How to Learn to Read Playing Cards: Poker Bluffing (part 1)
“The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent.”
Let’s get it started. Follow my advice and tips and you’ll get to know how to learn to read playing cards of your opponents over the table and bluff without batting an eyelid. The only question I want to ask you, “Are you good at lying?” or “Have you ever cheated?” If so, you’re welcome!
It’s quite natural that just about everybody has a chance to sift through a pile of poker manuals, sites, movies, etc. looking for a suitable strategy. I recommend you to stick to the rules and profound tips of smart poker gamers. And surely play smart gamers.
And by no means forget that you act the role on equal grounds. What am I talking about? You should obey the rules of the game. Don’t be a cardsharper, and never play foul. But use such ways as bluff, check-rising, slow play, speculate to bull or to bear and many more.
Bluff is likely the most popular action used in poker. Bluffing is the art of making other players believe that you’ve got a better hand than you really have. There’re two kinds of bluffing: semi-bluff and actually bluff.
A player uses semi-bluff, when he stakes in order to scare away an opponent. In this case the bluffer has a chance to make his cards better before a winning hand (like if one has in his possession a hole-ridden Straight or a low-order pair). And actually bluff is a stake, when a bluffer has practically no chance to win (the bluffer has at his disposal 5, 8, and on the table is A, K, J).
To bluff well, every poker gamer should take into consideration some factors:
• a number of players (the more opponents the more chances to win);
• types of players (tight gamers are easier to be cheated);
• your image at the table: having an image of a weak-tight player, you’ve got more chances to successfully bluff (don’t abuse your position!);
• a size of bank poker: the less the bank, the more expectancy of success;
• an opportunity to show a strong hand: if there’re 3-4 cards of one suit or 5 consecutive cards (Straight) on the table, therefore an opponent, probably, could throw a playing card of a higher order;
• position: it often happens to bluff in the last position, when every player says ‘check’;
• trade round-up: you’ve got very few chances to bluff
Quit Your Way to Success in Poker
How to start playing? If you don’t want to fritter your money away straight off, you have to stay composed during the game. It will be a good helper while participating in high-stakes matches. Keep in mind, you should never fly into a passion, otherwise you can gamble away. Getting much money and being the winner all the time is quite a hard task!
Being lit up, don’t fool away much of your winnings! Follow this advice and you’ll make your poker way up.
Constant analysis of mistakes and perfection of your play are also some important aspects. And, as the saying goes “the last but not the least”, one should know and stick to the rules of book-keeping, i.e. stakes have to be equal to your capital.
Imagine, you part take in a championship with prize money. The tournament fee is $11 per person. There’re only 10 players. The first-place prize makes up $50, the second one - $30, and the last place is $20. Sure thing, it’s enough to get at least fifty bucks for the first time, but it takes more than that to promote your business.
If you can’t make money online anymore, quit your way to success and start from poker. Most of online poker rooms offer various bonuses (on an average $100) for a newbie. At the same time, a great bulk of free rolls and acceptable features enable to win via poker. Play for high stakes and get more money.
If you’re still at the parting of the ways where to drop in, you should look over our poker rooms’ reviews at Pokerhighs. And what about a physical opportunity to play poker? It’s easy to realize. First of all some rules have to be observed:
- Be of age
- Register at an online poker room (depends on your preference)
- Find the offers of no deposit poker bonuses
- Follow instructions and in few days you’ll get $25-50 on your account
By the way, you may deposit your own money and use them. There is much to gain from it due to several reasons:
1. It’s hard to read your fortune and say whether you can become the best poker player in the world or the world’s popular singer. What I mean is that the loss of your money makes it possible to refuse to try your luck.
2. Playing for your hard-earned money, take into account, that money serves as a task tool and makes profit, that’s why you ought to take them seriously.
3. Anyway, even if you want to draw out, you have to deposit money.
Preferred deposit volume is approximately $300, that is an opportunity to minimize possible losses. On the other side, contribute $600 and play for small stakes.
How to success in poker? If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again! Sift through a pile of online poker rooms, videos, books, movies looking for proper material, and not the least of the factors is to keep an eye open for Pokerhighs.com.
Find The Best Online Casino
Any search engine will lay you out several hundreds of online casinos. But how to choose the best one which suites you most and is worth playing with?
What features do show that the casino will lead a fair game and what guarantees of payment you may get? You may observe the following more conventional criteria: reliability, repayment ability, customers’ satisfaction, online charts, round-the clock clients’ support, practice blackjack counting variability.
All these and you may find with Backgammonmasters.com. The casino supports any game: blackjack, poker, backgammon for money – in 14 languages (French, German, English, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Chinese, Italian, Japanese and now Bulgarian), to switch between the languages you just need to log in to the All-in-One-Game Lobby and click on the country flag. According to the company announcement the next languages to be set in the multi-tongue system are Dutch and Russian. There are considerable prospects for other languages according to clients’ demands.
This option helped Backgammonmasters.com to gather the largest international community of backgammon players. The variety of payment and repayment options is available – the customers may use any currency - USD, GBP, Euros and CAD (Canadian Dollars). The sum is automatically converted into USD without any charge at the best exchange rate.
BackgammonMasters decided to launch Live Customers Support service to optimize the clients’ maintenance and to make the interface as friendly as possible. This system is supposed to be supported by the multi-language option.
Backgammonmasters.com has always been supporting the multi-players option to give their clients an opportunity to communicate online via real-time chat.
