RichMond Gaming Blog

How many times have you experienced having a pair of aces but loose to your opponent who only had a pair of 2s but won by the river beating you with a three of a kind? Bad beats and suckouts usually happen more on novice players but it does not mean that it does not happen to more advanced players as well, if not more than often. But how do you get over with it?

Here are some tips:
It does not happen most of the time but it can happen. And since it can happen, it is plain and simple that it definitely is a part of the game. Accept that for a fact.
Move on to the next deal. There is not much you can do. What is done is done. However, you can win on the next deal if you pay close attention.
Contain your anger. There is no reason to be angry as poker is a game of chance and you may have miscalculated the probabilities. If you want to win, concentrate on winning and not on whining.

If poker was something that was very predictable, then it is no fun at all. Play the game for fun. Surprises completes the game.

If you want to win, stay focused. You can win but not on what you have already lost. Have fun!

Here are few common terms used in the game of poker and the knowledge of which is a must to follow the game and act accordingly.
Natural indicates a hand without any wild cards while Rank refers to the value of the particular card (there are 13 ranks in total).
Bugs is a joker which can represent any card if it is used to accomplish a flush or a straight but acts only as Ace for all other kinds of hand.
Declare involves the announcement of your desire to try for high hand or low hand. There is also an option for trying both high and low hand. It is done by secretly placing the chips in your hand; no chip indicates that you favor going low while 1 chip for going high and 2 chips for trying both high and low.
In High/Low games, the highest and the lowest hand share the pot after the round of declaration. It is essential to thoroughly understand the agreed upon conditions for high/low before beginning the game.

Down refers to placing the cards face down such that the value is not shown. It is also called as In The Hole. Roll is when the down card is flipped up.

Why You Should Double Check?
The prime reason why you should thoroughly verify the credibility of any particular poker website is that the line dividing trustworthy and fraudulent poker websites is very thin and confusing. You may be trapped to believe that you have made the right choice until things go weird. Apart from the websites established with the intention to cheat unsuspecting customers, you may face problems or awkward situations if you do not read and understand the money transfer policies of the websites. In fact, some of the poker websites have intentionally complicated policies associated with sending and receiving money. For instance, if you wish to cash out $500 and your original deposit on your credit card was $300; some sites pay $300 to credit card and send only the remaining $200 to you via the channel you choose.

How to Check?
Even though some websites are not fraudulent, they are forced to shut down as they are unable to pay bills due to poor business. Whatever the case may be, the members of the website lose their money. Discussion forums are a good place to get a glimpse upon other’s opinion and real-life experiences which will be useful in evaluating the online poker room before depositing real money.

Exploring the Available Options
A simple option will be to transfer the amount directly from your bank accounts to your online poker accounts. In some banks, this type of transfer may trigger security alerts; thus care must be taken to double check with the concerned authorities. If you are not comfortable with this option, you can make use of the financial service providers operating online. Though PayPal is a reliable source, it was legally banned from dealing money with online poker sites. You can check out other options at neteller and firepay which are common choices among online poker players. You have to understand that there will be an initial delay as these financial service providers verify the credibility of your bank account and your identity.

Know the Terms and Conditions
It is important to understand the terms specified by the online poker sites and the financial providers to avoid any confusion or misinterpretations which may eventually lead to banning of your account. For instance, the limitations of the deposit amounts can be around $600 per day or $1,500 per week. Similarly, the financial service providers may verify your account by depositing a small amount and expecting your response via your email within a specified time period.

Currencies Issues
Though most of the live poker games allow the players to use their local currencies, a handful of them deal only with US dollars even if the players are not based in US. In general, there are two methods in which the currency issue can be dealt with.
The players are allowed to have the money in poker account in their local currency and are expected to convert it only when they enter or leave a game. In such a case, the players can be kept out of currency fluctuations as the exchange rates will not affect their money when they are not playing. Apart from this, most of the websites following this method allow the players to have the same exchange rates while they cash out of the game as when they bought in. This will ensure that the players do not lose significant amounts just because they enter and leave a game.

