Entries by Alex McCay

One of the reasons people watch the World Series of Poker is to see how their favorite pros perform. Others want to see if an unknown amateur can achieve instant poker fame. More than a few try to imagine being the unknown amateur. Here’s what you can expect from the pros and amateurs at the 2008 WSOP:



An Amateur Will Win the 2008 WSOP Main Event



The odds are against the pros. Even if they are better players than the amateurs, of whom many will have qualified through poker sites, the sheer numbers suggest that it is statistically unlikely that a pro will clasp on the championship bracelet.



Amateurs tend to clash early, building up big chip stacks that are tough to overcome. Even a pro making the final table will probably be facing a group of amateurs all looking to put a bad beat on a pro. The last time a known pro won the main event was seven years ago when Carlos Mortensen took home the 2001 title. Of his successors, Varkonyi, Moneymaker, Raymer, Hachem, Gold and Yang, only Raymer and Hachem have become part of the ranks of professionals.



A Pro Will Win the $50,000 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. Championship



The odds shift much more in the pros favor during the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship. The high buy-in means fewer amateurs in the competition. Furthermore, the games, including Texas Holdem, are played fixed limit, which means a bad player isn’t going to be able to bludgeon all the pros with an enormous chip stack earned through repeated all-ins. It’s also unlikely that an amateur is going to be skilled enough at every game to make it through to the end.



Pros and Amateurs Will Share the Other Bracelets



Expect amateurs to grab many Hold’em titles, while events like Deuce to Seven lowball and the professionals will probably take down pot limit Omaha.

Online Texas hold’em tournament players have a built-in clock spurring them to action. If you wait too long before acting, most poker sites will activate a time bank of a minute or two. Once that bank is expired, your hand is declared dead. In a live Texas hold’em poker tournament situation, there are no built-in timers at each seat, thus, the clock comes into play.



Calling the Clock



It is assumed during a poker tournament that a player will act on their hand within a reasonable amount of time. However, some decisions are more difficult than others are. If someone is facing a bet for all their chips, the amount of time they take to make their decision may be excessive. They may not even be able to make up their mind at all. While in a cash Texas Holdem game this may be merely annoying, in a poker tournament it is a real problem, since the blinds rise continually after a pre-determined amount of time. Due to this, other players at the table should feel no compunction about “calling a clock,” on the opponent. Calling a clock means telling the dealer you want to force the player to make a decision. The dealer will call a floor person over who will announce that the player has one minute to act on their hand. This floor person will usually alert the player when his time is running down, at the very least letting him know when he has ten seconds left. Once that time is expired, if the player has not acted, his hand is dead.



Clock Calling Etiquette



Some players, especially those not involved in the hand, are reluctant to call the clock for fear of earning the enmity of the player who is put to the decision. However, it’s clearly stated in the Texas Holdem rules that no one but another player can call a clock, not the dealer and not the floor person, and every player at the table is well within their right to do so (some players have even called the clock on themselves!). If anyone calls a clock, the dealer should summon a floor person immediately. If the dealer does not, any player at the table can and should remind the dealer that a floor person needs to be brought to the table immediately to begin the countdown.



Having a Clock Called On You



Just as you should hope that other players will not take offense if you call a clock on them, you should not take it personally if a clock is called on you. In most cases, the other player is simply anxious to keep the game moving or to stay ahead of the blinds, and has no personal investment in making your decision more difficult.

Poker as a turn-based game

While the main stream hordes look for ever more action in all of life’s activities, some people still appreciate really, really slow games, such as the classical game of correspondence chess. But what about poker – could today’s popular poker games be played on a turn-based site?

Poker is defined as a turn-based game

The short answer is an unequivocal “yes”. Poker is a turn-based game per definition. No changes to the game mechanics would be necessary to make it work on a turn-based site.

Poker involves dealing cards in an order that should be unknown to the players, so it does require a central part – the usual role for turn-based sites.

The random element of poker

Poker games also require a random generator to shuffle the cards. This requirement is not a new one; it’s valid also for some already existing turn-based games such as backgammon and poker dice.

So, technically there should be no surprising complications when setting up, for example, a turn-based Texas Holdem application. The question is, would turn-based Texas Holdem be a fun and playable game?

Preserving the fun of real-time poker

For sure, the tempo that online poker players have gotten used to, with a couple of hands being dealt every minute, won’t be achieved in turn-based poker. But then again, the low tempo is the very heart of turn-based games.

A more acute question is that of playing poker with no money involved – or some kind of actual, real-world value. It’s a quite generally accepted experience that poker without real values is badly degenerated. It’s no fun. Weighing in potential real-world losses is the heart of poker.

Anyone who has played at the fun-money tables of Full Tilt Poker or any other site knows that it’s very easy to call down an opponent just to see what he’s holding. It’s also very easy to just push all in with any two cards and see what chance brings.

Sure, you could play turn-based poker with some kind of points, maybe in a sort of league or ranking. This would represent a kind of real value for those who engage in the competition, much like any other game that doesn’t involve money.

But again, it’s questionable whether the value will be large enough to conserve the key mechanism of poker – that of actually not wanting to loose your chips.

Real money is a world of difficulties

Of course, nothing prevents you from playing turn-based poker games for real money or texas holdem freerolls. This would bring back the really tough decisions that characterize good poker. But it would also bring a host of problems otherwise foreign to turn-based sites, involving such hard-core areas as fraud, collusion and banking.

A turn-based hi stakes tournament such as WSOP probably lies in a very distant and obscure future.

