Poker Data

Data base is a very important tool. It helps you collect information in such an organized way that statistics can be analysed by the expert for good use, and for me, to crack down my boredom, I refer for public entertainment a copy of poker player X's Poker Tracker stats.

This data history is said to drawn from over 30,000 hands of play.

Most Dealt Poker Hand: J8o - 346 times
Least Dealt Hand: 94s - 82 times

Highest Winning % Hand - AA 86.67%
Lowest Winning % Hand - Q8s 0.82%

Most Tournament Money Won - ATo
Most Tournament Money Lost - 93o

Most Raised Hand Pre-Flop - JJ 79.70%
Least Raised Hand Pre-Flop - 21 Hands on 0%

Big Hands:

Straight Flush x 2
Four of a Kind x 13

Most Played Against Players:
Private information, no exposure here, LOL

This information inspires me a lot, and what's your feeling after seeing it? Can it compare with yours?

One Round of Omaha

Omaha is played with blinds and dealer button which means that the positions are fixed throughout the whole hand. The dealer button is a white plate that marks the dealer position. The blinds are two mandatory bets made before the cards are dealt. The blinds are used to open play and force action. The first player to the left of the dealer posts the small blind and the second player posts the big blind. The small blind is the size of half a big blind.

The dealer gives the players four cards face down, the first betting round begins and turn goes clockwise starting with the poker player to the left of the dealer. The players may do one of the following actions depending on what is possible at the moment: check, bet, raise, call or fold.

When the first betting round is finished the dealer places three cards open on the poker table, these are the flop cards. Betting resumes and remaining players make their move.
When the second betting round is finished the dealer places one card face up on the table. Betting resumes as usual. This is the turn card.

When the third betting round is finished the dealer places the fifth and last card open on the table. This is the river card. Betting resumes but when the last person has acted it's a showdown of the cards. The person who bet or raised last shows the cards first. The other players may choose to show or fold their hands depending if they have a better hand. The player with the best poker hand wins the pot. (In Omaha high-low the pot is split into a high hand and a low hand pot if there is a low hand qualifier)

To determine the best poker hand a player has to use two of the four hole cards with three of the five community cards.

The dealer button is moved one step to the left and a new hand may begin.

Take Another Look at Pocket Aces in Omaha

A player typically does a little leap in their head when a player stares down and sees pocket aces in Texas Holdem. In Pot Limit Omaha numerous players will have a tendency to do the same thing when they look down at pocket aces, but not all hands that contain aces are physically powerful.

A-A-K-K double suited as many people know, is the best starting hand in Pot Limit Omaha. This also considered is a powerful hand while Preflop, is the hand that is always ahead. A couple of coordinated cards are also very power Poker hands. So does hands that have aces in them.

When the players play aces that are not coordinated or suited, a lot of them get into a trap with aces. Players treat any starting hand with two aces in it like the nuts and sometimes get into a holdem poker mentality. When you are relying on only the aces to win the hand, the problem with playing a hand with aces that does not have any backup or else you need to be incredibly lucky.

A poker player that is known to be an aggressive and loose player raised from middle position in an Omaha Online Poker tournament about a year ago. Mean while a player on the button reraised the pot and the LAG player that reraised all-in and was called. The LAG player showed A-A-4-9 with no suits while the opponent showed Qh-Jd-10h-9s. The aces are only 58% to win if you run stats on this hand preflop and this is almost a coin flip situation. The aces all of a sudden went to an underdog because the flop fell 8s-10c-2d and the player with the wrap had a 57% chance to win at this point. The aces were busted the wrapped player actually hit his straight.

Settled, the need for a player to have backup with their aces are required the wrap to hit. Hand must hit in order to stay ahead although any chance hand with two aces in it is indeed a slight favorite before the flop. Uncoordinated aces will not hit the flop and then fall behind in many cases.

The question of how should a player play a hand with uncoordinated aces depends on several factors including position, the nature of poker players at the table, the restrictions, and certainly your stack. Seeing if you get lucky and limping into a pot with on the flop is the type of one hand that you may even want to consider. Omaha is a drawing game although limping with aces look as if counterintuitive. Players that pick up a draw on the flop actually are ahead against "naked aces". You recognize that a raise will knock some players out. You may want to put in a raise if you are on the button against only limpers. If you do not hit the flop that you may want to tread very lightly should keep in mind or else you may end up giving your chips away.

