‘championchip’ tournament running each week too.

The innovative ‘Cannonball’ tournaments found here involve the action being at ‘turbo’ level in the early stages, but slowing down to regular blind levels once you reach that point where skilled poker play truly matters. All these special tournaments make a fantastic addition to what is already a fairly good looking schedule of tournaments. There is a nice variety of games types at Poker Room as well as tournament types here, which provides a good balance for different types of poker players.

Tom Dwan is arguably the most exciting and talented young player to have emerged from the online poker scene in recent years, playing under the alias ‘durrrr’. From a starting bankroll of $50 Dwan apparently never went broke, moving up through the stakes to make his millions at the game.

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Born in New Jersey on July 30th 1986, Dwan has only recently become eligible to play in the WSOP and notched up two cashes in his first year. He has made recent appearances on televised poker shows including High Stakes Poker. In his first appearance on this show he was involved in the largest ever pot seen on television when his (K,Q) made a set of Queens to crack Barry Greensteins pocket Aces.

That pot totalled over $919,000 and was the second of two big pots between the two players, with Dwans pocket Aces being beaten in the first instance. Having watched these shows myself, I have to say that I am very impressed with the creativity and fearless nature of Dwans play. At the age of 22 he sat down at this huge buy in cash game and walked away the biggest winner against a table full of the worlds best players.
Dwan surely has a very bright future in the game, and it will be interesting to see if he can start adding bracelets to his cash winnings at this years WSOP.

As a player who had the confidence to issue an online challenge worth potentially millions of dollars, to the poker world, this shows that he is an astounding young talent who fears no one.

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Adapting to Perceptions of Your Play:
If you go to a regular home game, you will probably be familiar with the pros and cons of playing poker against the same crowd each week.

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I quite enjoy playing the same people each week personally, as it keeps you on your toes in terms of adapting your play I feel. Everyone perceives me to be an aggressive player at my local game, which is often true, but I also tighten up when I feel players are starting to call me with very marginal hands.

The fact is that this isn’t the only way to deal with players who are calling you down more often, you can make a slightly more risky and complex play. Being first to act becomes the favourable position in the process too.

I have recently had some success with this, and the idea for it came from noticing the frequency with which players put out tester bets when you show them weakness. If I am first to act against a player I know makes these type of bets regularly, I can check raise them with nothing on the flop, and find a lot more success than you might think.

Part of my successes with this type of play stem from the fact that a check raise always looks powerful. Many players will immediately fear that you have a strong hand that you did not want to immediately force them out of the pot with by betting, and that your initial check was a trap.

Of course to make the reraise it will mean you risk a little more than raising as the second player to act after the action has been checked to you, but you can win a bigger pot too.

The key is partly to have the right type of player second to act, so it works well when you are playing the same players each week. With so many players making a standard raise after the first player to act has checked the flop heads up, it can be a more powerful and intricate bluff to make when you are first to act.

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When it comes to playing poker, almost every move you make is a risk. The key to being successful is to ensure those risks are calculated, and that more dangerous risks are only taken when you are very short on options. My elimination from this weeks tournament got me thinking as to just how much of a risk I took in that final hand. I think different people can sometimes interpret their options in different ways though, as I know some players will happily allow themselves to be blinded down very low rather than take a big risk.

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Personally, I have a point in my chip stack relative to the blinds and remaining players where I will start making a few strong positional bets preflop to claw back some chips. My cards in these hands are not really important to me, because my only aim is to pick up enough chips so that a double through will put me in a strong position.

I feel that this is the best way to give yourself any chance to win if you are short on good cards for a while.
If someone in the blinds has a hand and calls, then so be it, you can still get a little bit lucky and double up. The key point for me is that I refuse to let myself get so low on chips that I need to double up two or three times to be back in contention.

The potential reward of taking a big preflop risk with a bet from the right position, is that you pick up a reasonable pot when the blinds are sizeable. As long as you are taking into consideration the type of players on your left and their chipstacks, you should be able to keep yourself afloat with well timed bluffs until some stronger cards arrive.

To me, these risks are essential to poker, because it is difficult to build a big enough stack to win if you are too fearful of being eliminated.

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Considering playing poker online is a relatively new phenomenon, it is quite surprising how quickly the game has developed. Many online poker rooms have opened, attracting thousands of players to enjoy a game at any time of the day or night.

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It is difficult to say which direction the online game will take in the future, but personally, I feel the following trends will be prevalent. Graphically, one or two sites have really moved several steps ahead of the field in recent years, and I think that most sites will follow suit in the next 5 years.

As with any game you play on a computer, more defined graphics make you feel involved and moved by the whole experience of playing, and there is no reason why poker should be any different. More first person views of the action when at the tables, is a possible step forward in the near future I feel, but it is not only the visual aspects of the online game that will change.

