Now more than ever, people are choosing to take part in online poker instead of going to a casino. One of the major reasons is because visiting an online poker site is far easier and handier than going to a live casino. Imagine, instead of having to travel outside of your home to a busy, noisy casino, you can relax and experience just as much poker enjoyment in the virtual world with a simple “click” of your mouse. Here are just a few main highlights of the advantages of online poker:

• You can play at any time of the day or night from the comfort of your own home or place of choosing at your convenience.
• You can play against players from all over the world.
• You can play for fun.
• You can use special strategy tools to assist you when you play.
• You don’t have to worry about the other opponent’s seeing your expression or hearing your comments during a hand.

Perhaps the single most obvious difference between live and online poker is the fact that at a live poker table, players are physically present and can therefore see the moves of their opponents, their emotions, as well as their reactions. This makes playing live poker far more challenging than online, because players always need to be conscious of what their opponents are doing, and if they are being watched. Moreover players need to have control over their body language, emotions and expressions, as sudden reactions or nervous gestures or movements can often be a dead giveaway to an experienced player.

When playing online poker, however, players do not need to concern themselves with physical control. You can scream, yell, laugh and make any expression you want, because even though your family, pets or neighbours may hear or see you and possibly think you’re crazy, your opponents can only judge you by the way you converse over a chat dialogue, and by the moves you make in the game.

What’s more is when you play online you don’t have to worry about following a dress code, which is required at many live casinos. Therefore, whether you feel inspired to dress to the nines, the point is you can wear whatever you want!

Pai Gow is a popular game of poker amongst the Asian gamblers. Some historians believe that Pai Gow was supposed to be a form of Zen meditation, however was introduced in the casinos as a game of chance. It is also known as ‘two-handed’ poker and the ultimate goal of this game is to create two hands of seven cards each from the cards given to the player. One of the hands should consist of two cards, while the other should contain five cards. The smaller deck is usually referred as the ‘in front’ hand whereas the other one is called ‘behind’

The game is pretty challenging and is recommended for expert players. Playing this game online can help you learn faster as compared to the land-based casinos. There are penalties here for the hands that have not been aligned together correctly and therefore would increase your chances of losing. Ensure that you study properly about this game, before actually putting in all your money.

The hand values differ in importance from one casino to another and therefore you need to be aware of the casino rules. Knowing the card values before hand would help you develop a winning strategy for the game.

Once all the hands are sorted out and separated, the hand that beats the dealer’s hand would win the bet. If only one hand beats the dealer, then you would need to push. If both your hands lose to the ones of the dealer, then you would lose the entire hand. Ties would go to the dealer for both these hands. There are penalties imposed by the dealer if the hands are not put together the way they should. During an online game, the penalties could be minimised and the entire purpose of the game is to have the highest two card hand.

Poker is the most popular game all across the globe and a lot of books have been written about the game in order to help the participants in improving their game. The best part is that the outreaches of these books have been pretty successful, since a lot of beginners seem to confess that they were introduced into the game through these books.

These books have been popular to an extent where there are a number of sites completely dedicated to reviewing them. Some of these books have been written by the former poker champions and the techniques used by them. For an instance, there is a book called ‘Harrington on Hold ‘Em’, written by Dan Harrington, a former WSOP champion and an extensively renowned influence on poker. This book comes in two volumes and the other individual who co-authored this book was Bill Robertie, who is a former champion in backgammon.

There are some reviewers out there who place a book called ‘Ace on the River’ by Barry Greenstein, above the Harrington’s book. However, the only downside to this book is that it focuses on techniques only for the professional players and it has been proven that beginners have a difficult time, deciphering the methods of poker listed here.

Another popular book is called ‘Telling Lies and Getting Paid‘ by Michael Konik, which narrates several poker instances and would help you develop a winning strategy without getting too technical about it. This book is pretty entertaining and tells everything that you need to know about poker.