A Legendary Poker Player Profile

Johnny Chan has become one of the best players in World Series of Poker history. Born in China, he sits second all time with 10 WSOP bracelets just one behind Phil Hellmuth. Chan's first World Series of Poker cash was in 1983 and he plays a full program to this day with 3 cashes in 2008. Johnny is widely considered one of the top 5 players in World Series of Poker history and is popular on Poker television. Chan came to the United States in 1968. He is married with six children. He won first bracelet in 1985 and his tenth in 2005.

Chan had already had one bracelet to his name, heading in to the 1987 World Series of Poker Main Event, however the Main Event would be where his career really started. Poker greats like Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington and Mickey Appleman Littered the Main Event final table in 1987. Johnny proved that he was a player to consider with and beat all those top pros and took home the title at the final table. Chan won $650 000 and beat Frank Henderson heads up. In 1988 Chan made the final table of the Main Event and once more a lot of names you will recognize were at the table with him. Guys like Erik Seidel, TJ Cloutier and Humberto Brenes. Johnny showed that he was one of the top pros in the world besting Seidel heads up to take home the bracelet and $700 000 once again. Johnny was now the man to observe with back to back wins and three career bracelets The 1989 Main Event where legends are born. Chan once again was there in the end. He battled his way to again being heads up for the title, and what happened was two upcoming poker legends would take clash. Maybe poker fans didn't realize it at the time, but it was legend vs legend. Phil Hellmuth vs Johnny Chan. Chan would still take home more then $300 000 although Hellmuth would take home the title. We will in no way see another player make three main event final tables in a row, pass up win 2 and finish second once. Johnny had made his name in the poker world. Making another Main Event final table in 1992he would win more bracelets and even.

While he won a 7 card stud tournament Chan wouldn't win his fourth bracelet until 1994. When he outlasted Barry Greenstein, Steve Zolotow and Lyle Berman in winning the deuce to seven lowball bracelet His fifth came in 1997. Chan won his sixth bracelet in 2000 and in 2002 he convene with an old friend in the no limit holdem heads up tournament, Phil Hellmuth and now Johnny took home the title and his seventh bracelet. In event 15 and event 24 his eighth and ninth bracelet both came in 2003. Chan won his then record 10th bracelet in a pot limit holdem tournament in 2005. He had to beat Phil Laak heads up to win that 10th title, which earned him over $300 000. After that Johnny has cashed eight times and most lately finished 4th in an Omaha event in 2008.

Overall Johnny has cashed 41 times and 10 bracelets in his career. Johnny has made more then $4 million at the World Series of Poker alone over his 25 year career. Chan is one of the most consistent poker players in poker history with 25 years and 27 final tables made. He has had triumphed playing Holdem of all limits and styles, Omaha and seven card poker games.

He commonly appears on Poker After Dark on NBC. Johnny is more then just the World Series. He has career tournament earnings of more then $6.5 million and also won Poker Superstars. Play Poker like Johnny Chan and Million Dollar Holdem are the two books he had written. He runs his personal online poker site, owns fast food franchises and desires to eventually open his own casino. Chan is a great poker player and a business man who will strive for success in all his endeavors.

Ultimate Poker Tournament: WSOP

The World Series of Poker is without a doubt the biggest and most prestigious poker tournament in the world. The WSOP, as it is known, gathers the best poker players in the world each year to battle each other until only one is declared champion and winner of millions of dollars—the biggest prize, and honor, in the poker world.

Poker tournament is a series of structured competitions where players compete against each other to accumulate all the poker chips in play. In "normal" casino games, each hand is unrelated to any other. Players can quit whenever they want. In tournaments, players can not quit and cash out their chips. Play continues until there is a winner.

There are different types of poker tournaments: "Elimination" or "freeze out" tournaments are the most common type. In this structure all players begin with the same amount of poker chips, and play continues until one player has accumulated all the chips. As players are eliminated, the active players are re-seated at fewer and fewer tables. While the winner of the tournament is the poker player who accumulates all the chips, the payout structure rewards several players. For example, if ninety-five players start a tournament, commonly the "final table" of nine players would receive prize money—with eighth getting a larger prize than ninth, seventh getting more than eighth, etc.

Internet Poker at Your Service

The following is for the advantages I think of internet poker—though I'm sure someone with a creative mind could think of others. I would be glad to meet fellow poker "punks", so don't hesitate to inspire me with your great perspectives.

