Various attempts at having the legislation repealed has gone through the senate and Senator Barney Frank has worked tirelessly to show the US government that there is a sizeable tax revenue to be generated from accepting that the American people like engaging in this pastime and using the tax revenues as a positive income stream for the country rather than taking this restrictive measure to ban such gaming activity UIGEA represents.

Unfortunately Barney Franks attempt to have the legislation appears to have stalled and with only a couple of days before the bills implementation, only a miracle will save the US Poker market now. Other sports such as greyhound racing, horse racing and various Keno games will also be acutely affected. Attempts were made to differentiate poker as a skill game, but whilst some small judgements were made in online poker’s favour there was no large precedent case that would have a knock-on effect to the UIGEA bill. It was too little too late.

The Aftermath of UIGEA for Poker

After June 1st it will not be illegal for you to play online poker so you can still play poker tournaments online and shoot for the big prizes! The problem is getting the money in and more importantly the money out of the US poker rooms.

When you cash out, the poker room approves the cash-out and either the bank or a third party payment processor conducts the transfer between the bank account used by the poker room and your own bank account. If you think of the payment processor as a bridge, the UIGEA bill will destroy all of the bridges! Harsh penalties will be in place for the payment processors if they defy this bill so come June 1st, en masse, they will stop processing the transactions.

When UIGEA was signed in 2006, many poker rooms immediately left the US poker market for fear of prosecution, but some remained and did very well. It may be the players this time that withdraw their money to see how things work out before putting their money back into poker. I have read some articles that suggest player to player transfers may be the only way to get money in and out of the site which could cause massive problems given the nature of such transfers, and the inevitable disputes that would occur and, of course, cheating players.

It is predicted that for US players size and frequency of cash-outs may become limited and there may be a fee introduced for these transactions. The speed and efficiency of transactions is sure to be negatively effected whilst poker rooms like Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker search for ways of complying with UIGEA and providing good customer service.

A Silver Lining?

Some of Europe’s leading poker rooms are expecting a surge in business. Cashing in and out from bwin.com is particularly smooth and this will be exceptionally difficult to achieve for even the well-meaning poker rooms in the US poker market. Online gaming is more accepted in Europe so these poker rooms look likely to achieve a surge in business. The UIGEA bill may be particularly painful for US poker players but there could be a seismic shift in the balance of power between online poker rooms favouring bwin.com as their already good levels of customer service will be ever rarer in the market. European poker could be in line for a real boost in popularity after June 1st.

Peace of mind is available at bwin.com at a time when this is very much under threat elsewhere, so maybe getting an account there is a good idea given current circumstances in online poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

Once we have mastered pre-flop play, we must turn out attentions to making better and therefore more profitable decisions further into the hand i.e. post flop. If you are going read a poker book on the subject, I would suggest purchasing Harrington on Cash Games which is renowned as a brilliant poker book that even some of the young nosebleed stakes players said was extremely useful to them whilst they learned how to play poker at those levels.

Continuation Betting

You should bet between half and the full pot as a continuation bet when checked to in late position most of the time. You need to vary bets and checks but I would recommend 80% – 20% in favour of betting when you hold a decent hand (top pair or better). Many online poker players realised a while ago that players would fire one barrel on the flop and check to give a free card on the turn. They could then value bet them from the hand on the river. Beware of this strategy and do not be afraid to fire a second barrel on the turn. My own play suggests that the two barrel C-Bet is becoming more of a standard play in online poker these days. The disbelief of the first continuation bet works out well for you when you have a good hand and your value bets get called on the river by disbelieving opponents.

Pot Control

There is nothing wrong with checking a street to control the size of the pot. Most players expect you to bet and if you do not they will bet. So in late position when facing a check I have no problem with checking behind in a marginal situation. Just do not do it too often please! Remember every time you check your opponent can improve too and in a position where they would have folded giving them a free card could give them a concealed monster. Opponents can have any two when they are betting so make them define their hand whenever possible by giving them a price to play.

