TexasHoldem-Info.com News: July 2005

Sunday, July 31, 2005

What's New in Online Poker Room News...

...Online Poker leaders Full Tilt Poker are giving away an incredible $10 000 a day every day in the month of august. For every (qualifying) ring game hand that you win you are automatically entered to win a portion of this money. With about 100 giveaways a day, the more hands you win the more chances you have at winning your share of the 10K. The promotion begins at 12 am on August 1 st and closes at 11:59 pm on the 31st.

...Over the past few months PokerStars.com has ended up being the largest online poker room to sponsor the WSOP. For this years series, which began in early July of this year, PokerStars.com has sponsored over 1000 players who have qualified for entry in one of the series of tournaments through their online poker room satellite competitions. This year, the World Series of Poker prize pool is well over 50 million dollars and with a number of the contestants coming from PokerStars, they are sure to take home a big stake of it.

...For the more experienced player, why not join Ultimate Bet for their $100 000 minimum guaranteed prize pool tournament event every Sunday. The event begins at 10pm each Sunday and the buy-in is $200. The more who enter the larger the prize pool, but no matter what every Sunday at least $100 000 will be given away!

...This year, the infamous Party Poker Millions WPT tournament ended with 24 year old, Michael Gracz taking home the 1.5 million dollar first prize. With this years tournament over, Party Poker is already in the stages of getting together the Party Poker Million V tournament. It is scheduled to take place from March 12 through 16 006 and is estimated that the total prize pool will be around the $10 million area and is promised to be the best and biggest event so far. More info will be available at a later date but the qualifying satellite games are taking place now. So don’t wait to get involved, you could be setting sail on the luxury cruise boat with Party Poker next year and being crowned a WPT champion, and needless to say going home a millionaire

...In early July, Doyles Rooms own, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, took home his tenth WSOP gold bracelet, and has tied with poker legend Johnny Chan for the most WSOP first place wins. The pair have been in tight competition for the title over the years, along with poker pro Phil Hellmuth. The three were tied at nine wins each when earlier this series, Johnny Chan leaped ahead of the trio and won his tenth championship. Of course, Doyle didn’t like this and on July 1 st, in Las Vegas, Brunson won the $5000 Short-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event and proved to Chan that he is not someone to be reckoned with. Doyle took home a prize of $367,800. Now the question is, who will be the first poker player to win 11 World Series of Poker championships?

...Inter Poker launches new feature, Desktop Alerts. The ever growing online poker room has developed a free downloadable program that sits in your desktop and alerts you of all the up to date info that is going on at InterCasino. You will be the first to learn of new promos, tournaments and any other interesting InterPoker news. You can download this software for free from the company’s website. InterPoker guarantees that this software is virus, adware and spyware free and can be easily uninstalled from your computer at any time. This is a great feature which gives you the heads up and since you are now in the “know”, your playing enjoyment and chances of becoming a more profitable player will be absolutely increased.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Texas Holdem Poker Odds - Part 1

When we start off as poker players we learn how the game flows, follow some basic strategies and hope luck is on our side. But this strategy won’t make us rich, so lets take our knowledge one step further and understand the concept of “odds” in poker. By learning how to factor in odds, you will be sure to make much wiser decisions when betting, calling and folding. Thus increasing your chances of hitting those hands, betting the right amounts and playing when the time is right. In the end you will notice that your confidence is higher, your bank roll is bigger and you have become, simply, an overall better poker player.

Unfortunately very few of us were born mathematical geniuses and are not able to make complicated calculations on the spot or without the help of a calculator. And sadly, complicated and difficult calculations are the key to poker odds. Further more, as we know, calculators, pens and pads are not exactly welcome in most poker games (unless playing online of course). So to solve this problem you have three choices. First, go back to school, break out the textbooks and study probabilities until it becomes second nature (not a very plausible solution). Or you can compute a list of every possible outcome of every possible situation and memorize it (but you’re crazy if you actually try). So that leaves one option, you can estimate your odds (using a simple and straightforward formula) and use this estimate as a good guide in making your poker decisions. Although it is just an estimate, overall it is a much more realistic solution.

There are a few areas in a poker game where knowing your odds is going to help you with your strategy. This article is going to focus on the aspect of “outs” and how they play a role in estimating what your odds will be in actually making the hand you are hoping for.

Outs can be defined as the number of cards, still in the deck, that will aide in making or improving your hand. So let’s say for example, that you are holding 7

and a 9

. The flop is 6

, 10

and Q

. So in this case you will be hoping for a straight. In order to make this straight you will need an eight to come up on the turn or the river. Since there are always four 8’s in a deck, your number of outs in this instance is 4. Or what if the flop had been Ad, 6s and 8

. You are now holding an open ended straight draw where if you draw any 5 or any 10 the hand is made. In this case you are said to have 8 outs. For one last example, say you’re pocket cards are 4

and J

. The flop reveals an A

, 9d and Q

. Obviously you are hoping for a flush hand. Since there are 13 clubs in a deck and you can see 4 of them, your number of outs will be 9 (number in deck less the number you can see).

