Online poker bonuses are an integral part of Internet poker. There is not a successful site that does not offer some kind of bonus program. The most common and popular type of bonus is the sign-up match bonus, where a site offers you money for signing up with their site equal to a percentage of the initial deposit. This percentage can be 100 percent or even more with some site promotions. What are the pros and cons of taking advantage of online texas holdem

Pros:

1. Financial Benefit

The most obvious upside to an online poker bonus is that it is free money. All you have to do to get it is sign up for the site with the proper code and play on the site, which you would do anyway. If you’re a winning player, this increases your expected value. If you are a losing player, it can stop the bleeding and if you’re somewhere in between, it can put you over the top.

2. Shopping Around

An online sign-up bonus allows you to test out a new site without investing too much of your own capital. You can play as long as it takes to release the bonus, and if you decide you enjoy playing on that particular site, keep going. If you don’t care for it, you can take your bonus money and head elsewhere.

3. No Obligation

Collecting a sign-up bonus from one online poker site does not preclude you from collecting another one on a different site. All that is required is that you play the requisite number of hands to clear the bonus into your account. Beyond that, what you do with your online poker time is up to you.

Cons

1. Clearing Requirements

You will not be able to collect your bonus until you play a certain number of raked hands, usually determined by the size of your bonus. This is a reasonable requirement on the part of the site, however, if you decide you do not like the site right away, you will still be stuck playing on it for awhile in order to clear your bonus. Fortunately, most sites have non-sticky bonuses, which mean that once you meet the requirements you can withdraw all of your bonus money without penalty.

2. Time Requirements

Most sites require you clear your bonus within a given amount of time. If you deplete your bankroll and cannot reload your account in time to play the given number of raked hands, you may lose your bonus. If you play a super tight no limit texas holdem game, clearing a bonus might take some time.

3. Overconfidence

Resist the temptation to see the bonus chips as house money. That bonus money is real money that belongs to you, and you should treat it with just as much respect as money you earned from your job. Playing recklessly with bonus money because it was so easy to get is just a waste.

Online poker sites offer all kinds of tempting bonuses to get you to play texas holdem on their sites, or other forms of poker for that matter. An online poker bonus is the virtual equivalent of the casino comp. It is extra money offered to you, the player, for choosing that site over another Internet poker site. Of course, collecting a bonus gives the site in question no rights to exclusivity about your play, but most sites are willing to take the chance that once you start playing on their site, you’ll stay there.

If you’re collecting your first sign-up bonus, you may be surprised when you sit down at your computer and log in only to find that your $150 match sign-up bonus is not available to you for play. Don’t worry. Just because the money is not part of your regular online bankroll doesn’t mean it’s not in the system. To get your bonus, you have to clear it. And this can give you a sizable addition to your bankroll. Maybe you know the texas holdem rules and have adapted a poker strategy that already makes you a winning player. If that’s the case, a bonus becomes some extra money in your pocket.

Clear a bonus

Clearing a bonus means playing a certain amount of time on the site before they release the bonus into your account. This is to avoid players getting the sign up bonus and immediately withdrawing the sign-up money without ever playing, using that extra money for their own purposes or to play on another site. The clearing requirement assures that the online site offering the bonus will get their money’s worth.

You clear your bonus by playing a certain number of raked hands. The number of raked hands is usually determined by the size of your online poker bonus. For example, if you have $150 in bonus money coming to you, you may have to play 150 raked hands to clear it. You do not have to see a hand until the river for it to count. As long as you are dealt in and there is a flop, it’s a hand toward clearing your bonus.

At one time, you could not work towards clearing your bonus through tournament play. However, some sites, looking to draw business, have done away with this restriction, allowing players to work towards clearing their bonus in tournament play the same way they generate player points (player points are part of loyalty programs that nearly every site has, where continued play generates points that can be used for bonuses like free merchandise and exclusive tournament entries).

Cash out a bonus

Once your bonus is cleared, you can use it for whatever you want, whether that means continuing to play with the money on your site, or withdrawing it for your own personal use. If you want to know how close you are to clearing a bonus, you can usually find a link from the online poker site menu directing you to account information that will show you how many raked hands you have played towards your bonus and how many you have to go.

The following Texas Holdem poker tips apply to lower value poker tournament games, anything up to $20 buy-in. Above that players tend to be of a better standard so sticking to these poker tips would have less of an impact on the game.

However, on the low value tables the following will stand you in good stead and should help you to progress to the later stages of most poker tournaments that you enter. Please bear in mind that while these are a good solid set of guidelines, you need to use your judgement in each game and be prepared to change your strategy to suit the mood of the poker table.