Ability to "Multi-table"

Online poker has spawned something that never existed before in poker—the ability to literally play more than one game at the same time. This has a huge potential upside for the player who is a consistent winner with a well-defined style of play. Though he may give up some profit in each game he plays by limiting his ability to "play the players", he can greatly multiply his hourly win rate by playing many games at once. This can be an enormous example. Imagine, for example, that you are a winner of two big bets an hour in your live games. Now imagine that you can play eight games at once—winning only one big bet an hour—having to give up your full advantage because you can't tailor your play to each individual player. That still leaves you with the ability to earn eight big bets an hour—four times your live play rate. Is it any wonder that so many of the hottest poker players these days make their money chiefly on line?

Ability to Instantly Take Notes on Opponents

A good poker player often notices tendencies of his opponents that help reveal what cards they are likely to hold. In a live casino it is very difficult or impossible to record those impressions immediately. But in an online room this is simply a matter of typing in some brief notes on a pull down screen. These notes can be retained for as long as an opponent plays under the same screen name. This advantage is itself augmented because of the ease of locating these players in the future. Most online poker sites have a "find a player" feature that allows you to type in their screen name and locate, immediately, where they are playing. So if you've noticed that a player is a loose passive opponent, you can look for him again in a future game and adjust your play accordingly. If only "fishing" were always so easy in real life.

Inability of Opponents to Read Your Poker Tells

Many players reveal a lot about their hands by their unconscious but observable traits at the poker table. These "tells", such as how you physically bet, breath, talk, hold your cards, or otherwise react to situations as they develop during the play of the hand, give experienced players extra information from you that they can use to exploit. When you play on line, these traits become invisible, eliminating a disadvantage you may have had in a live game.

Play Baccarat at Online Casino

It's a pearl in European casinos. Yep, it's Baccarat. And I'd like to guide you to the crystal-clear Baccarat rules. Check it out.

The aim of Baccarat is to assemble your hand to contain two or three cards with a total value of nine, or secondly eight. The absolutely perfect hand is one that contains two cards and their value totals nine, this is known as a "Natural Nine" or a "Natural Eight". If any of the players, including the banker, has a "Natual Nine" or a "Natural Eight" then the other players may not draw a third card - that poker player is the winner unless there is a tie between two players in which case the game is void. If there are no "Naturals" then players decide whether to bet or fold.

Card Scoring:












If the total of a poker hand is greater than ten then the initial figure is ignored, e.g. if a card hand total was 14 then the actual total is 4.

Hand Totals (certain examples are listed):













The way to bet is to bet on whether the "Banker" will win, or the "Player" will win, or there will be a "Tie". It's a little bit complicated for it has to do with "third-card-rules". I'll write about it in later articles.

Brief introduction may never suffice. The best way to learn and understand Baccarat is to play at an online casino. If you are totally new, you can try a "play money" room. It's simple, and simple is the best.

Top 10 Interesting Blackjack Facts

1. There is great dispute amongst the Italians and French as to who first invented the game of blackjack, although most think it to be the French.

2. The game was originally called vingt-et-un (French meaning 21).

3. It is well documented fact that Napoleon loved the game of 21 and played it when he had time to kill on his exile in Elba.

4. The name Blackjack came about due to a variation in the rules of the original game where payouts were given if a player held the black Jack of Spades.

5. Blackjack was banned in the US at the turn of the 19th century and went "underground" until 1939 when the state of Nevada removed its bans as it gave birth to Las Vegas.

6. In the early 60's Edward O. Thorp wrote a book entitled "Beat the dealer" detailing the mathematical workings of this casino game and is known as the father of card counting.

7. The publishing of Thorp's book lead to increased player attendance and winnings at casinos. The casinos then altered some of the standard rules, bringing about new variations of standard games.

8. Al Franesco was the inventor of blackjack team play, earning him and his team millions of dollars and resulting in the formation of many famous card counting teams over the years including the famous MIT card counting team document in the movie "21".

9. The seats positioned around a dealer at the poker table in blackjack are called "bases", and referred to as "first, second or third base", however these are the only baseball terms that appear in the game.

10. There is a Blackjack Hall of fame. It was launched in 2002 and honours blackjack experts, authors, and professional poker players who have made significant contributions to the game.