The Dreaded River

On the river you will face two scenarios. You will either be checked to and have a decision to make on whether you make a value bet or check immediately or you will face a bet and have to decide whether to fold, call or raise.

Exactly what you do depends on what you know about your opponent, previous hands played against them and your own hand strength. Place your opponent on a range of possible hands and compare your own hand against that range. Is it behind or ahead of it? Only raise if you a hand with good showdown value, most players do not like folding after making a river bet. Checking should be made when you suspect your opponent is trapping and you should have prior hands where this happened to back up this judgement call.

There are a million things we could write about in upcoming poker articles where we will deeply analyse post flop play further. For now visit bwin.com and get practising, playing actual hands is the best way to learn.

By Malcolm Clarke

My Positional Range

When players first begin to play cash games and poker tournaments they focus mainly on their hole cards but the process should go a little deeper than simply what you see. If you are in early position your range should be tighter. Your playable hands are AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, AQ and KQ suited according to most poker strategy articles and books. The reason for this is that because you are out of position (you will be acting first or thereabouts after the flop) you will not know your opponent’s intentions in the hand until you have acted. This could cost you chips if you bet a marginal hand and face a large raise where you have to fold. Playing the same hand in late position would see the raise being made first by your opponent allowing you to save the chips you lost by playing from early position.

As you progress around the table in terms of position you can widen the amount of hands you play because you have less opponents to beat (more will have folded) and you have more value out of the hands from later position as you have more information to work with.

Who is in the Hand?

After you have assessed position and your own abilities in terms of playing marginal hands you should assess the range of any opponents who are in the hand and their position in relation to you. Playing one behind the button and seeing the player on the button call your raise is not a good sign for the rest of the hand because this is the only player who has a better position than you at the table.

For players in earlier positions than you whilst you have advantage in positional terms you should consider their likely range. If they are ultra tight and you are playing a 7-8 suited hand you might be behind on the flop if overcards come on the board. If they have limped in you might be better calling and seeing if you improve, or are checked to on the flop. If you re-raise at this point and they are tight if they shove all-in you cannot call.

Your considerations here are how strong your opponent is likely to be, what you know about them and what your own hand dictates you should do based on these assumptions.

The Action to Take; Raise, Call, or Fold?

Pre-flop players cannot check as there are blinds that force them to invest chips or fold their hand. After you have decided on the opponent’s likely hand strength you then decide on the move you should make. As described above you should be thinking carefully about who the opponent is and what they could hold.

If you play the hand, I recommend that you raise. If you limp in you run the risk of giving the big blind a free look at the cards. You are thus removing the opportunity of getting a mistake out of this player. I am a big fan of the saying “if it is not good enough to raise, it’s not good enough to call either” in relation to your hole card strength.

By Malcolm Clarke

There are things you must be aware of in order to do well in these types of tournament. Having a solid grasp of poker poker strategy will help you gain big stacks during the initial period of the tournament where the chips really do fly around.

During the Re-Buy Period

The action is fast and furious during the re-buy period. As players can buy back in there is less risk with pushing a marginal hand. Your range for making pre-flop raises should either be widened or tightened depending on your own plans for the tournament. If you are one of the crazy re-buying players then you can widen your range of starting hands and go for the double up that will earn you a large stack.

With many opponents playing loose at this point there are plenty chips to be won. With a starting stack of $1,500 players can aim to increase that to $8,000 or more if they are lucky enough to get good hands. Raises by your opponents should mean less and you will see large pots in relation to the smaller blinds more often as the aggression is the either win or re-buy.

That said, many players have won re-buy tournaments having never had to re-buy playing tight in this stage of the tournament and picking off other players bad moves. You should play these tournaments, however, with a willingness to re-buy at least once or twice to take into account the ferocity of play in the early stages.

