Poker Room Radio

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.