Welcome Poker Forum Fans

Poker Forum Site is being revamped with a whole new look and added poker content. If you browse through our poker rules you will find rules for a variety of popular poker games. As an added bonus we have included strategy advice for these poker variants. We  have changed the layout of our lists of poker rooms to make it easier for you to find the best deals in poker. The rooms list now also clearly indicate whether or not they are accepting US players.  Our poker links sections and poker tools area have both been greatly expanded with new resources to improve your game.  The majority of the tools and poker resources we recommend are completely free and those that do have fees associated are very affordable and excellent value propositions. 

What will remain completely unchanged is our dedication to our members and fellow poker players.  This site was created to try and help people improve in poker and get more out of the rooms they join.  By joining your next room through us you can receive ongoing poker coaching, added signup bonuses, rake-back, and our loyal members  also receive ongoing sponsorship opportunities. 

 

Poker isn't just Texas Holdem...

Too often these days people take for granted that poker = Holdem.  I don't how many times it has happened that someone has invited me over to play poker and I've naturally asked "well which game will you be playing?" and they look at me like I'm from mars.  Even funnier is when I invite someone over to play poker and we are spreading a game of horse, sometimes with triple draw or Badugi added to the mix, and they are hopelessly lost for the night and basically donating money just cause they assumed when I said poker we would be playing No Limit holdem all night long. 

Now don't let this be you!  Poker is an umbrella term for a broad array of card games, with different betting structures and very different strategies. Right now Texas Holdem is by far the most popular variety of holdem, but don't let that stop you from learning at least the basics of the other games, you may find one you like a lot better.  Holdem wasn't always the most common poker game, and some of the classics are coming back particularly Stud and Draw poker. By learning all the games you'll have a head start if Holdem starts dying down and the other games become more prominent. 

Pot odds and Implied odds, the differences and why they matter...

So lets start with pot odds and implied odds are so important to playing winning poker.  It all comes back to that question of do you prefer winning or losing? Well winning players know the odds.  But most importantly they know which odds matter.  Most players are familiar with the rule of two and four.  This rule allows you to quickly calculate your odds of making the best hand, or hitting one of the cards you figure to be an out.  Essentially, after the flop you can multiply the number of good cards or outs by 4 to get your percentage chance of hitting your hand by the river. On the turn, your chance of making your hand on the last card is now your outs X 2.  So for a flush draw where we have 9 outs on the flop, we would have a 36% chance of making the hand, and an 18% on the turn.  Compare these number to the actual percentages 34.19% on turn and 17.49% on river and you can see this quick math gives you a good approximation.  On its own though this number is unimportant and trivial.  The object of poker is not to accurately estimate how many hands you'll win, or even to win lots of hands for that matter.  In poker you are playing to profit, you are playing to win as much money as possible.  So what you should be determining is how much equity (more about equity later...) is this situation offering you. 

This is where pot odds  and implied odds begin coming into play. Your pot odds are essentially the amount of money you have to call vs. the amount of money currently in the pot.  If 5 players called 10$ preflop and then someone bet 15$ and everyone folds to you, you are now facing a 15$ bet and a 60$ pot.  The pot is laying you 4 - 1 odds.  If you have a better then a 1 in 4 chance of winning the hands this is a bet that should be called.  Implied odds take this relatively simple idea one step further and try to take into account later betting rounds.  Pot odds are most important in limit poker, whereas implied odds are far more important in big bet poker (both pot limit and no limit betting structures). Since you never know with any certainty what will occur on later betting rounds proper use of implied odds requires experience and a certain amount of intuition.  Essentially pot odds suggest an initial course of action and then implied odds should be considered to see if they are significant enough to override immediate odds. Two examples of how pot odds could impact a decision are: If an opponent is extremely deep stacked and you are drawing to a nut hand you may decide to call a bet that is larger then the pot (you are almost never getting sufficient odds to call a larger then pot sized bet based solely on pot odds) if you believe once you make your hand your opponent will pay you off substantially.  An alternate example is one where a bet is small in relation to the pot, but the hand you are drawing to is weak so you are unsure if you will be able to call larger bets on later rounds even if you complete your hand, in these cases even though the pot odds may be favorable it is sometimes correct to fold and save bets against an aggressive opponent. This is thing, many players use implied odds to justify hanging in longer when they shouldn't, but too few realize that implied odds swing both ways and sometimes you just be folding that hand and saving yourself money.   

Are you improving at Poker?

I'm going to begin with assumption that everyone would rather win then lose when they play poker so regardless of whether you play a few games a month or log 40 hours a week its a good idea to try and plug any leaks in your game.  Even if the money doesn't mean much to you its just feels better to win.  

For those of you who joined a poker room through this site you can always contact us for personal coaching. For the rest you can still try your luck posting hand histories in the forum here.  Reviewing and discussing the play of specific poker hands is vital to improving. Its hard to learn from your mistakes if your not going back and finding them.  Also remember not to only review hands you lost, also review your winning hands to see if you could have extracted more profit.

In our Poker Tools section their are many links to software that can really help you in tracking, analyzing and improving your play.  A good free one is PokerStove.  This tool allows you to calculate your win/loss % against a range of possible holdings.  This is a great tool for analyzing if you made a correct decision at any point in a hand.

Stalk Your Opponents! Tracking Online Poker Player Stats and Hand Histories for Millions of Players!

 

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