Watch Live Poker: Poker in Movies (part 2)
Some time back I offered you to watch the best poker movies that were ever produced in Hollywood, and take part in our poll. According to various polls on poker movies, there’s no evident leader on the list. There’re not any hidden reasons behind that. The only question: do you like watching live poker or not?
Did you already ask yourself, “How many movies concerning poker can you name?” It doesn’t matter, and I can’t insist on taking a personal interest in poker movies if you opt for other consuming activities. IMHO, movies should make appeal to emotional side of human beings.
Hollywood often uses gambling, but rarely shows realistic poker scenes. Poker playing has always been a popular theme in the American film industry. All movies display big bets and winnings with great hands. Writers and producers have an intention to attract and delight by arousing interest to this kind of activity.
The most important point, however, is that Hollywood should shoot a TV show devoted to gambling. Sure thing the main character is talented and possesses out of the common abilities to play card games professionally. He proves himself every time playing in the high-stakes matches. He creates his own system and has to keep a secret from others (just like Clark Kent).
Besides, main heroes and characters put up a show how they’re skilled at gambling. I picked up a number of movies devoted to the best card playing scenes. I tried to sort out those ones that related to gambling one way or another. Even if some of the Hollywood films are not very good and display poker in a ridiculous manner, watching card games on the big screen is great fun (Most of these movies can be ordered via Amazon.com and imdb.com).
11. Sunset Trail (1939). “There’s no braver man than a scared one when he’s cornered.” One of the classical western poker movies, where we meet well-known Hapolang Cassidy (as William Boyd). This cowboy really was a very talented chap. By the way Francis Nevins devoted his book to this out of the common person, called The Films of Hapolang Cassidy. An unconquerable bumpkin is good at pistols and fists as well as hole cards.
12. The Gambler (1980). You’ve got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” Brady Hawkes, The Gambler, receives a letter from his son indicating he needs help. This sends Brady to the rescue. Along the way Brady meets up with Billy Montana, a young man who thinks he knows everything about playing cards. Brady teaches Billy a few lessons along the way and they end up forming a strong friendship and team up together.
13. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). “Er, bad breath, colorful language, feather duster… what do you think they’re gonna be armed with? Guns, you tit!” Guy Ritchie is one of my favorite writers and directors. It’s no coincidence that this dynamic film turned out to be part of the list. Surely, the movie is not about poker, but about the high-stakes underground game of three card brag that puts the whole film in the movie.
14. A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966). The biggest high-stakes game in the West draws the attention of a man named Meredity (as Henry Fonda), who stakes his whole family fortune to get into the game. Great cast elevates film based on TV version of story. A homesteader and reformed gambler passing through town learns of the annual high-stakes poker match about to take place. He recklessly throws the family fortune into the pot but soon must turn over his chair to his wife who manages quite well to handle the cardsharps across the table.
15. Lucky You (2007). “Change your game. Change your life.” A hotshot poker player tries to win a tournament in Vegas, but is fighting a losing battle with his personal problems. Everybody who enjoys the television popularity of poker will like this film due to the doses of the game itself and a WSOP pro.
16. Shade (2003-2004). Shade is set in the world of poker hustlers working the clubs and martini bars of Los Angeles. The tale unfolds as a group of hustlers encounter “The Dean” and pull off a successful sting that results in their pursuit by a vengeful gangster. Fake poker movie. Why? It’s not about poker, but they say it’s NL Hold’em. Anyway, the movie worth a watch if you don’t play poker and don’t know rules. Great actors should learn how to play poker in order to play their parts appropriately.
17. Four Dogs Playing Poker (2000). A group of best friends and amateur thieves steal a valuable statuette for a ruthless black market art dealer. After the thieves botch the delivery of the objet d’art, the art dealer forces them to ‘find’ $1 million by the end of the week or face certain death. The desperate friends concoct a plan whereby each of them takes out a $1 million life insurance policy on themselves. Consequently, if one of the friends die, the others will collect on the policy and pay off the dangerous art dealer. The thieves then enter into a lethal lottery to choose who will be the victim and who will be the killer.
18. Poker Alice (1987). The Wild West is about to get wilder! Alice Moffit, ‘Poker Alice’, has been disowned by her Boston family because of her incurable penchant for gambling. She is travelling the West with her cousin, John, when she wins a house in a poker game on a train. The ‘house’ turns out to be a bordello, which she decides to run until she can sell it. She falls for a bounty hunter, Jeremy Collins, who is about to settle down in California. Marrying him would mean ending the life-long relationship between the two cousins.
19. Città gioca d’azzardo, La (1975) (aka Gambling City). A professional gambler goes to work for a crime syndicate, and becomes a favorite of the organization’s boss because he makes them so much money. However, he falls in love with the reluctant mistress of the boss’ son, who finds out about it and tries to turn his father against the gambler in order to have him killed.
20. California Split (1974). A down on his luck gambler (George Seagal) links up with free spirit Elliot Gould at first to have some fun on, but then gets into debt when Gould takes an unscheduled trip to Tijuana. As a final act of desperation, he pawns most of his possessions and goes to Reno for the poker game of a lifetime. A film set mainly in casinos and races, as the two win and lose (but mainly win), get robbed, and get blind drunk.
Make your selection! An appropriate poker related movie should assist everybody to perfec his skills. Find out more about those card-playing movies that you still didn’t watch. Keep an eye open for the next poker movie selection.