Anthony Holden, another distinguished poker player has also written a book in the 1990s which is called ‘Big Deal’ and speaks of his experiences as a poker player. The book is not a step-by-step guide to learn poker, however it shows a path to follow, which is extremely important for all those who have just started with the game.

The Dogbutt Poker is a game with wild cards and 5 card hands. It is very similar to 5 Card Draw Poker, with the difference that it has no wildcards.

If you want to learn how to play Poker Dogbutt, do not worry because this is a very easy game. If you’ve ever played 5 Card Draw Poker, as these two games are very similar, will not have difficulties in learning. The Poker has Dogbutt wildcards and hands of 5 cards and is very entertaining.

Follow step by step the rules listed below to learn how to play Poker Dogbutt.

• You put the blinds. The player to the left of the dealer, the small blind (half the lower limit). And the next player to the left of this player, the big blind (the lowest).
• After that, each player is dealt 5 cards face-down.
• It takes place the first round of betting. Start the player to the left of the big blind. Players can check, bet, pay or retire.
• Players can now discard all the cards they want, even their 5 cards, if desired. It is not mandatory discard the cards and players who choose to stay with all its original letters, they stay in the game.
• Has held another round of betting. Again, betting begins with the player to the left of the big blind. Players can check, bet, pay or retire.
• Then comes the showdown, in which all players remaining in the game must reveal his cards, so you can determine who is the winner. The winning hand is the best 5 card hand, according to the rankings of the poker hand.

So far, we see that there are no major differences between the play of Dogbutt Poker and 5 Card Draw Poker. The differences are in the value of hands. Although the winning hand combinations are the same, 3 and 9 charts can be used as wildcards, which makes it much easier to win. Having 8 different wildcards, to achieve much more normal to have a flush or straight at the showdown. Therefore, this is a very appropriate game for beginner players and for anyone who wants to put more flavor to your favorite poker game.

A poker freeroll is a kind of tournament for all the poker enthusiasts and does not require a fee to enter and play poker. They are organised for the players in order to equip them with the required knowledge as well as improve their skills in the game of poker. Simply put, it’s a free poker. There are hundreds of freerolls on the internet today varying in accordance to the amounts of players and the prizes. Sometimes, the poker sites also reward the loyal players with some poker freerolls. Such kinds of sites usually contain higher pool prized and very less players.

The expert poker players often think of poker freerolls to be useless since there are players who do not know how to play and tend to decrease the entire quality of the game. However as a matter of fact, freerolls are the best place to learn poker, build your bankroll and this could be fairly simple if the players know where to play.

As far as the poker freerolls are concerned, you have to adopt a strategy that can ensure that you stay in the game and still have some chips left that can help you go to the win altogether. Since the freeroll payouts are very huge, it is important to go till the top since these payouts are worth pennies each. Hence there would be no substantial gain if you happen to land anywhere below the first five spots. There is quite a lot of luck required in order to reach such a stage in the game. However, the biggest challenge is to outlast the first hour in the freeroll tournament.

Since the first hour is the most important time in the freeroll tournament, it is also known that the play is at its worst.There would be a lot of opponents, each of them risking their high-valued chips in every hand, obviously since they do not have anything to lose. Hence if you really want to go beyond the first hour, you must play fewer hands and save the bankroll as much as possible. Stick to lower games till the first break. The next part of the game, after the break, is the most important hour of the tournament and that’s when you actually start playing big. The smarter skill here would be to know the weaker opponents by the time you reach such a stage. You can use them for your advantage and exploit them as well.

Deuces and Joker is an interesting video poker game that has been developed by Microgaming, which is a one of the leading casino software providers in the world. The game includes as many as five wild cards along with a selection of options. It happens to be a great addition to any of the video poker sites since the existence of wild cards do present greater opportunities to win.