Roulette—the most charming casino game

It's the "chef-d'oeuvre" in the casino hall. Fortunes are lost and won at the spin of a wheel and the game's reputation is sealed. Since the total of all numbers on the wheel is 666, Roulette is jokingly coined as the game of the devil. And it undeniably has a hold on people who are eager to experience the real thrill of the casino game.

The following are something you may not know about Roulette.

1, essentially there are two versions of Roulette, with different wheel layout. In European Roulette the wheel has 37 slots, comprising of numbers 1-36 and zero. American Roulette has 38 slots, an extra slot, for the double-zero.

2, a minimum of one player is required, with a maximum of eight being accepted at each table. Every player is allocated one colour of chips (to avoid bets being confused).

3, be careful about late betting and misplaced chips. If you bet after the point the dealer has said he is no longer taking bets, your bet will be void. With so many chips on the table, it is inevitable that some will be knocked and end up moving to numbers they are never intended for. While misplaced bets tend to be the biggest source of disputes, by playing online casino you don't need to worry about that any more.

Screen Name Matters

If you're thinking that intelligent people won't usually be fooled by a screen name, you're right. But, despite people's conscientious attempts to keep from being swayed, they might occasionally be more inclined to call a poker player who presents himself with the screen name "Loose Tom" than if the name were "Tight Jerry".

Although many intelligent players won't be fooled, enough players will be occasionally influenced by a playful or reckless sounding nickname so that you'll get more calls and earn more money—if calls are your primary goal. If you believe you'll make the most money by bluffing rather than applying sensible poker strategy, then I'd recommend you choose a neutral-sounding screen name or even a conservative one, such as "Frugal Leo".

In online poker, where every extra edge helps, you should decide on a screen name that is most likely to influence your opponents the way you want, even if it only amounts to winning a few extra dollars now and then. By the way, it's been suggested to me that you might get dual advantage by choosing a loose-looking icon and a tight-sounding nickname or vice-versa. I'm sure that might confuse the opposition, but I am not convinced that would be effective, because you don't know yourself what online image you were trying to convey.

Playing Against a Weak Player

Supposed that you are in the tournament and there is a particular player who enters a poker tournament for the first time and it becomes obvious that he is a weak player. In that station, it won’t take us very long to recognize the type of player he was.

If you are an experienced poker player, you can quickly decide that if you are in the pot with him and to show him a hand. If he gets lucky enough to beat you, he is going to beat a hand.

Meanwhile, there are other very good players in this tournament who tries to run over him and force him out of a pot. They will bluff at him constantly and be rarely successful…

What they should not have done is try to bluff him because you simply can’t bluff a bad player as a bad player will call when he’s got any kind of a hand and pass when he doesn’t.

When playing with a weak poker player, show him a hand and you do very fundamental, even obvious things against him---no tricks, no strategic play, nothing fancy…

Play straightforward poker against a weak poker player!

Hiding Your Poker Tells

As everybody knows, poker is a combination of skills and strategies, which means when we play poker, we should not only pay much attention to skills but also we should also know psychological factors.
A professional poker player could know what you have in your hand by observing your facial expression, some unconscious movements or whatever. So what we should do is to hide your poker tells as much as possible.
Following video would let you know how to hide your poker tells.

Hooray

"Luck is the residue of design."
-- Branch Rickey

The harder we work, the luckier we get.

Outside poker, good luck is often the result of deliberate planning and hard work. It works this way in poker too, to a large degree. But, luck in poker is somehow also different.

We all appreciate luck in poker, and wish we could bottle it and save it for future days, but in many ways luck is the enemy of a good poker player. First let's look at luck from the perspective of the bad player. At least half the time when a bad player wins a pot, he will have gotten lucky to do it. The bad player comes from behind, sucks out when not getting pot odds, makes miracle perfect-perfect catches, spears a kicker on the river card, fills up bottom two pair against an opponent with top two pair. The bad player has a million ways to get lucky. And, like Branch Rickey said, this is by design. Bad players try to get lucky. So, it's no surprise that bad players are generally luckier than good players.

On the other hand, good players are playing with the best of it. Sure, they still get "lucky" sometimes, like making a flush draw on the river card, but they will have been getting pot odds on that draw and will have built the pot correctly too. Good players habitually do the mathematically correct action in any given situation. It's not "lucky" for AA to beat J9. The good player actually tries to avoid being lucky, except to the extent that it would be lucky if the flop came AJ9.