So now that you understand the concept of outs we can explain the simple equation of estimating the odds or probability of hitting one of the outs and making your hand. This equation works best if you use it post flop (before the turn or the river). It’s as simple as this, take your number of outs and multiply it by the number of cards that still need to be drawn (two if the turn and the river are still not revealed and 1 if the river is the only card unseen). Now take that number, double it and you have an estimated percentage of the likelihood of making your hand.

In our first example you had 4 outs, so the chances of making your straight after the flop would be 4 x 2 x 2 = 16. 4 outs times 2 chances of hitting that straight and then doubled gives you an estimated 16% chance of drawing an 8 and making your hand. This estimate is quite accurate as the true odds in this instance would be 16.47%. The next example had 8 outs (four 10’s and four 5’s). So your estimated chance of making the straight would be 32% (true odds = 31.45%). And finally for the flush hand, you had 9 outs times 2 chances of hitting the flush, double it and you get a 36% probability of making your flush either on the turn or on the river (the true odds in this example are 34.97%).

So now that you can see that this calculation is very simple to remember and easy to calculate in your head, you don’t need a calculator or a degree in mathematics. You can use it anytime to quickly figure out what your approximate chances are of actually making that hand. This number can really help you make more intelligent decisions when it’s your turn to act. But don’t forget, this is just an estimate of the probability that you will make your hand. It is not the probability that you will win the round. You may think, well I have a pretty good chance of making this straight, a nice hand, but your opponent may be holding an even better one. So although knowing your odds is very helpful, there are still many other aspects to the game that need to be taken into consideration if you want to be the best player you can be.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

World Poker Exchange Online Poker Survey

The host of Augusts 2005 London Open, The World Poker Exchange, has been known to continuously survey their players in order to get a better grasp on the market of online poker. Who is playing, where do they prefer to play, why do they play online and other interesting facts have been discovered. The following is a brief look into some of their findings.

Let’s begin with the basics. It was found that the majority (75%) of online poker players get in on a game at least three times a month and about 40% of these players are playing at least five times a month (that’s more than once a week).

In regards to where they prefer to play, online or in a land casino, there was no real winner, the players enjoyed both means equally (45% preferred the casino and 45% liked playing online better). Although some prefer the casino, most of these players will still play a regular game online.

Men or women? Amazingly it was found that there are an equal amount of women who enjoy playing poker (online and in land casinos) as men. However at least half of the women surveyed revealed that they play for social reasons where only ¼ of men said they were playing for social reasons. Further, a larger number of men refer to themselves as serious poker players than the amount of women who do (20% versus 7%). Playing poker online was found to be much less intimating for players than playing face to face in a land casino. A large portion of this result comes from the women surveyed, more women enjoyed playing in online casinos as they are not comfortable and feel less at ease in a land casino. Of the men, only ¼ surveyed felt uncomfortable in a face to face game.

But intimidation is only one reason players preferred the online venue, half of the surveyed players believed that playing online was great practice before playing in the more intimidating face to face game while others enjoyed the convenience and comfort of being able to play from their own homes. Also it was found that players believed it was easier to get in on a game, at any time of the day, at an online poker room rather than in a land one.

In regards to the game of poker itself, more than half (59%) of the players believe that skill is a more important factor to luck when it comes to being a successful player (75% of those who prefer land casinos believe this fact to be true).

And finally, on a lighter side, if given the chance, women would most like to play a game of poker with Ocean’s 11 star, George Clooney (runners up included, Ben Affleck and Brad Pitt). While the men have their hopes on playing with Latin diva, Jennifer Lopez (second place was actress and poker player Shannon Elizabeth).

(All surveyed participants were American and have played poker at The World Poker Exchange)

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Joseph Hachem 2005 WSOP Champion Wins $7.5M

The time is nearly 7 o’ clock on Saturday morning, and after almost 15 straight hours of intense high stakes poker, Aussie Joseph Hachem, has just made poker history. The professional poker player probably never would have dreamed that at the end of this long, grueling final game, he would be the last man standing and seven and a half million dollars richer. This result of a tournament featured on World Series of Poker has made Hachem the winner of the largest known gambling prize ever.

This is how the events of the evening (and the early morning) Of July 15th 2005 played out:

After eliminating over 5000 contestants, 9 players, including Hachem, sat at the final table of the $10,000 buy-in No Limit Texas Holdem event in a room in Binion’s Gambling Hall. The room was filled with excited onlookers, commentators, press, a couple of very big men suited with rifles and a table stacked with lots of cash ($7.5 million to be exact). At this point Hachem entered the game in sixth position.

As the hours passed slowly but surely players were eliminated. The first to go was Las Vegas’s own Mike Matusow followed by fellow American Brad Kondraki. Next was Sweden representative, Daniel Bergsdorf. In sixth place American Scott Lazar followed by Irish pro Andrew Black and finishing in fourth was California’s Aaron Kanter. Although they didn’t win the title, each of these players left the game with at least $1 million in their pockets.