Texas Hold Em Tips:

1. Play tight. The most important tip when playing tournaments at the bottom end of the money scale is to adopt a “tight” game. This means that you only play hands that are very good to excellent; pairs, AK, AQ, AJ, KQ and suited connectors. It is very hard to stick to this rule and you will need to be extremely disciplined in order to pull it off, but if you do it will win you more money than almost anything else you can do.

2. Be Aggressive. When you do get a hand that you are going to play, the number two most important poker tip is to bet it aggressively. Don’t limp in and “see what happens”, put down strong bets that force all or nearly all of your opponents to fold. Every player left at the flop has a chance of beating you - even the amateur allure who are calling with 10-6 or J-4. Anybody can hit a lucky flop so it’s vital that you remove as much opposition as possible. Remember too that your AK or AQ isn’t really much of a hand unless you catch something to improve it.

3. Don’t go all-in. Too often you see poker players making crazy decisions like going all-in in the first couple of rounds of a tournament to win nothing but the blinds. Consider this scenario: You start with 1500 chips and blinds are 20 and 10. You are in mid position and have been dealt AA. Now there are some players who would go all-in here in the hope of getting a call and doubling up. Don’t do it, it’s crazy! If everyone folds you will have risked 1500 chips to win only 30, a fiftieth of your stake! At best the odds of you winning the hand would have been about 1/3 or 1/4 and you have risked it on a 1/50 gamble. Not good.

Please remember that these Texas Holdem poker tips are just guidelines, not hard and fast rules that need to be obeyed at all times. Always use your discretion and think on your feet.

Avoiding bad beats is one of the most important skills to learn in poker.

Poker players at any level just hate it when they get a bad beat, they are are the most annoying and frustrating hands in the game!

So what are they, and more importantly, how can you go about avoiding bad beats?

Well a bad beat is when you are overwhelming favorite to win a hand - but still lose. It really is a sickener as often you can lose all your chips and go out of the game on a bad beat, just because you were convinced you had the hand won.

There are two types of bad beat in the game of Texas Holdem poker - the type that you can’t really do anything about and the type that can be avoided.

Here’s a scenario for the first type:

You’ve got a pair of aces, the best possible starting hand while your only opponent left in the betting is holding a pair of fours. The flop comes A Q 4 and your opponent goes all-in. You call, you’ve got the best possible hand at that point. The turn is a 4 and you don’t catch your ace on the river, you’ve just lost to four of a kind.

In this case you could not have done anything about it. There is no way you could fold your triple aces, you had the best possible hand. If you fold that you might as well take up knitting!

Here’s how the second (avoidable) type of bad beat plays out:

You’ve got A Q and again only you and MrX are involved in the betting. This time he’s low on chips and is going all in with J 9 out of desperation. You decide to call as you’ve got a good chance of boosting your chips and you feel he doesn’t have a hand. Flop is 10 7 2 and he hits his 8 on the turn for a straight.

So how can you go about avoiding bad beats like these? Firstly you need to realize that in online poker tournaments the instances of bad beats are much higher than in real life poker in a casino or home poker game.

There are several reasons for this, but the botom line is that it comes down to the online poker player being a different breed. The average online player is far more likely to play a hand and is far more likely to be distracted by other games he’s playing at the same time, or the TV, or the kids or whatever.

You need to counter this by playing a very tight poker game. Only play VERY big hands and don’t get involved in any hand with more than three callers. Even pocket aces have only a slightly better than 50% chance of winning against three opponents.

So stay tight, and when you do hit a hand, bet big. You want to limit your opponents as much as possible so make a big raise and get them to fold. Avoiding bad beats is a skill that it definitely pays to learn.

You’ve heard about tells: little, subconscious things people do that can give their hand away. Your opponent rubs his ear and you know he’s bluffing. He breaks into a sweat and you know he’s not. You can watch his eyes and his posture and hear the volume of his voice, all which give away more than enough to help you know when to hold and when to fold.

But what about when you play online? Suddenly you’re in a different environment. All those classic tells go out the window because you can’t see or hear your opponent. If you’re used to looking for those tells, you might suddenly feel very crippled…but if you learn the online poker tells, you’ll put yourself back in the seat of the advantaged. In this three-part series, we’ll take a look at 15 online poker tells.

Online Poker Tell #1: To Pause or Not to Pause
When playing online, poker rooms limit the amount of time you have to play your hand. Most give you 30 seconds or less. That’s not much time to watch for a tell, but it’s enough. As a general rule, if a player pauses a long time, then bets, that still means he probably has a good hand and is trying to figure out his play. If, however, he pauses for a long time and just checks, it usually means his hand is mediocre at best. Of course, you’ll still have to be careful; some players know about these tells and will deliberately do the opposite of what’s written here to throw you off.

