Archive for the 'Enjoyment' Category

Becoming a Student Pt Three

Monday, March 8th, 2010

In the last two sections we talked about expanding your poker online games and using the notes feature. In this section, we’re going to talk about freeroll hunting and bonus hunting. If you’re a decent online poker player, then you’ll be able to make quite a bit of money just from freerolling, rakebacks, and bonus hunting. When you sign up on a site, you generally get an offer to get a match bonus for up to x% of your initial deposit, and many sites are trying to get these players to keep playing so they’re offering initial deposit bonus freerolls for new depositors. You, as the up and coming online poker phenom, are going to take advantage of this. If you hunt hard enough you can find a schedule of freerolls and bonuses. For the bonuses I recommend the site bonuswhores.com as they have all the best bonuses available and are constantly updating. For the freerolls and big guaranteed tournaments, you should check out freerollsmonitor.com since they include all the freerolls that are coming up within the next hour. If you bonus hunt and clear your bonuses, and start playing and winning the freerolls, you’ll soon start to notice that you’re bankroll is doubling pretty quickly. And when this happens, you’ll know you’ve moved into that “beyond amateur” stage. Think about it, if you get a 110% bonus match up to 600 dollar and you invest 600 and clear your bonus, you just got a free 660 dollars. Not a bad deal in my opinion.

Daily Dollar Bust-Out

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I was short stacked, but running deep in Full Tilt Poker’s Daily Dollar tournament. In a poker tournament of nearly 10,000 people, we were down to the final 400 or so.

I had been making small opening bets and attempting to play post-flop online poker a little bit instead of just playing shove-fold poker. When the blinds were 1000/2000 I raised in middle position to 5,000 and the big blind called. I held pocket 10s and the flop came out K-10-4 rainbow. The BB checked I bet 8,000 and the BB then shoved. I call with my set and he shows QJ for an open ender, which he hits on the river, knocking my down to only a few blinds. I double a couple of times and then am dealt 99 under the gun. The blinds were now 1500/3000.

I only had 28,000. Technically I should be shoving with this hand UTG. I could theoretically limp and shove to any raise, or see a cheap flop. Instead I decided to again make a small opening raise. I bet 8,000, leaving me with 20,000 behind.

A guy with a huge stack of about 200,000 chips calls my bet.

Flop is J-8-3.

This is a pretty good flop for me. I’m only beaten by the jack or possibly a hidden set.

I shove 20k which was about the size of the pot. He calls with A-8, second pair, and turns an Ace.

I’m out in 315th place for $4.20, 4x my buy-in. That’s about a dollar an hour. Maybe I’ll have a better time playing poker online.

Poker with Benefits

Friday, January 15th, 2010

If you thought this was going to be some kind of innuendo based article, sorr to disappoint. The benefits I’m talking about here are real benefits, and the realization of these benefits is coming straight from the game we love the most, Texas Hold ‘Em poker. Don Cheadle, star of the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” recently traveled to Darfur, a strained region in the Sudan where several have been killed, and many more rendered homeless in countless acts of genocidal violence. Upon seeing this for himself first hand Cheadle has decided to up the stakes a bit in the form of his poker game. Cheadle, Annie Duke (professional poker player), and their friend Norman Epstein founded a group called Ante up for Africa in 2006, hoping to raise money as well as awareness about the issues going on in Sudan and other distressed regions of Africa. At first the trio had small hopes for their vegabond style fundraiser, maybe a small celebrity game where they raise 20-30k with one tournament or so. In actuality, the group’s first charitable fund tally ended up being something to the tune of 700,000 dollars. When asked about the allure of the event, Annie Duke had this to say: Everybody wants to give, but they also want value in return for their time. “Trying to beat professional poker player or a star athlete in a game of cards is a better tool [for raising charitable funds] than boring speeches at a dinner,” she says. Sure the images may seem awkward when juxtaposed. Several wealthy celebrities and poker players sitting around and laughing it up while several hundred thousand have been displaced halfway across the world and are living a life of subsistence farming just to get by doesn’t seem like a fair deal. But just as we deal with the cards we’re dealt on the table, as do we deal with the cards we’re dealt in life. While Ante up for Africa may not be able to totally fix the situation in Sudan, the 2.5 million they’ve raised to date sure isn’t hurting the effort.