After 14 hours of continuous play with many onlookers quickly fading, at 6 am the next morning, Joseph Hachem, Derrick Barch and Steve Dannenmann hung in there and continued playing in the longest continuous game in WSOP history.

It was now that Texan poker pro, Derrick Barch made his move. With a strong hand of A-6 Barch declared that he was going “All-In”. And to make this hand more interesting both Hachem and Dannenmann called his bet. With everyones hands now face up on the table and the community cards (Q-Q-6-Q-9) laid in front of everyone’s anxious eyes, Barch, sadly, was eliminated and become the third place finisher taking home two and a half million dollars with him. The winner of the hand was Hachem, who’s two Jacks made a stronger hand than Dannenmann’s pair of sevens.

Then there were two. (It’s worth mentioning that the blinds at this point in the game were set a $200 000 for the small and the big posting at a massive $400 000).

A short while later, the 232nd hand of the game was dealt. Dannenmann raised the pot and Hachem (now the chip leader) called. The flop was dealt, 4

-5

-6

. Dannenmann, feeling quite confident raised the pot an additional $700 000. Hatchem, in turn reacts by calling the bet and raising and additional $1 million. To that, Dannenmann calls, forcing himself to go All-In. Each player reveals their cards and it’s now that Dannenmann sees that there’s a good chance that he will not be named champion of the game.

To everyones relief (by now most people are so tired and just want the game to be over), Hachem reveals that his pocket cards are astonishingly, a 7

and a 3

. Hachem made a straight on the flop! And it looks as though it will beat Dannenmann’s A

-3

. Dannenmann’s only hope now is to draw a 7 and the two men will split the pot.

But as fate would have it, the turn is an Ace and the River reveals another 4

. And just like that history is made. At 6:54 am the game is finally over, the two Las Vegas showgirls finally get to make their entrance after patiently standing by, the crowd is on their feet (those who are still awake that is) and first time WSOP entrant Joseph Hachem’s wildest dreams come true.

For more information on winners of the WSOP be sure to visit our World Series of Poker section for details.

Monday, July 18, 2005

New and Improved Texas Holdem Info - Great Stuff...

TexasHoldem-Info.com has always been a premier source for quality poker information particularly information that pertains to texas holdem poker. We've spiced up our site a little bit to include some great new features which we're sure you'll find both hand and ones that you'll enjoy. Our goal here at TexasHoldem-Info.com is to become the best texas holdem poker portal out there and to provide you with a wealth of valuable information that's easy to access and highly informative and helpful. Who knows you could be the next WSOP or WPT champ with a tip you picked up from us here.

New Stuff added to TexasHoldem-Info.com:

A great new search feature that allows you to search our site based on the content within each page making it easier to pin point and find exactly what you're looking for, you'll notice our search box in the top left hand corner of every page on our site to make it easy to access and fast to find what you're looking for, alternatively you can check our search page where you can enter a query.

Because of the fact that our site is centered around Texas Holdem we wanted to include the rules of other popular Omaha Poker, Stud Poker and variations of these as well as Crazy Pineaple and Lowball Poker .

New poker reviews added and more will be added regularly. Our site before was mainly focused on providing you with information on playing Texas Holdem and not really any solid information on the best places to play poker online. We've included some detailed reviews of the best online poker rooms out there and featured them for you in the left hand column of our site. You'll be able to access our reviews from each page on our site.

A great new polling/quiz feature has been added to the homepage of our site which provides helpful tips on the appropriate actions to take based on your hand's. In general this poll will be updated every week but in not every week then every other week so be sure to check back frequently.

Since we want to keep you up to date with everything that is going on we've decided to add a great new news feature to our site which we'll be adding regularly. See where you clicked on this article on our homepage well keep your eyes on this section as you'll see that we're adding new stuff here regularly whether it being news, press releases or other great information.

Things to Come at TexasHoldem-Info.com:

We plan on offering you poker room statistics some time in the very near future which will start with tournament data and information which we think is a great feature to offer our visitors as it saves time downloading the actual software, installing it, etc... to find out what tournaments are going on and when. This way you'll always have access to fresh information that we're sure you'll enjoy having access to.

Odds Generators both Pre flop and Post flop odds as we feel knowing the odds when playing texas holdem and other poker variations is something every good poker player should know.

We'd like to add a tip of the day section as we thing this sort of thing will keep you coming back to our website and hopefully you can refer our resource to other players who are looking for quality information and great tips.

And much more really there's so much we want to do with this site and we'll be doing our best to keep you posted with what's new and what we're up to regularly in our news section which like we said before can be accessed on our homepage. If you have any suggestions for cool things we can add to our site please be sure to let us know by visiting our contact us section and filling out our suggestion/contact form.

		Party Poker		Inter Poker

		Ultimate Bet		PokerRoom

		Pacific Poker		Empire Poker

		Paradise Poker		Doyles Room

		Absolute ...		Poker Stars

		Full Tilt ...		Noble Poker

		Titan Poker		Bodog Poker

		Poker room accepts U.S. players.