Speed Hold'em—Fast Game

What's it like? Let me put it this way. It's Ferrari in F1; It's running back of NFL; It's 100-m sprint on the Olympic track …

We call it Speed Hold'em. You know what? The gaming software engineers have instilled the essence of fascination into the game. That is, Quick, Fun and Convenience.

First of all, quick gaming is what we promote and honor at the poker table. The time limit for every move of every player is largely reduced—30 seconds compulsory. You don't have to wait endlessly before the monitor for one of your components is involved in his templation or in worse case, he is stuck in a time-consuming non-poker-related business. So, Speed Hold'em saves us time and energy.

"Have fun" is the ultimate priority of all human entertainment activities. For Speed Hold'em, it's no exception. You don't have to doubt any change in the poker rule itself. Speed Hold'em is nothing but Texas Hold'em. But quicker, and that's what we throw in for your interest!

Last but not the least, Speed Hold'em is devoted to convenient user experience. HINT signs pop up 3 times to warn it's your TURN now. "Pre-select" button is set at your service so you can decide your action before other poker players even act. when emergency comes, it won't bother you anymore.

Join me in this game, cowboys. Speed has no limit.

Useful Game Tips in BlackJack

Blackjack is a simple game—the closest to 21 without going over wins. In reflection, there are four steps to improving your online gaming experiences. They are based on the value of the dealer's up card.

1, if the dealer's up card is 7 or higher, continue to draw cards until you have a hard count of at least 17 or higher, or a soft count of 18 or higher. (A "soft" hand is one that has an Ace that is counted as 11. A poker hand that either contains no Aces or the Ace is counted as a 1 is called a "hard" hand.

2, if the dealer's up card is 6 or lower, draw cards until you have at least 12. Stop when you have 12 or higher.

3, double down when your first two cards total 10 or 11, If the dealer has a 9 or lower. To double down simply means you can double your original bet after you receive your first two cards. If you decide to double down you will then receive only one more card.

4, always split aces and eights. Do not split any other pairs. To split a pair simply means that when you receive any pair on your first two cards, you can split them into two separate hands. You can then play each hand as individual hands.

Let's start practicing what you've learned today at those online poker rooms.

Position Q&A

I've always wondered why the big blind is in 2nd position instead of first, where it would seem to make sense to put the poker player with the largest forced bet in the poker hand (and it would follow that the poker player with the 2nd worst position places the half blind).

Why the blinds are placed how they are?

Big blind before small blind would get funky because the amount of money put into the pot preflop would no longer be ascending (or nondescending). If the small blind acts before the big blind, he has to put in the proper amount or fold; if the big blind acted first, what would he do, check or raise every time?

In short, small blind before big blind can be interpreted as a forced bet of 0.5 big blind, followed by a forced mini raise to 1 big blind.

Poker Talk

Your best chance to get a Royal Flush in a casino is in the bathroom.
~V.P. Pappy

I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.
~Jonathan Swift

There are times when I don't care if I'm dressed to impress. One of those times is when I'm playing online poker.
~Doyle Brunson

I guess if there weren't luck involved, I'd win every time.
~Phil Hellmuth

Luck never gives; it only lends.
~Anonymous

In the game, I can put other poker players' souls in my pocket.
~Anonymous

People come and go, while the game continues.
~me

4 Cons

In Texas Hold'em, there are 4 kinds of trouble you should avoid:

Loose Start Hand Selection
I recommend simply avoiding specific poker hands you feel uncomfortable playing.

Failing To Release After Start Raising
I start to play super tight pre flop, and as I play so few hands to begin with, I start pushing my hands too hard after the flop. Playing too tight and too aggressive can therefore be a recipe for disaster.

Failing To Respect Raises
Passive poker players seldom raise after the flop with less then two pair. If the pot is small when the raise occurs, you should dump unless you have a monster yourself. You know that even if you have pocket aces your poker odds are slim. Whether you should call it down or muck it right there depend on the size of the pot. If the pot is huge, you should probably call it down.

Failing To Make Timely Decisions With Unpleasant Outcomes
It almost always pays to play tight, and it's on the flop more then prior to the flop that you should evaluate your degree of tightness. Fold those losers, and rest assured that much better opportunities will arise later on. They always do.

Two Things

Texas Hold'em is no mystery nowadays—people all over the world play it with enthusiasm. And it may seem silly to be reminded of the following fundamental facts, but it's surprising how often players get immersed in the excitement of the game and forget the basics.

So, always remember these two things:

1. The two cards you hold are the only cards that set you apart from the other poker players and give you the chance to win.