Options

• Elaborating more on the options, there are plenty of the. For all those players who wish to make a lot of money instantly, there are special speed controls that can help the players move as fast as they want in any particular game.
• There are other modes such as the ‘Express Mode’ that contain the much known ‘autoplay’ mode. Here the players are not required to interact with the software; instead they can have the software make decisions for them in accordance to a strategy. All the moves are based on mathematical calculations and are different for each situation.
• The biggest jackpot can go up to 10000 coins. It is largely based on the amount of coins wagered in all. This could be achieved when the players wind up their four deuces as well as a joker. Simply put, this could be attained when the player deals all the five cards and the Royal Flush can get up to 4000 coins.

How to Play?

Deuces and Joker is played with a 53 cards deck instead of the standard deck of 52 cards. This would obviously include the 52 cards deck along with a joker. The cards are shuffled properly before each game and hence they are dealt at random. All the deuces in the game are considered wild and could be used as a part of the winning combination. Therefore, there are a total of five wild cards – four deuces and one joker. The software would then automatically assign each wild card to the best possible winning combination possessed by the player.

Bets

The bets could be made easily. On the bottom of this video poker game, you would find ‘+’ and ‘-‘signs. These options would allow the players to increase or decrease the size of their bets. So as soon as you see ‘BET ONE’ on the screen, it means that the player is increasing the bet by one coin and if the player wants to bet the maximum number of coins, ‘BET MAX’ has to be clicked. As soon the player presses the ‘DEAL’, the game begins. Five cards would be dealt to player and he can decide the rest of the steps. If you wish to hold the cards, you simply need to click on them and the others would be discarded instantly. The player can get new cards if he clicks on ‘DRAW’. Another advanced option is called ‘DOUBLING’, which allows the players to double their bets in case of a win. The players can continue to play the double option until they lose.

Tens or Better Poker is another variation of the video poker games launched by Microgaming, one of the leading online casino software providers. This version of the game is known to produce the maximum efficiency MicroGaming. It is another user-friendly version from the video poker games and designed in such a way that the beginners can learn through the options on the games and the experts can better their skills.

There are no wild cards in the game of Tens or Better Poker and is pretty similar to Jacks or Better. Almost all the video poker players know how to play Jack or better, however it is observed that the payouts in Tens or Better Poker are better. The maximum jackpot payout in Tens or Better Poker happens to be 4000 coins and could be achieved if the players draw a Royal Flush (Ten, J, Q, K and the Ace of the same suits). A standard deck of 52 cards is used here and there are no wild cards to be considered in the game. The cards are well-shuffled before the start of every game, so as to ensure a random deal.

The players are given an opportunity to increase or decrease their wagers with the ‘+’ or the ‘-‘controls. At any coin level in the game, ‘Bet One’ would allow the players to bet only one coin/unit at a time and ‘Bet Max’ allows the users to bet the maximum coin size for that level. These are pretty easy to use and the game begins as soon as the player hits the ‘Deal’ button. With the start of the game, the players are dealt five cards. If the players activate the ‘Auto Hold’ option, the software would automatically place a hold on some cards that have been dealt by the players. The players do not have to be in the ‘Expert Mode’ in order to play the ‘Auto Hold’ mode. However the moves in this mode are based on the mathematical strategy, also known as the Optimal Play Strategy.

On the other hand, if the players wish to play video poker game manually, they can simply click on the cards they wish to hold and disregard the rest. In any case, the game deals new cards as soon as the player clicks on ‘Draw’. The ‘Draw’ button helps the player to finish the current game and it is instantly determined whether the player is a winner or not. Subsequent to winning a hand, the players would also be given an opportunity to double the winning payouts by clicking on the ‘Doubling’ control. This is an attractive bonus feature available with Tens or Better Poker. In the process of ‘Doubling’, five cards would appear on the screen and one of these cards is face-up whereas the other four could be seen only to the player. The players are required to pick one card and if that card happens to be of higher value than the dealer, the winnings are doubled.