European Poker Tour Schedule

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Speaking of online poker around the world, the second half of the Season Six European Poker Tour schedule has been announced. The first stop will be in the Bahamas on Paradise Island, an event I sure wish I could attend, and will go from there. Following the sun and sea adventure, the tour returns to the European mainland and embarks on a whistle-stop tour of the continent’s most prominent countries. A 5,000 event in Deauville, France arrives at the end of January, followed by a trip to the Danish capital Copenhagen. Germany should be next up, but after a less than happy experience at last year’s host city Dortmund, details are still to be confirmed for the Deutschland stop. The only major surprise on the EPT poker online schedule is the newly added Austrian EPT Snowfest. Poker players with a penchant for the white stuff should feel right at home nestled between the Saalbach-Henterglemm mountains. The popular ski-resort has previously hosted the Alpine Ski World Championships and looks set to provide an alternative tournament experience for all those who brave the cold. Stops at San Remo, Italy in April, followed shortly by the Grand Final in glamorous Monte Carlo are also announced. The Grand Final poker online game boasts a Main Event’s with a $10k buy-in, marking it as one of the most prestigious European tournament titles.

Keep Your Hand to Yourself

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

When you are playing in a deep-stack online poker tournament, you can expect to sit with the same players for an extended period of time, especially during the early stages of play. That means you will have time to observe the other players and they in turn can watch you to see if you give off any signals about your hand.

Poker players must work very hard to keep from giving any reliable information about their hands to opponents. There are several ways you can disguise your starting hands and make it nearly impossible to read you intentions.

One way to do this is to simply not look at your hand until it’s actually your turn to act. If you don’t know what your cards are, you can’t give off any information ahead of time about whether you’ll fold, call or raise.

Another way to disguise your hands is to always open with the same raise amount – perhaps 3x the big blind, a fairly standard raise – whether you’re holding Aces or suited connectors or just a naked bluff. Once you get past the flop, continue with standard bets, such as three-quarters of the pot. By adhering to standard raises, you will not give off the strength of your hand.

These strategies work well in cash games and in deep-stack online poker tournaments. Once you get to the later stages of a tournament, your betting strategy will have to change and be adapted to hand, position and your opponents. Disguising your hands consistently with formulaic betting during the early stages will help advance you to the later stage of the tournament.

The E-Lottery System Assures a Prize to Every Last Player Taking Part in the El Gordo

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

The El Gordo Lottery is part of the Euromillions Euro lotto, but if you don’t know anymore than that that’s a bit thin. Famed for one of the world’s biggest jackpots, this simple wager offers payouts ranging from eighty four million to 2.6 billion Euros. And yet there’s more. This lottery offers up more than thirteen thousand prizes, which makes for a one in six chance of winning a prize. When you consider prizes given by other lottos, that’s certainly not bad.

To enter the lottery, one option is a full ticket, called a “serie”. Also available for purchase is a “d©cimo”, worth one tenth of a full ticket. This is your other option. Both serie and decimo have the same chance to win, but of course their share of the payout is proportional to which you bought at the start. For this reason the e-lottery system is used by many Euromillions Euro lottery players.

With the Euromillions Euro lotto one draw is held every month. Even bigger prizes can be won at featured draws held during three months a year. The bigger lotteries are scheduled to take place in January, summer, and around Christmas: in order, these are El Nio, San Ildefonso & Elgordo also known as “the Fatso”.

In an atypical approach to draws, the balls utilized by the Elgordo lotto have five digits on each, these numbers ranging from 00,000 to 84,999. Under this system, a ball is selected from a bowl to find the winning number while a second is pulled out of a second bowl to determine the value of the prize.

The e-lottery system promises a prize for every participant. You’re automatically assigned a team follwing your buy into the Elgordo Lottery syndicate. With each team having a number between 0 – 9, the last digit on the winning ball picks the winners who will take the money. Each member will receive their share of the prize. Everyone then renews their subscription for the next month’s lottery and the cycle begins again.

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Steal-Raise as a Texas Holdem Strategy

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

It seems like every day there is a new Texas Holdem poker strategy on the internet that needs to be discussed. One of the newest ideas to pop onto the poker scene is “steal-raise”, a strategy where a player realizes after everyone else at the table has checked. Before you employ this poker strategy, you need to consider the very serious drawbacks to trying to use this in a real life game.

First of all, how often are you playing poker online and everyone at the table checks? It doesn’t happen very often so the required set up for a steal raise is an aberration in itself. You definitely can’t count on being put on this position with any regularity. You would also need to be playing from a late position to even make this feasible. As we all know, the coveted late positions are gone far too quickly for us to really take advantage of their usefulness.

The other significant problem with a steal raise is that there is no requirement that the other players fold when faced with your bold raise. They could just as well decide to stay in the game, which would put you in a tricky position. You would then have to trundle to the end of the game with lukewarm cards and a large pot at risk.