2. All of the face-up cards are community cards, shared by you and every other player. It's vital that you focus on what those cards could mean to someone else at least as much as you focus on what they mean to you. In particular, keep your eyes open for your opponents' straight and flush possibilities.

For me, the above count for the basic poker strategy and it's just these little ideas that keep my head up in my daily poker experiences.

Donkey or Novice?

It just happened.

My hole cards are Ah3h. I see the flop with 3 other poker players. The flop comes Ad3c7c. So I flop 2 pairs and I go all in. 2 players fold, the 3rd player calls. He has nothing but Jc7h. He should have folded with hope for 2 running clubs so dim. Then the turn & river are clubs. I lose.

Personally, I think he is a novice, but I don't know he is also a donkey. I wouldn't call him a weak player, but a bad player who makes blatantly bad plays.

In retrospect, I bet he would call himself lucky. And I have no remorse. After all, I was beat by a runner runner—A situation where both the fourth and fifth community cards are needed to make a hand.

Recently I have been playing Speed Holdem. With 30 seconds countdown at every move, it's hard for loose people to play wisely. What happened to me is a rare thing and I was honored to be involved.

Gravity Counts

On the 6th floor of an apartment building, John Doe falls off the window. It's no doubt an accident. What surprises is that during the less-than-one-second dive, the man's mind goes through a ton of things with high pressures to the extent of collapse. Besides, due to some unknown reasons, his five senses becomes blurred and hallucination sets in. Holly Molly, it's going on in slow-motion!

John passes through 5th floor: the window is open; a couple of people are playing Texas Hold'em. He sees himself among them. He is sporting his usual-casual move: stacking the poker chips on and off. Entertainment is fun.

The 4th floor: it's a kitchen scene. Seems nobody is not at home while the water tap is kept on. John can't hear the sizzling sound for it's being overlapped by the Beethoven Symphony IV from the living room next-door. Coffee cups are in the sink, toaster is still warm. A nice morning to be remembered.

It appears to be a casino lobby on the 3rd floor. John stands beside the Roulette wheel, his eyes rolling tightly with the little gold ball. It's a 2-grand bet. The roaring voices around evaporates into thin air the moment it stops at slot 26, his pregnant wife's birthday.

2nd floor turns to be his gaming specialty store. He dedicates a whole shelf for equipments like Mahjong tiles and poker cards. Another one is piled up with books on poker strategy and poker rules. On the wall, posters of celebrity poker players and their autographs are everywhere.

Ground floor is the bank VIP room. The bank manager brandishes a roll of documents in front of John's face, looking helpless. The Financial newspaper on the table typed in capital letters: 1929 in 21th Century.

Pong …

The clues are not clear. The detective before the monitor rethinks his judgment.

Play in Russian Style

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.
—Joseph Stalin

This Georgian Soviet-Union leader had coined many similar stunning quotes which are known to be gallant while merciless. While I don't think he would never dream that two former states under his reign would confront each other more than half a century later, and that's all I can talk about the Russia-Georgia conflict lately.
In fact, as one of world powers, Russia easily catches world's attention in as many ways as you can imagine, intentionally or not.

Russia is "hoping" for global warming to allow for further exploration. They are already attempting to "claim" part of the arctic. To give its initiative some justification, Canada and Scandinavian countries make the same prayer.

Russia is the unparalleled leader in arms exports. And this will continue to be extremely lucrative for them financially and relations-wise with semi-rogues like Venezuela and Sudan.

Seeming to make this topic distracted away from the politics, I also find: in 2006, a gaming zoning bill was passed in Duma by a vote of 440-0. It aimed to control gambling by banishing it to four specific zones; two to be set in European Russia, one in Siberia and one in the Far East.
Fast-forward to 2007. Thanks to a convincing argument by Dmitry Lesnoy, president of the Sport Federation of Russia, on poker being an "intellectual game", and a decision by the Russian Federation's Federal Agency of Physical Culture and Sports, poker tournaments were finally classified as official sport competitions in the nation of Russia. But to some poker players, the sprouting poker rooms and highly publicized legislation could possibly just be a flash in the pan. They are always worried that a change in the leader's mind, and then of the law, could banish poker to the four gambling sectors, like a simple slot machine or Baccarat table.

So, if I am allowed to implant poker rules to make a comparison, Russia has way too many cards to play at this moment, and we hope it will play fair and "by the book".

It may seems I only focus on the negative side (pessimist's bad habit), but I don't deny there is always a silver lining in the cloud (lots of online poker sites are available in Russian). Anyway, I have no intention of messing with Russian people. So if any Russian hackers happen to be here, please don't piss off.