Online Poker Tell #2: Instant Playing
Most online poker rooms have little boxes you can check for quick play. As a general rule, you shouldn’t use these! They give too much away. If a player instantly checks or bets, it usually signifies a weak hand. Again, sometimes players will do the opposite, but most fish just use check boxes without thinking.

Online Poker Tell #3: Mr. Talkie
Just as in home or casino games, some amature people talk when they’re nervous or when they’re feeling good. Watch the chat screen. At times, players will say things like “Finally!” or even “What’s up with these flops?!” Those are good insights into what they may be playing with…especially if they’ve said something like this before and gave themselves away. Also watch for phrases such as “This playing online stuff is cool.”—giving away the newbies.

Online Poker Tell #4: “Sorry”
One of the most frequent online tells of a distracted player is long pauses or timing out. Sometimes they’ll even apologize for it. This usually signifies that that player may be distracted. When playing online, many players are at work. Others are playing several games at once. Still others are reading message boards or surfing the net. All of those players will be distracted and not playing at their full potential…and you can take advantage of that. Again, watch the chat, too. Many times you’ll hear, “Oh man! I just lost $20 at my other table!” Good news…he’s distracted.

Online Poker Tell #5: Raising in Position
This tell, also seen offline, is a common tell. If you’re in one of the blinds and everyone folds except one of the people in late position who raise, they may just be trying to steal the pot. If you have anything at all, raise them back. This move will most often result in them folding…but if they don’t, watch out! They may really have something.

Is that it? No way! There are ten more tells to come in this three-part series. But even taking these first five tells into consideration will dramatically improve your game play and make you the shark!

The Basics
Blackjack is super-easy to learn. It’s played with at least one deck of cards. Each card, 2-10 is worth its face value. Jack, Queen and King are worth 10 each. An ace is worth either 1 or 11—you can choose as you play.

The ultimate goal is to beat the dealer’s cards with your own. What you’re each trying to do is gain up to 21 points without going over. Whoever is closest, wins. If one of you goes over, the other wins by default.

The play starts with the dealer and the player each dealt two cards. The players’ cards are dealt face-up. The dealer has one card dealt face-up, the other face-down. To see how many points you have, you add the value of the cards.

Now, knowing the value of your cards and the value of one of the dealer’s cards, it’s up to you to decide whether you want the dealer to “HIT” you with another card (you can do this as many times as you want), or whether you want to “STAND” and not take any more cards. Then it’s the dealer’s turn to do the same. The dealer will then reveal his hidden card. As a general rule, if he has 16 points or less, he will HIT. If he has 17 or more, he will STAND. Of course, if the player busted (went over 21), then the dealer wins by default.

“Blackjack”
If the player is dealt a 10 PLUS an Ace, he has Blackjack—it’s the highest possible combination, and cannot be beaten. Of course, the dealer can get Blackjack, too, which will beat the players cards. Because of this, casino’s offer INSURANCE. If the dealer is dealt an Ace, you can buy the insurance, usually 50% of your bet, so if the dealer’s second card is a 10 or face card, you don’t lose anything. If the dealer’s second card doesn’t make a Blackjack, the play continues as normal, but the insurance money is lost.

How Does that Ace Work Again?
The Ace is worth one or 11 points—it’s up to you. For instance, if you’re dealt an Ace and a Six, you can count it as seven points. Or you can count it as 17 points. If you tell the dealer to HIT, and get a 10, then you have 17 (1+6+10). If you get a 3, you have 20 (11+6+3).

Bets
Blackjack payout is 1:1. So if you bet $10 and win, you win $20 (your $10 + the dealer’s $10). Many casinos give special bonuses if a player gets Blackjack, such as a 3:2 payment. So you could win $25 on a $10 bet if you hit Blackjack.

Split
When you get two identical cards (such as two sevens), you can SPLIT them into two hands, each taking one of the sevens. You’ll put in another bet for the second hand and then play them as though you are two people. First you play the first hand, then the second—but both against the same dealer’s hand.

Doubling Down
In some games, you’re allowed to “double down” after your get your initial cards. This means you double your bet, but only get one more card.

Basic Strategy
As a basic strategy, if you have 8 or less points, HIT. If you have 9 or 12 or more, HIT only if the dealer is showing a 7 or higher, otherwise STAND. If you have a 10 or 11, DOUBLE.
When dealt an Ace and another card below 10, STAND on Ace-7, Ace-8 or Ace-9. HIT on Ace-2 through Ace-6.
Finally, if dealt pairs, SPLIT Ace-Ace, 8-8 all the time. Never SPLIT 5-5 or 10-10. Split other cards only when the dealer shows a 6 or less.