Tackling Currency Issues
Another method followed by US dollars-only websites is to request the players to convert the money when they deposit the amount in their online poker accounts. Some of the websites offer impressively lower premiums while converting the funds and this is an advantage to players who “tops up” his/her chip stack constantly.

Winning the World Series
World Series of Poker or WSOP tournaments began their journey in the year 1970 when Benny Binion organized poker championship at Horseshoe Casino with 6 best known players. Then gradually the number of players participating in poker World Series increased to 8773 in the year 2004. Since 2007, there are 55 events taking place in WSOP and the winner is awarded with prestigious WSOP bracelet, monetary prize which is based on the total number of entrants, and finally, huge buy-in amounts. Although Poker World Series include most of the popular poker variants such as Draw poker, Stud poker, and community card poker, Texas hold ‘em gets the biggest bite of the cake.

Few Famous Names
It needs no insisting that the winner of World Series will get multi-digit dollar prize. This winning amount and popularity attracts several millions of poker players to work for winning their entry into WSOP and try their luck at final tables. Here are few ever-lasting names associated with WSOP: Johnny Moss and Stu Ungar are currently the only players who had won Main Event thrice. They have also been WSOP champions for consecutive years along with Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson who hold the same record. Joe Cada (2009) is the youngest WSOP Main Event winner.

Installing the Software
Some of the online poker websites offer Flash games which do not require the users to download or install any software. It is to be understood that the quality of games and procedure before signing up may vary mildly among different poker websites. In general, most of the poker websites will prompt you to download the software which will be quite easy to follow. Even if you have not installed any software before, you can be confident about understanding and installing the software by yourself. Follow the prompts, read the agreement which will contain terms and conditions of the poker website, and agree if you are fine with them. You can also contact the company for getting more details about the end user agreements.

Facts to be Considered
Most of the online poker sites require you to provide real information such as your name, address, email ID, and other relevant details which will be used for sending your winnings from the online poker games. Apart from these, you can choose a screen name from whatever floats your boat. You should also have a valid channel for depositing and retrieving real money. There are several options such as checking account, credit card, Bank Wire, personal check, money order, and so on.

For Beginners
First and foremost, you have to check the system requirements before finding one or more websites which conduct online poker games. The good news is that most of the online poker websites wish to please their customers and do not expect the latest system configurations which may limit the number of users. Here is a brief overview on few things that you need to check before downloading and installing the software available for playing online poker games.

System Requirements
Discussed here are the requirements as mentioned by few top poker sites: (recommended configuration is in italics)
Windows 2000 or XP, 64 MB or 128MB RAM, broadband or dial up connection, 266MHz or 400MHZ Pentium CPU, and 30 – 60 MB free disk space. In case of MAC system requirements, minimum Mac OS X 10.4 is recommended apart from G4 or G5 processor, 512MB RAM, and 30MB free space.

Connection Requirements
It is to be understood that your internet connection will inevitably influence the quality and speed of online poker games. Dial-up will be sufficient only for low quality plays while to experience high gaming quality, you need download speed of 256 Kbit/s and 64 Kbit/s upload speed. ADSL and cable connections will ensure least transmission interruptions.

Poker and Its Online Venture
As you would know, poker is a famous card game that involves betting and hand rankings. But the rules are not always common; they may differ in terms of dealing with cards, hand formations, limits on bet, and number of betting rounds, etc. It will not be easy to explain the entire range of poker games in one go. So if you are interested in the games, you should travel the extra mile to understand the various concepts and strategies associated with poker. After you become confident about handling poker games, you can choose the interesting yet cheaper option, online poker games.

A Peep into History
Online poker games showed the first signs in 90s with Planet Poker being the first online card-room. With this, the popularity of online poker games skyrocketed and real money games were launched in 1998. Internet Relay Chat or IRC server is worth mentioning as it was one of the first software which introduced free online poker games. Later on, several advanced websites and technologies helped the interested individuals to enjoy more graphical online poker games. Though the exact number of functional online poker rooms cannot be determined, there are no doubts that most of them have die-hard fans.