After the Re-buy Period

Immediately after the re-buy period ends you should see an immediate relaxing of intensity in the way the poker tournament is played. Players now have the added pressure of potentially being eliminated so they must be more careful before risking their stack. You need to make that adjustment also in that the raising range will instantly become more in line with the normal expectations in relation to the blinds like you would see in a freezeout poker tournament.

There will be some less experienced poker tournament players that have gotten on a roll during the re-buy period and will still be pounding the pot and be raising aggressively. It is probably best to avoid these players without a very strong hand. Their range is probably quite wide and they are using a poker strategy that as soon as the rebuy period ended was a mistake. This makes them attractive as a weak player but also dangerous because they are creating big pots.

The key re-buy poker tournament concept to bear in mind is that once re-buys end it becomes a freezeout tournament played in freezeout conditions. Some players will have huge stacks that you might not see in a freezeout but they will normally go quiet for a few levels sitting on their lead. These entertaining tournaments can have big prize pools because of the frenzied re-buying that takes place early on in the tournament.

This makes re-buy poker tournaments fun to play in and potentially lucrative!

By Malcolm Clarke

Whilst the following poker tips are very general, they form a framework that you can follow in order to get to a high level of poker skill as quickly as is realistically possible for you.

1. Devour the Basics

Can you recite the hand rankings from Royal Flush right down to Ace High in the correct order? Do you know what a string bet is and how to avoid it? What does min-raise mean and what does three betting mean? All of these things and much more should reel off your tongue like it is second nature to you. Having a solid grounding of strategy is imperative to your future poker success. I found arranging a poker quiz with my friends interesting. Perhaps more interesting was that none of us got 100% right despite us all doing very well. It is always worth brushing up on the basics.

Visit the bwin poker school where there are lots of guides to both basic and more complicated poker strategy.

2. Download a Poker Room and Play Freerolls

Before you grab your paypal account or Visa card take a moment to carefully select your poker room. I use bwin.com which I feel is secure, looks good and they enjoy good player traffic and plenty of variety in terms of cash game tables and poker tournaments. Pass by their freeroll tables and get used to the software and how the game works at your site. Mis-clicks can be very costly and unfortunately you have no-one to blame but yourself if this occurs. The time spent familiarising yourself with the poker software is time well spent.

3. Read Poker Books, Poker Forums & Poker Blogs

Poker research is important, but be aware of the date of publication for books as poker strategy develops over time and some books may be out of touch with how poker is played today. Poker forums are a good source of strategy, but again learn who is worth listening to and who the loud people are with nothing to back up their noise! Poker blogs are a good way of learning how a player thinks and there are thousands of them out there. Many professionals run good blogs but like books and forums there are good and bad incarnations of these blogs. Providing you have a critical eye you should benefit from the vast wealth of knowledge available online in these mediums.

4. Start Small & Take Notes

Using conservative bankroll management you can begin to play some hands at this point with hopefully a good understanding over what is happening at the poker tables. Take notes of mistakes you make and possibly consult a coach if you are unable to plug the leak yourself. Note particular spots where you struggle in detail. For example, holding AJ in early position when an Ace comes on the flop and you face a raise from someone in late position. Lots of poker situations are difficult but having confidence in your own knowledge and, more importantly, a reason for every decision is something that coaching can help with. You can also post better questions in the forums once you get more experience.

5. Keep Gaining Experience and Stay Positive

You may find that winning at poker comes very easily to you, but stay humble and stay positive and keep doing what you are doing. If you lose you should work out why you are losing. You might not be Phil Ivey but with dedication, experience and a bit of humility most players can eventually find a level where they can succeed. This may be in a tournament, a cash game or SNG format, so try each type of poker and see what suits you best.

Above all, enjoy learning this great game and enjoy the challenge online poker offers everyone.