One way that I often get accused of being "lucky" is when an opponent says: "You are so lucky I threw away my hand." Well, duh, that's why I raised, to get you out. My luck here was again the residue of design. This is the sort of luck that good players manufacture all the time. But it's not at all the same kind of luck that happens to the bad player. The bad poker player makes his own luck happen to him; the good player often makes other players give him good luck.

Alpha→Omega

My online poker experience has a really interesting trajectory. Enjoy!

1, Learn poker rules
So far, I still remember my exclamation the first time when I combined a Full House

2, Practice poker with play money
At that time, I had to restrain myself from the impulsion of throwing all in. My mentor told me seriously that the play money is not for play.

3, Learn basic poker strategy
I finally learned I should better be a tight poker player than a calling station.

4, Play low stakes with real money
$0.02/$0.04 Limit is my sweet home.

5, Join No-Limit Tourney
For me, this would be Final Fantasy & Mission Accomplished (my first thought is Mission Impossible).

6, Try other poker games other than Texas Holdem
Following the same cycle in Omaha, or whatever it is, is essential.

Monkey Tilt

Poker terms can be very interesting and vivid, like this monkey tilt.

It's an extreme form of tilt, often caused by a series of bad beats, excessive table banter from donkeys, or otherwise pure luck in a poker game. The poker player experiencing monkey tilt may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

1) complete and utter disregard for money (in fact, other players may even claim that the player in question "hates money")

2) frequent bluffs and all-in moves before the flop in a no-limit Texas Hold'em game

3) calling bets with complete disregard for the cards or the odds being offered

4) calling jumping up and down screaming "oooh oooh aah ahh" while shoving a banana down your own throat

Hall of Fame

Who are the best poker players in the world?

Here below offered by certain experts are a few of individual selections in a handful of categories.

Best all-around players - the late Chip Reese.

He is widely regarded to have been the greatest cash game poker player that ever lived.

Reese collaborated on the seven-card stud section for Doyle Brunson's Super System, the best-selling poker book of all time. In it, Brunson describes Reese as "one of the two finest young ... poker players in the world" and the best seven-card stud player he had ever played. Reese would later become the card manager at the old Dunes Casino in Vegas.

As a tribute, from 2008 onwards the H.O.R.S.E. event winner at the World Series of Poker will receive a trophy named the "David 'Chip' Reese Award".

Honorable mentions are also given to Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson.
Best poker tournament player - some pundits claim it's Stu Ungar.

He is the only person to have won World Series of Poker Main Event three times and to win Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker three times, the world's second most prestigious poker title during its time.

Laureate candidacy does go out to Phil Hellmuth and Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi. Negreanu is also named again.

"Best cash game players - David Benyamine, Patrik Antonius, Jen Harmon, there are just so many great players you could argue until the cows come home," Some net professional says.

Welcome to PLO

Pot-Limit Omaha is a unique game. It is one of the few poker games that is much more widely played in Europe than in North America. Pot-Limit Omaha also is a game that tends to have huge swings. Even a poor player can be lucky one night and win almost all of the chips at the table in a game of Pot-Limit Omaha. It is also one of the few games that tends to be associated with higher stakes.

Pot-Limit Omaha centers on two things: building the nut hand, and position. The first point is obvious. The hands are strong in Pot-Limit Omaha, so you want to be able to hold the best hand. Most Pot-Limit Omaha games do not go to a showdown. When they do, more than likely one player has the nuts or was drawing to the nuts. When two players have strong made hands against each other, generally one has the nut hand or second-nut and the other player also has a near nut hand. An example would be a board with AQ554. One player could have AAxx and the other player might have QQxx. If a poker player called a huge bet on this board with 23xx, they would be a fool. While this straight would be a strong hand in Texas Hold'em, it would be a very weak hand for this board in Omaha.

Another central concept to Pot-Limit Omaha is position. Omaha is all about position. There are several reasons for this. First, free cards are death in Omaha. If you are in early position, you will almost always have to bet your hand, even if you hold the nuts. For example, if the board is 567 and you hold 899A, you definitely have to bet. Someone could too easily draw to a full house, flush, or perhaps even a higher straight. Because of this, people in early positions tend to give away their hands. People in late position can much more easily bluff at pots because they can be fairly certain that people in early posiitons do not have a hand, and people in late position can sometimes earn themselves extremely valuable free cards.

The following are some poker tips when evaluating preflop in Omaha:

• High pocket pairs are good. This is because they have the chance at building a big full house. If you do not hit a set with a big pair, the pair is essentially worthless.