It is my feeling that online poker tournaments which are televised will be a theme for the future, although perhaps this aspect will be localised to the site itself.

Rooms where players can chat whilst watching their final table played back onsite would be interesting, as players could discuss strategy, and also see why their plays did or did not work against one another, and why.
The only real barrier to something like this would be the poker rooms concern that players would be encouraged to watch a tournament back, rather than playing in another one.

Pokerstars have long been established as one of the finest poker rooms online, with excellent player traffic and a wealth of experience in the business, they have good reason to be there too.

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I have always said that one of my favourite things about Pokerstars are the variety of games offered. You can play many different poker games in different formats and stakes, with H.O.R.S.E events on offer too. It is not easy to offer all these games of course, and you really need the player traffic to be able to fill the tables, but this isn’t a problem for a site as big as Pokerstars.

The graphics onsite are smooth, with picture avatars of your choice representing you at the table.
The staff at Pokerstars are very helpful and available to contact 24/7, this ensures that no problems remain unresolved for long. First time deposit bonuses are good here, and promotions in general are of a high standard, with inventive new ideas and opportunities updated each month.

There is an expansive team of top class professional players who play at Pokerstars, and this is proof if any were needed, that Pokerstars is a poker room of the highest integrity and quality. The large guaranteed tournaments and satellites at Pokerstars cater for the more serious players, and for those who simply play for fun, there are ample freerolls, bonuses, and small tournaments. Overall I would say that Pokerstars are one of the finest sites around, and if they continue to try and better themselves, they will surely stay at the top.

Pokeroom.com - This was a hand that took place on this years WSOP main event final table, involving Schwartz and Demidov. Schwartz is dealt (Kh,Qs) and Demidov (Ah,10c). There is a small raise from Demidov preflop, and Schwartz calls. Both players check the flop of (5h,7h,Jh). The (9h) is a disastrous card for Schwartz on the turn, and he puts out a bet of 1.075 million. Demidov raises another 1.6 million to go, and Schwartz calls. Schwartz then checks the (5s) on the river too, and Demidov puts out a bet of 4.325 million. After some thought, Schwartz makes a quite brilliant fold.

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With the second nut flush, this is a very difficult fold on the face of it, although some would perhaps make an argument that Demidov reraising on the turn gave his hand away. I would disagree with that argument though, as a small reraise does not necessarily mean he has a big Flush, he could have a set or top two pair and be putting out a small reraise to test if Schwartz really had caught the Flush, or whether the original bet by Schwartz was pure representation.

Overall in this hand, you have to say that Schwartz folding was remarkable and I cannot take that away from him, but there are two potential reasons he has folded. One is driven by a perfect read of the situation, and if that was the case, I am in awe of his reading ability. The potential other reason, is driven by fear. Schwartz and Demidov were the two biggest stacks on the table at that time, and Demidov was playing fearless aggressive poker.

I could certainly understand if Schwartz simply wanted to avoid playing a pot with Demidov, but I cannot see how that would factor into this particular scenario. Schwartz knew there were no more betting rounds for Demidov to play back at him, so he had the option to simply flat call on the river. With that in mind, I have to say there was far more skill than simply fear in this top class fold. Pokeroom.com

Full Tilt Poker - With the usual starting stacks of 6,000 chips, I spent the first hour being careful and playing solid poker, but I found myself having slipped down to around 5,400. Then came the key hand where I was dealt (K,K) in the small blind. Somehow, the unthinkable happened when a crazy player with (8h,9h) called, and hit one of four outs on the river for a straight, putting me down to 700. What followed was another hand in which I was all in, and should have been eliminated.

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By some miracle, the same crazy player as last hand, decided not to check the hand to the river against the other player who was in the pot and holding (Q,Q). Instead, he decided to shove all in for 15,000 on the flop with nothing but an inside straight draw, forcing (Q,Q) to fold, and my flimsy pair of eights somehow held up to put me at 2,100. After a failed all in soon after, against the shortest stack at the table, I had just three chips of 100 value each.
Then incredibly with a familiar looking (8,9) in my hand, found myself with little choice but to push all in because of the blinds, and promptly trebled up. I then managed to double up three more times in quick succession.
Feeling incredibly blessed to even be in the tournament, I started playing great poker and fought all the way through to the final table.

Somehow I had gone to having 300 chips, to 40,000 two hours later when I got to heads up. After getting aggressive on a few hands I inched up to 48,000 against my opponents 52,000, then, made a risky all in move with (Jc,8c), and was instantly called by (A,A).
Whether there was some divine intervention at work that night I don’t know, but I rivered one of my four outs to make a straight (just as an opponent had done to almost eliminate me 2 hours earlier), and quickly finished my opponent off to take 1st place.
This was an incredible tournament with no end of twists, and I shall probably remember it forever. Fulltiltpoker

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