Make Your Own Mouth-Watering Chocolate Candy at Home

Friday, November 6th, 2009
There’s a guilt-free reason to your chocolate addiction. The body uses excess serotonin, produced when you’ve had too much sweets or fatty foods, like chocolates, to manage your intestinal movements as well as your appetites, moods, and rages. That’s why, in your thinking, chocolates is a crutch for an energy and happiness “fix”.
Numerous researches have shown that this isn’t really an addiction but your physiological reaction to the flavors, substances, and nutrients found in chocolate. With everything found on the Internet, it’s now easier to prepare your usual chocofix in your kitchen. Just make sure you know what the words associated with chocolate candy making are. What do you know, you may even one day make your own chocolate candy recipes.
  • In the factory, cocoa beans are roasted and grounded to distill the cocoa liquor. The cocoa butter in cocoa liquor, which is about 53% dilution, is the trademark of a “real” chocolate. Baking chocolate is derived from cooling and casting cocoa liquor.
  • What makes chocolate textured and flavored is the oil in cacao beans, called cocoa butter. Before cooling and shaping unsweetened cocoa liquor, manufacturers first remove this natural oil and return it at a later process.
  • Couverture, which is 35% cocoa butter, makes chocolate glossy and silky
  • Moisture and cocoa butter removed from cocoa liquor is the cocoa powder that’s at the heart of your hot chocolate drink
  • Chocolate that’s bitter or dark is cocoa liquor at 35% dilution
  • Cocoa liquor at 15% strength is semi-sweet chocolate
  • Milk chocolates, which is your basic cocoa liquor with sugar and milk added, is the rudimentary ingredient to mainstream chocolate bars
  • A chocolate that can be stored long-term, velvety, and glossy has gone through tempering, the last important process in manufacturing and making chocolates.
Hunt for these equipment and ingredients from your kitchen or pantry: double boiler, mixing bowl, candy molds or baking sheets, rubber spatula, and milk or semi-sweet chocolates.
Liquefy the chocolate bars in a double boiler on medium heat, taking care the mixture doesn’t get burned by stirring it constantly. Air dry the molten chocolate in the candy-molding tray or baking sheet, or you can hold it in the freezer; eliminate all air bubbles from your candy before letting it set. As an option, you can coat different fruits with the liquid chocolates for fruit-filled candies.
If your chocolate candy is dull, spotty, or crumbly, chances are it escaped tempering. Tempering allows the cocoa butter crystals to settle properly so that they don’t rise and appear as spots on your chocolate candy. When tempering, remember that chocolates have their own tempering temperatures; monitor temperatures while working. Professionals use a chocolate tempering machine to do away with the manual work of tempering.
You’ll find that, once you’ve gained mastery over making tempting chocolate candies, you’ll want to spread the cheer and possibly start earning from this addictive “fix”.

Traveling to Glasgow? Let Hotels in Glasgow Take Care of Your Lodging Demands

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

With shopping centers close to the Hotels in Glasgow, you won’t have to worry about accessibility. When you desire to eat out, there are numerous Eating places nearby that can provide to numerous orientations. Experiencing fun at night is accessible as bars and night clubs are merely minutes from these hotels. Whether looking for a budget or a posh hotel, you can record your Glasgow hotel reservations online.


Famous tourist destinations are even within approximate distances to some of the hotels in Glasgow. An illustration would be Sandyford Hotel. It offers lower chargers compared to those who lay claim to be inexpensive hotels.


The centrally located Hilton Glasgow Hotel is eight miles from Glasgow Airport and merely minutes away from Glasgows shopping districts. It is approximate to well-known attractions like the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre and Glasgow Science Centre.


Fixing a abbreviated package with a long-term parking agreement from a hotel in Glasgow is highly suggested since the airport is a bit distant from the city. This way, you can drive to the airport the night before, check into a hotel and take a relaxed night before departure.


Many of the hotels in Glasgow provide abbreviated accommodation and extended parking packages. Book a long term parking arrangement which takes an night long check at one of our deluxe hotels in Glasgow. And from that place you can rest and get ready for the next day.


Take for example Lomond Airport Hotel located at Paisley. This hotel is really handy to the airport. But then, if you desire an inexpensive room for the night then your foremost bet would be the Paisley Guest House and Dryesdale House.

Bracelets in Poker

Monday, August 24th, 2009

In a poker context, the word bracelet refers the bracelets given out to the winners of the World Series of Poker. These award bracelets are heavy metal link bracelets that feature a metal plaque with the year. The plaque portion of the bracelet will also specify the year that it was won. Bracelets are the mark of a truly exceptional online poker player. The number of bracelets that a player has earned is typically used to rank the very top players of poker based on their ability. The current leader is Phil Hellmuth, who has won eleven bracelets to date. For this reason, he is considered the best poker player in the world for his specific event. Of course, his position could easily be overtaken, as there is a selection of players with ten bracelets to their name. Very few players actually wear their bracelets, preferring to keep them as keepsakes of their time at the poker table. The few players who do venture out with a bracelet or two around their wrist often do so at the World Series of Poker. As this is the tournament that gives out the bracelets, it is fitting to wear them in this context. While wearing casino online poker bracelets seems contrary to the poker ideal of hiding your strength, these players are so well recognized among habitual players that there is no way that they would be able to hide their identities.