As a last objection to turn-based poker, one could mention the issue of short term vs. long term results. Even if poker is clearly a game of skill, the random element plays a big part in any short term view. Basically you need to play, say, 10,000 poker hands for the long term results to be reasonably stabilized and “fair”.

In turn-based poker games, where a number of emails or the like would have to be passed back and forth between as much as ten players in each and every betting round, the long term could turn out to be extremely long.

Multi-tabling and headsup poker

Two possible solutions can be outlined to handle this issue. One would include headsup poker, that is, poker games with just two players. This is a much more fast-paced game than full-table poker.

Another gimmick that could jazz up turn-based poker would be to play a large number of parallel poker hands. Ten players playing 100 simultaneous hands would clearly get a lot of action, and the long term would be much, much shorter.

To summarize: poker could indeed do very well as a turn-based game – with a wise set-up and a train of very patient players.

Poker is a game of incomplete information. You cannot know which cards your opponents hold or what cards will come on later streets. You need to make decisions based on the little information you do have. How does this compare to other popular games?

Level of information scarcity defines the game

In backgammon, both players know the current situation perfectly, but they have limited information about future dice rolls. Td they have to act without that information, which is a lot like how a Texas Holdem player maneuvers using Texas Holdem odds.

In chess, the game position is perfectly known to both players, and there�s no dice or deck of cards to represent hidden information. Theoretically you can analyze all possible future moves to find the best move in any situation.

In practice, however, the number of combinations gets astronomical. Not even the strongest chess computers are able to finish such a calculation, except in certain simple situations, like chess mate in five moves etc.

Chess computers have not finished working

Since the chess player cannot foresee all possible moves and positions, a kind of incomplete information is present even in chess, and a successful chess player must work with probabilities and game theoretic methods just like a person who plays Texas Holdem online.

In backgammon, the main task for the reasoning player is to estimate the likelihood of different events, that is, different combinations of dice rolls and the moves that they enable. A certain level of psychology is also involved: in judging which tactics will work best against a player with a particular mind set, or foreseeing a certain opponent�s choice in a potential future situation.

Constantly groping in the dark

In poker, the relation is different. In choosing your Texas Holdem strategy, much more thought goes into questions regarding the opponents� minds. Judging what cards they might hold and the effect of future cards is essential, but the psychological dimension is much deeper than in chess or backgammon.

This is where the bluff comes in. It�s basically non-existing in backgammon and chess, but ever-present in poker. Understanding the reasoning of your opponents is the key to sound game decisions in poker. You�ll get nowhere by just thinking about cards and probabilities.

Poker isn�t a game of cards, it�s a game of people. It�s also a game of money, and you�ll have more of that if you play with a good rakeback scheme.

It's time to learn the game that everyone is playing and that everyone is watching. (Well, almost everyone.) Texas holdem comes in three popular varieties: limit, pot-limit and the most popular, no-limit. All three are dealt the same and played the same, yet betting limits and strategy change dependent on the game. There are also two game versions: cash games and Texas holdem tournaments.




-No-Limit Holdem: If you so choose, you may bet every chip you own at any betting opportunity.

-Pot-Limit Holdem: Maximum bets are restricted to the size of the pot. As the pot grows, so does your betting potential.

-Limit Holdem: Maximum bets are based upon a predetermined amount.



As you can see, the varieties are pretty self-explanatory, so let's waste no more of your time that you could be playing online Texas holdem!




The Blinds

The dealer will get the party started by placing a small disc (dealer button) in front of the player to his left. The action in the game will always move to the left. Thus, the next two players following the dealer button are required to post blinds. The first player will post the small blind and the next player will post the large blind. Blinds are used for the same purpose as an ante. That is, they insure there is a prize everyone is trying to capture.

Pre-Flop



After the blinds have been posted, the dealer will deal around the table to the left until each player has two cards facedown. These cards are the foundation of your hand. They are your hole, or pocket, cards. After all players have received them, the first round of betting begins with the player to the left of the large blind. At this point, all players must at least equal (call) the largest bet on the table (at this point, the large blind), raise the largest bet or quit the hand (fold). Once all bets are equal, the dealer will place three cards face up on the table: the flop.

The Flop




The three cards making up the flop can be used by any of the remaining competitors in order to build their strongest five-card hand. At this point, another round of betting takes place beginning with the first remaining player to the left of the dealer button. Whoever happens to have the first opportunity to bet may choose to check (pass) the action to the next remaining competitor. It is possible that no money would be added to the pot after the flop. However, that possibility is very unlikely. Once a bet is made, everyone must at least call the bet to remain in the hand, including anyone who previously checked the action. After all bets are equal, the party continues when the dealer offers another community card face up known as the turn.

The Turn



Once the turn card has been placed, another round of betting ensues in the same fashion of the previous round. After all bets are equal, the dealer will put down the final face up community card: the river.

The River



The river is the seventh card on the table, and offers the remaining competitors the opportunity to use any of the seven cards (two pocket, five community) to build their strongest hand. The final round of betting begins, and for anyone remaining after all bets are equal, it's time to experience the showdown. All players will show their cards in the order that they played and the player with the highest value five-card hand is declared the winner. The dealer shuffles, rotates the dealer button and blind responsibilities one player to the left and the whole process repeats.




After a few hands, you'll have the hang of the game flow and you can begin reading up on Texas holdem tips and how to maximize your winning potential. A good idea is to start practising the game by playing free poker; play money or Texas holdem freerolls. Good luck!