By Malcolm Clarke

Imagine this scenario. You are playing in a poker tournament with a large first prize. You battle for four hours and build a competitive stack. After playing very solidly you make a move against a good player and they call you with 60/40 odds. Their hand holds up and as they had a slightly smaller stack than yours they are now amongst the chip leaders whilst you are short stacked and looking doomed. Can you feel the deflation of your hope and your belief that this was your big moment? I can and it is tempting to simply give up if this happens.

Unfortunately as a result of this moment of pain many players do give up and throw their chance of success away. In most tournaments such a crippling loss may mean you will not achieve what you had hoped this time, but you should take solace in that you made the right decision (do not forget to review the hand to make sure you DID make the right decision) and move on with your head held high. There is always another poker tournament to try and win!

Do not dream of regaling your bad beat story at the bar. I have seen many players lose a massive pot then look over to the bar to see who is there that they could talk to when they bust out in a moments time. It is like they have mentally left the table and are waiting for their body to catch up. They almost want to lose their remaining chips believing that the tournament is over for them. All of these things are wrong. The saying “a chip and a chair” means you are still alive and you could double or even triple up. Yes it is unlikely but if you play hard and wait for good hands (if possible) you have a reasonable chance of getting some more chips.

1982 winner Jack Straus is credited with using the phrase “a chip and a chair”. The story (which varies depending on who you ask) is that he pushed his chips into the middle and lost the hand early in the main event. Finding a chip under his napkin as he stood to leave the organisers let him continue playing as he had pushed his chips into the middle rather than declared “All-in”. He made a remarkable comeback from holding only a single chip and eventually won the tournament. This shows you are never out of contention until you have lost your last chip, so always play hard and never give up.

None of the top professional poker players give up and they have plenty of money to simply walk away if things are getting tough. But staying strong and focused helped them reach that level and you should be copying such behaviour. Never give up and play your best poker until your last chip is gone.

By Malcolm Clarke

When a big hand versus big hand confrontation occurs a lot of the time the money goes into the middle and it is a case of best hand wins. Both players may know the other has a strong hand but in texas hold ‘em you need to be willing to bet on your good hands and often they will be the best. There is always a chance your opponent could be bluffing or overplaying a weaker hand so your chances to win are always a couple of notches higher than the mathematical odds suggest i.e. if you push all-in your opponent could fold as well as hold a losing hand. They could even fold the best hand!

A poker school cannot teach you specific situations where you should raise and specific situations where you should fold. They give you the basics, like a hiker would use a map, but you decide when, where and how you walk in texas holdem.

Nearly every poker article I stress the importance of watching your opponents. This fills in the blanks when a decision is required. I played a hand against my good friend Rob and it played out like this. I had AK and after raising three times the big blind Rob called. The flop was a rainbow Q-X-X. We both checked the flop and the turn was a Jack, giving me a straight draw. He checked to me and I checked again. Rob likes to bet when he thinks he can get me to fold or when he has something, so his check was suspicious to me. The river was a blank, I had missed my draw, I could have bet the draw on the turn but my stack was dwindling and I was into shove territory and I believed I might be beaten. After I checked again Rob bet around three quarters of the pot. I instantly folded. If Rob has something on the river, he bets to get paid off. He showed me a pair of queens. I was right, he had been slowplaying.

Do you see how my information on how Rob plays helped me during that hand? Without that information I might have shoved on the turn and lost to the hidden pair of queens. That would not have been a bad play but precise knowledge of his style and awareness of how he perceives my own play saved me. I had a feeling I was beaten when he checked because he is still learning deception and tends to be a weak is strong, strong is weak type of player. In this hand I lost the pot but I kept some of my stack and was able to fight on. I do not remember who won this match, which means I probably lost!

Watch your opponents carefully. Learn not only what they do right but what they do wrong and get an idea in your head over what a bet means, what a check means and what a raise means. If you are right you immediately have a massive advantage over them. Another general concept to finish with in this article is if you think you are beat in texas holdem, it is better to fold than continue in the hand getting confused by the incomplete information you always have during a poker hand.