Did You Know

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."
This quote over the significant decline in the population of honeybees is attributed to Albert Einstein.

John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, was a man of doubtful integrity and a compulsive gambler who lived in the 1700s. He was so reluctant to leave a poker game even for a meal that he had a servant bring him a piece of meat between two slices of bread so he could eat with one hand and play cards with the other poker players. The new invention was dubbed … a sandwich.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." Dick Rowe said of the Beatles. The former was the executive of Decca Records (UK), the very company who rejected the Beatles. It happens in 1962.

In France, Blackjack call this land hometown. In French decks, the four suits represent the four classes: Spades represent nobility, hearts stand for the clergy, diamonds represent merchants, and clubs are peasants. Maybe here poker rules are different, too.

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels".
Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) said this. But 100 years before his quote, across the English Channel (or La Manche according to French), a big name had the exact opposite feelings:
"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
By Voltaire (1694-1778)

"All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion." Quoted from British scientist Stephen Hawking.

"Americans always try to do the right thing—after they've tried everything else."
—Winston Churchill

Against My Will

You know the game called Omaha? Have no idea? It's OK. I can explain it in just a few easy steps (I am assuming you all know its big brother Texas Hold'em).
What you do is get four cards. Doesn't matter much what they are because nobody really looks at them anyway. Next, they put three cards on the board. It doesn't matter what they are because nobody really pays any attention to the flop either. Then one more card for the turn and another one for the river. Same betting scenario as before. Doesn't really matter much what they are, except, for a few of the poker players that may have "cheated" and looked at their hole cards. These players may now fold if they have absolutely no outs. (Mostly bad sports.) Now, at the showdown, everybody turns over their cards and helps the dealer figure out who has the best poker hand. You MUST play two cards out of your hand so this usually takes a while and the winning hand is usually found out after a little bit of searching by all of the players and a partially confused dealer. The dealer now pushes the pot to the wrong player and everybody yells at him and he smiles glibly and says, "Oh yeah, sorry" and then sends it in the right direction. Then, after all of that excitement dies down, everybody lets out a collective sigh of relief and gets ready to wind up and do it all over again.

That's it. Hell of a simple poker game, right? For me, I won't blame if you label it as lame due to my lame introduction.

P.S.
I was bluffed at an online poker room last night. Refused to go in there anymore, at least a week I swear. If there are some unpleasant words mentioned in my article about the poker rules, forgive me. I don't mean it.

Evolution: things vs. thoughts

My piggy bank is full of poker chips; and as luck would have it, I really love using a set of chips as a birthday present—my knowledge on poker odds won't help me figure out the probability here. Yes, you see? Poker players have hobbies, some of which are really hilarious.


Today, a wide variety of chips are available. For me, I usually buy these cheap plastics at 7-Eleven. Sometimes I go to novelty shops for decent ones. And if you're planning to play at least once a week, I can't overemphasize how much better the 11.5 gram chips are. They shuffle better, don't knock over as easily and feel more like money.
In previous years Walmart had a whole half isle devoted to chip sets. The sign on the walk ways are so big that the department manager feared that his toy department would be taken for as a casino supply store. It's surely not the case now. Maybe due to the uprising of online poker rooms or maybe the downswing of poker is on the way? I don't know. But the day before yesterday, I tried to upgrade my swimming suit and gadgets for a weekend beach walk, but the Carrefour service lady told me the swimming goods were off the shelf days before. Come on, it's just mid September!

Anyway, things change fast nowadays, it's somehow like a mental chewing gum for us.

Trivial findings in poker

There is a Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy for poker. It is said to be extremely advanced. You can check it out and share with us later.

Rumors say that dilated pupils tell. So was coined a poker phrase like this: "sunglasses is to poker as steroids is to baseball". I doubt one day in the 22nd century human beings will wear masks while gambling. Thanks to online casinos, this nuisance is kept away.


Phil Hellmuth said, I quote, "pot odds …" "for suckers …"
He is a spoiled brat. Never disrespect the math.

Daniel Negreanu has a reputation as poker's nice guy.

Add fish to your Buddy List. First, you need to have the ability to select them out: read people. Knowing where this guy is from, his poker background, how long he's been playing, who he voted for …With the top 10 poker players in the world, it's 95 percent about the ability to read people and the psychological warfare.

Have you ever been labeled as a calling station, or do you even know that? Use the measure below and see if you qualify as one.
Calling station is a poker term used to negatively describe someone who consistently calls bets and rarely raises, regardless of the strength of his poker hand. Many calling stations can be found on low stakes tables in online poker rooms.