• Connecting cards are helpful. A hand like JT98 is a very good Pot-Limit Omaha hand because it affords the player with so many straight opportunities. Holding JT98 is far superior to holding QJ56 because you can build many multi-way straight possibilities with JT98. However, you cannot with QJ56.

• Suited cards should be treated with caution. One can call and draw to an ace high flush. However, drawing to any non-nut flush can be very foolish. Having non-ace high suited cards is only helpful for redraws, multiple draws (i.e. also having a straight draw), or back-door flush draws. One should never draw to just a flush that is not a nut flush.

• Low and mid pocket pairs are close to worthless. A hand like 5588 belongs in the muck. Even if you hit a set, you can easily lose to a higher set, straight, or flush.

P.S. Kobe was definitely playing Speed Hold'em in the photo.

Turn Over Your Shoulder

A stranger walks into a saloon and gets a drink. He sees a poker game and asks if he can play. He's told to take a seat. It's a no limit 5-card draw game and he's a pretty good poker player. After about an hour of so-so hands, he draws Aces full and makes a sizable bet. The old guy across from him raises all-in and the stranger calls. The old guy lays down 23457o and reaches for the chips.

"Whoa, there. I've got Aces-full."

"Yeah, but I've got a wild cat.", says the old guy.

"A wild cat? What the hell is a wild cat?"

"A wild cat is 23457 off-suit." Like this, "Says the old man."

The stranger starts to burn and says, "I've played a lot of poker, but I've never heard of a wild cat."

"Well, if you've played a lot of poker, you oughta know that you should learn the house rules before you play. And this here's a house rule."

At that, the old guy points to a sign just over the stranger's right shoulder. The sign says,

"House Rule - Wild Cat is a 23457 off-suit and it beats everything"

Being a gentleman and an honorable gambler, the stranger takes his lumps and settles back for more poker.

Several hours later, the stranger is dealt 23457o. He bets and the same old guy raises him the pot. Without the slightest hint of a tell, the stranger raises all-in. The old guy calls and lays down an ace high flush, and reaches for the poker chips.

"Whoa there! I've got a wild cat.", says the stranger as he lays down his cards.

"Nice hand.", says the old guy as he scoops up the pot. "What did I tell you about house rules?", as he points to a sign over the stranger's left shoulder.

"House Rule -Wild Cat - Only Good Once a Night"

Here Comes the Great White

It has more than 10 layers of teeth;
It has stream line body with cartilage skeleton, enabling it to swim rapidly, plus in an agile manner;
It is a super-aggressive carnivore, merciless to its prey;
It is at the top level of food chain in the sea.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you … the SHARK.

And, there is such a group of people in the poker world that hold the same title with the same charactestics …

They wear the golden bracelet of World Series of Poker;
They top high on player ranking lists;
They eat on poker chips;
They are anything but ordinary.

We usually refer a super-good player as "shark". The poker shark knows what they are doing. From the basics like the ranking of all the poker hands, the mathematical and statistical likelihood that they can play the cards they have been dealt into a winning hand, to the top know-how: tell the opponent by the body language, command the poker strategy as well as little tips.

Things being said, all is not lost if you aren't a good poker player. You lose, you learn, and you grow. Just like a common little game shows, when you reach the final level, you turn into a big monster fish, too.

Begin with !
End with …

Tilting in Poker

Poker tilt is when we do things we normally wouldn't because we are upset or irritated or disappointed for one reason or another. Although we know so many things, having the discipline to apply them every time we play is another matter. We know we shouldn't tilt while playing at a poker table; we know that we should stay focused at the table, but it is not what we know, it is what we do that separates us from the average poker player.

Emotional control is absolutely necessary to succeed in poker. Tilting is bad. Tilting costs us money. We all know this in our heads, but sometimes it is difficult to control. Learning how to control your emotions is probably the most difficult task in poker to master. The main thing to remember when playing online poker is … it is poker. It is a game of skill, but also a game of luck. Sometimes our opponents are going to go into a hand with the worst of it and come out of it with the best of it. If we understand that it is part of the poker game, then it is less likely to bother us. The thing that occasionally puts me on tilt is when I think I played a poker hand incorrectly. Normally when I do this, I have to get up and walk away from the table to clear my head. If that doesn't work, then I have to get up from the game entirely and call it a day.