By Malcolm Clarke

Cash game poker players in both texas hold ‘em and Pot Limit Omaha can go 100,000 hands and despite being winning players they can suffer losses due to consistently having their hands beaten by their opponents hitting their hands despite being behind in a hand. Can the law of attraction change these results? It would be wrong to assume that just because you watch one DVD and begin to think more positively about poker and life this will prevent bad beats. A 20% chance in a poker hand will come about one in five times that situation is played out over time. No universal law however powerful in metaphysical terms can alter the pure mathematics of poker. This could be an argument to say that the law is ineffective from a poker perspective.

When thinking about using the Law of Attraction in poker it is about refining your approach, your belief and your visualisation. Preventing negativity and maintaining belief keeps you making good decisions which should lead you to success in poker.

The five steps of implementing the Law of Attraction is as follows,

1. Know what you Want

It is recommended that you write down everything you want. You must be realistic, however, do not ask for AA in every hand! Things like you will hit the flop; you will trap an aggressive player. Think positively about all parts of poker and you will attract these good moments towards you.

2. Think Big, Not Small

Having goals is important and we have discussed this in previous articles. Randomly playing poker with no goals is just playing hands over and over and this can become boring very quickly. If you goal is to win a poker tournament then visualise this happening. This sets your mind towards what you want to achieve, giving you direction and purpose.

3. Lose the Negativity

In part two of this feature we are going to look at why it is so easy to get negative when you play poker. You must lose all of your fear and concern and focus on making good decisions. Expect to make good decisions and study to ensure you have the ability, knowledge and poise to make these good decisions. Expect the good things you want to achieve from steps one and two and attract them to you.

4. Visualise the Outcome

To keep motivation high you must set time aside to visualise what it would be like to achieve all of your goals in Poker. Imagine giving the interview and feel the satisfaction of having a big cash prize. Really feel and imagine that feeling. The universe will then attract this to you. Phil Hellmuth used the law of attraction and achieved all of his goals within six months early in his poker career. Following this technique can be very powerful if you keep on believing. A positive person works towards their goals and you can achieve what you want through hard work and belief.

5. Act on Intuition

At some point you must trust the law of attraction to work for you and alter your poker life the way you desire. You are positive, focused and ready to achieve and you believe you can do it. Focus on all opponents carefully and then let your intuition guide you to the best results. Opponents will notice your confidence and the fact you are playing like a winner. I believe this is what sets apart the much discussed Maven poker system in that they focus on playing each hand correctly with a belief the winning will happen if they keep doing things right. They have many good testimonials to this effect. Positive thinking can change your life because it puts you in a position to harness opportunity.

Be sure to read part 2 of this feature where we discuss negativity and why it should be avoided and why you should fight to maintain a positive attitude towards poker by using the law of attraction to help you achieve great things.

By Malcolm Clarke

Often it is not a bad beat in poker tournaments that cause you to bust out but your reaction to them and play in future hands. You fail to recover from the hand that would have seen you become chip leader and you are mentally unable to make the correct decisions to work your short stack back into contention in the hands immediately after this. You then make a rash decision and are eliminated, I can think of many times earlier in my poker life where this happened. Having this happen to you can stop you from making a comeback in a situation where you may have recovered.

Using the law of attraction forces you to visualise positive outcomes and therefore subliminally prepares you for success. When you expect success you are not demoralised by a single act of bad luck as you view this as a blip on the road to success. Politicians face a lot of criticism on the streets as they campaign for votes. Having conviction that they can win means they are not hurt by comments, they respond well to adversity. Study their persona and you will see what I mean, they are very difficult to draw a reaction from and their control comes from their confidence.

Poker players need to develop a thick skin like a politician and a similar belief that you are following the correct poker strategy and whilst things may not always work out on one hand you have confidence following a similar strategy in the future is the right thing to do. You maintain optimal poker strategy and therefore maintain a high chance of success despite short term failure. The law of attraction promotes both a confidence in your poker game and a confidence within yourself.