An important, but often overlooked aspect of any poker game, is Acting in Turn.

Along with polite etiquette, remembering to Act in Turn is extremely important. In poker, any piece of information that can be learned about another player’s hand is extremely helpful. What is acting in turn? Well if the phrase isn’t clear enough it refers to waiting for your turn to take action on your hand. Obviously everyone is aware they cannot act before it is their turn, but unfortunately not everyone pays attention or even follows this rule.

Folding a hand is the most common culprit. Often a player will check and if a player after him places a bet the player will immediately fold not waiting for the action to return to him. But why is this important?

1. Knowing what someone is going to do BEFORE they do it is in a sense the goal of poker, if you fold before its your turn then the other players know what you will do. This does not seem like a big deal when folding but it is in other actions, (more in a minute)

2. No matter what your action is whether it be folding, raising, betting, or calling, if someone has placed a bet, and there are players yet to act following the bet, but before you; it will greatly affect what they will do. Let’s take an example, player1 bets $20 and player2 raises to $40, player3 has a decision to make, you are player4 in this example. player3 may have a decent hand and is considering calling the raise, he may be worried about calling a raise with 2 players following him and having to outdraw 3 players if you were to call. If you act out of turn and fold, then player3 may call seeing his odds just got much better with you out of the hand, however if you wait then that player may just fold with the possibility of you calling.

3. So, okay that affects them, so what? True but it affects you as well and in a more important way, let’s take another example. Let’s say you act first by checking your hand, player2 bets. You immediately throw your hand away. You have just given away valuable information. The other players may learn that when you check you will almost always be holding nothing. Instead of getting free flops occasionally because the other players check unsure what everyone has, they may always bet following your check just to get you to fold your hand. This same principle applies to you in another example, perhaps you checked a good hand, player2 bets, player3 may be considering calling (which you want so you can win more money), if you begin to count your chips or grabbing your chips before player3 has acted, he may think you will call or raise and opt to fold his hand worried about outdrawing 3 instead of only 2. He folds and you end up winning the pot. Had you not acted so quickly you may have won quite a bit more.

As you can see, it really has the greatest impact on the player acting out of turn, you might have thought that your innocent fold was nothing more then a great way to piss of the other players, but when you start losing money because of it you’ll quickly change your mind.

No better advise then ridding yourself of tells and to limit signaling your intentions as much as possible.

In the most innovative and exciting breakthrough in internet poker for years, Poker Room has announced the arrival of Team Tournaments. You can join a team of up to ten players, or create one of your own with your poker friends.

Why not turn your regular Friday night home team game players into a team and go for it!

Teams consist of a minimum of five players and a maximum of ten and compete in Team Leagues or in Team Eliminators for cash prizes. They are created by the Team Manager, who can invite people into his team or accept players in who ask to be in the team. The Team Manager’s job is to assign players to play in matches and to sign the team up for it’s various activities.

Buy-ins to the events that the team takes place in are paid for collectively by the team, but each individual team player is responsible for his or her own buy-ins to matches that they actually take part in.

League Tournaments

Poker Room Team Tournament leagues are made up of several rounds, each of which have several players playing simultaneously. The team pays a buy-in to enter the league - which varies according to number of teams in the league, number of rounds and whether the rounds are daily or weekly.

Take for example a Poker Room Team Tournament 20 team league. The tournament would be made up of ten rounds with each round being five simultaneous matches. Each poker match would be a multi-table game with one player from each of the twenty teams playing.

Winning prize money will be made up of the total buy-ins paid by each team and will be paid out after all the ten rounds are complete.

Team Eliminators

In the Team Eliminator competitions, teams battle against each other in a heads-up match. A player is nominated to represent the team in each round and plays against an opponent from another team. The winning player’s team marches on to the next round while the loser is out. In this way half of the teams are eliminated at each round.

Funding

Players contribute to a communal Team Wallet which is essentially a bank with the team funds in it. Poker Room have some rules as to the arranging of these funds but basically your share of the Team Wallet is determined by how much you have contributed to the wallet and how you have performed in the Poker Room League Tournaments.

There are some great stats available for the competitions and you can follow your team’s progress throughout each stage of the tournament.

ConclusionThis is a major innovation in online poker and a very bold move by Poker Room. In it’s absolute infancy at the moment, it’s hard to say what kind of response there will be to Team Tournaments but well done to Poker Room for bringing a genuine alternative and something so new and different.