Online Poker Strategy and Bankroll Management
Poker, one of the world’s most popular and widely played games, is a card game in which a player bets with his money (called “poker money”) on the card hands that he “picks” from the card deck. Poker is any of a variety of card games in which individuals wager on which hand is better based on the rules of the game as compared to the rankings of the cards. Thus, poker, like other card games, has both a strategy and a psychology. Here are some examples of how poker differs from other games.
In a game such as bridge, a player might fold his hand if he believes that the cards present on the table all have the same value. However, this is not always the case, because cards can be “called” or “undone.” A player may, for example, “call” a flush if he believes that the cards on the table all have a greater value than their face value. He must call the flush if he believes that his hand has superiority over the others; otherwise, he has to lose his hand. A player might also “fold” a hand when he believes that there are two better hands present on the table and all of them have the same ranking as his own.
When a player wins a pot, the pot does not simply go to his feet; rather, it is divided equally among all players, regardless of their winning hand. This means that if a player bets three times the amount of his real maximum hand, he will share a total of seven pre-flop hands with other players. Thus, if he wins two out of the three pots he will still share two pre-flop hands with other players, and he will split the remaining pre-flop hands between the two players who wins the pot. Thus, in the worst scenario, a player will still walk away with a hand equal to half the maximum amount of his original maximum hand.
In some tournaments or Sit N Go’s, the Wild Card is excluded from a player’s flop, but in regular Hold’em games this card may stay in play. If this Wild Card is in play, a player must either raise or fold, or else drop out of the game. If a player is a minority player in a tournament, then a Wild Card may be included in the final table selection; in this case, however, the player must either leave the game or pass his turn before the drawing. The inclusion of the Wild Card does not change the fact that a player must either pass or leave the game if he chooses to. If he enters the tournament after having passed his turn, then the Wild Card will have no effect on the table assignments.
After the betting interval has ended (the timer is called out) the pot will be split between the players who won the pots, or the player who finished last. In a Pot-Limit Game, the last person standing is usually the player with the lowest ante. However, in a No-Limit Game, the last person standing is the player with the highest betting limit. In Texas Hold’em, all players are required to have the same betting interval; the higher your betting limit, the longer your betting interval, and vice versa for lower limits. Further, the Texas Hold’em rules require that the highest bet in a Pot-Limit game be made by the player with the highest hand, so it is unlikely that you will be able to bluff in this scenario.
In continuation to the previous example, if you were in an Internet Poker Tournament, you would have been eliminated from the competition if you had a smaller bet bankroll than the final standings. In Hold’em, you may see that there are two people left in the final table with the same betting bankroll; if one of them bets out, then they both walk away with the pot. However, if that person bets another large amount, then they both get reduced to the minimum betting bankroll for the entire tournament. The same logic applies for Texas Hold’em if there is more than one player left with the same betting bankroll.