If a player is obviously suffering at the poker table opponents will take strength from this outward weakness. Similarly opponents feel less confident if they feel a player is very confident. You can plant the seeds of doubt in your opponent’s mind by using the law of attraction to manifest a positive feeling inside you. They will not understand why you are confident but they must assume there is foundation to this belief and this will affect their initial perceptions of your play. Even if you are a moderate player in terms of ability you can appear more dangerous than perhaps you are by exuding an air of absolute confidence in your poker game.

Consider now if you appear outwardly nervous and you are telling players that you are new to tournaments or talking in the chat box about how badly you run. They may look upon you as a weak player believing you are scared money. However they reach the decision to raise your bluff causing you to fold you do not want to feed them any information that makes this decision more obvious and less scary to them. Your negativity therefore breeds less than desirable results in poker as well as in life.

Force yourself to be positive and research the law of attraction. It will not make you unstoppable straight away but you will be in a good place mentality with the belief that you are heading towards a goal that will greatly enhance your life and feelings of achievement. When things go well you have the satisfaction of knowing it is a job well done and when things are going less than fantastically you can take a long term view, maintain your positivity and get back to making good poker decisions quickly. This is far better than tilting and you will start winning again sooner than if you let the negative thoughts grow inside you.

That is the power of using the law of attraction in Poker; you are open to victory all of the time and you let nothing get in the way of you reaching that victory.

By Malcolm Clarke

The following advice is relevant to any weekly casino event that is not a large buy-in, although much will be the same no matter what the buy-in is.

Arriving at the Casino

Bring ID with you when you arrive at the casino, especially if it is your first visit. Some of the modern casinos do not require written membership but you will have to prove you are over the legal age to play, particularly if you look young! Once you have given your details if you need to access you can access the casino floor. Usually the poker room is situated at the back of the casino, meaning you will need to navigate through the games room to find it. Casinos do this because they want to tempt you with roulette, blackjack and craps before you sit down to play poker!

Poker Etiquette

At the poker table in a low buy-in event there is not the level of intensity of a WSOP tournament. Most players take the game seriously but are there mainly to have a good time. Aggressively table talk like Tony G is not suitable and you should not splash the pot or go any further than light-hearted banter. As much as players would like to think otherwise, poker is primarily a social activity in less than $50 buy-in events although you should play to win at all times.

Sunglasses and iPods are usually banned for low limit events in casinos as they try and promote a good social experience rather than intensive life or death poker. You can still play hard, but please remain in the confines of the house rules.

Sitting Down

When you first enter the tournament you will be given a number. This is displayed on the big screen which shows your table and seat number. This will be random and it is important you sit where you are supposed to. Take your seat, get a feel for your chips and re-arrange them as you like. Count your chips so you know exactly what the configuration of your stack is. Get into the mindset of winning and plan your strategy. It is time to play.

Playing Your First Hand

When you are dealt your cards, look at your cards after you have watched the reaction of the other players looking at their cards as many players give away the strength of their hand in their immediate reactions after looking at their cards. Begin to immediately formulate opinions on opponent’s looseness or tightness. Unless you have AA, KK, QQ, JJ or AK I like to fold the opening hand as losing a pot straight away can make you feel like this is not your day and unsettle you. I will only play AQ as first person in with an unraised pot. From the first hand start forming the image you want to profit from later in the tournament.

If/When you Bust

Most casinos give you a card and you should pass this into the tournament desk usually situated at the periphery of the poker room before you leave the casino. This allows the casino to log your finishing position and assists the management of the poker tournament. You do not need to shake every player by the hand but I always say “good luck guys” and shake the hand of the player who busted me before I leave and that always makes me feel I’ve left in a nice way, even if I have taken a bad beat.

Remember to enjoy yourself too! If you have played lots of poker tournaments at bwin.com then you should be more than equipt to do well in a live poker setting.

By Malcolm Clarke