What Exactly is Stealing the Blinds?

When playing Texas Hold ‘em, there are bets that are mandatory in the opening of the game.  These are the small blind and the big blind.  The two players that sit to the left of the dealer, or button, are the ones to provide the small and big blind respectively.  This is what gets the pot started.

As for stealing the blinds, it just simply means that you are trying to acquire the two blinds that have been put into the pot.  You’ll get additional chips without a challenge if you are able to steal the blinds and you will ultimately help in reducing the chip stacks of your opponents.

How Do I Steal the Blinds?

In order to successfully steal the blinds, you have to make your opponents fold their hands pre-flop.  In order to do this, the best way is to raise your opponents and re-raise them during the betting round prior to the flop.  If you are in early position, be sure to bet more than minimum bet; if you are in middle or even late position, be sure to be at least double the minimum bet.  Don’t stick with small raises as they won’t get you anywhere if you are trying to steal the blinds.  Go in full force and bet aggressively.

Strategy for Stealing the Blinds

The best position to be in for stealing the blinds is going to be late position.  Many times, your opponents before you will have dropped out of the game by folding their cards if they suck.  Therefore, this allows you to take control and dominate the poker game thus steal the blinds.

If you don’t have a lot of chips, in other words you are short stacked, then the best bet for you is to go all-in if you are attempting to steal the blinds.  Eventually, your chip stack is going to run out and you’ll regret not trying this strategy.  It works in most cases.  You are showing that you are in control of the game.  If it doesn’t work in your favor, you can leave the game knowing that you were more likely to steal the blinds by going all-in than continuing the game and losing your chip stack anywhere.

Don’t Try to Steal the Blinds Every Time

This is very important.  You don’t want to attempt to steal the blinds every single hand.  When trying to steal the blinds, you have to make huge raises and if you try to do this on every hand, you are going to lose your chip stack pretty quickly.  Plus, your opponents will catch on to what you are doing and be ready to take you down – in other words, they aren’t going to keep folding when they’ve figured you out.

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A dejected David was taken to a local Poker club by a friend. His friend happened to work at the club. Soon, David was winning the small games and heading for the top slot in the European Poker circuit. Despite the small victories and cash earnings, David did not intend to take up Poker professionally till his friend insisted that he make the best of his talent. Today, David is always seen at the Aviation Club when he is in Paris. The club is known for attracting some of the best Poker players in the world.

David is known for being completely unflappable at the Poker table playing every hand with tremendous intensity. He seems to have a complete lack of nerves. Apart from live tournaments, David has also been a part of several events as part of television series across Europe. David has been known to beat some of the best professionals simply by staying cool at critical moments when his opponents are completely losing their composure.

David is an extremely polite person in his regular life but brings great aggression to the game – in terms of strategy alone and not as behavior. He is one of the few Poker players worldwide who insist that there should be etiquette penalties during a Poker game so that more players understand the seriousness of Poker play.

Ironically, David says he has never read a poker book or magazine and learned everything in practical play. His biggest winnings have been at the 2005 World Poker Tour Battle of Champions II where he took the title. He managed to defeat Phil Laak, Mel Judah, Antonio Esfandiari and Hoyt Corkins at the final table in that tournament. David plays online Poker a lot. He his quick to give out hints and suggestions while playing online and is always open to questions from amateurs about the strategy and skill required to play Poker.

David has also been one of France’s top-10 billiards players for several years. He has however weaned himself off billiards to remain more of a professional Poker player lately. David is currently engaged to fellow professional Poker player and blackjack expert Erica Schoenberg and has a daughter.

Benyamine has final-tabled thrice at World Poker Tour open events including a first place at the Grand Prix de Paris in 2003, sixth place at the L.A. Poker Classic in 2004 and second place at the Bellagio Cup IV in 2008. In the World Series of Poker events he has managed four final tables with a bracelet. These standings include the bracelet at the 2008 $10,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split event. As a specialist Benyamine has always preferred Pot-Limit Omaha form of Poker accounting for more than $3 million in earnings.

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Advantages of Large Stacks

As I said, having a large chip stack gives you an advantage over your opponents.  You have more chips to ultimately play with.  Having more chips gives you the advantage of playing loose and aggressive.  You can make huge bets that will scare your opponents into folding leaving you the pot to acquire.  You can also steal the blinds and claim huge pots.  However, things can change when your ego changes.

You Can Lose Your Throne

Think you are bad ass because you have a huge stack at the poker table?  Think again.  It can very easily rule against you in just a single hand when you let it cloud your mind.  Big stack players gamble more and take more risks than they would if they had a short stack resulting in bad poker playing.

Players with big stacks think that no one else at the table can touch him or her.  However, this isn’t necessarily true.  Why?  Because these players become careless in their actions and betting allowing for their opponents to overtake them and ultimately take away from their chip stack.

The large stack player will often find himself playing more and more hands and waiting to see the flop before folding, if folding then.  This player believes he has a true edge over everyone else that cannot be broken so he takes one chance after another.  Mediocre or worse hands are played through because the chips are there to gamble with. Eventually, it will be too late as too much money has been gambled and the player loses concentration.  Bets are made recklessly, odds are not paid attention to, and raises are made uncontrollably.

Play Wisely at All Costs

No matter how large your stack is, it can always come down when you let your ego get the best of you.  Beware of your actions if you are playing poker with a huge chip stack – don’t let it overtake your mind and cause you to lose concentration as it will overtake your chip stack as well.  Always play sensibly no matter what and no matter how many chips you have.

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You Are the Underdog!

When you are the player at the table with the short stack, you are definitely the underdog as you have the least likely chance to make it through.  Your opponents know this and will treat you as this and try to advantage of you having a small stack of chips.  You don’t exactly have a lot of room to plot in this position.

While you could be dealt a terrific hand but have to fold because another player went all-in, there are still a lot of times that you can enhance your stack of chips by playing strategically.

Build Your Stack

Obviously, the first step and probably the most important is to build your chip stack.  Therefore, you need to steal the blinds every chance that you get.  However, don’t do it every single time as it will become obvious just what you are doing and your opponents already realize that you need to build your stack.  If your opponents realize what you are doing, they are going to catch you taking diminishing your chip stack even more.

Play Tight-Aggressive

When you are playing with a short stack of poker chips, you are obviously going to have to play tight.  You don’t have a lot of room to bet on hands that are mediocre.  While you may have to play tight, that doesn’t mean you should play passively.  Instead, try playing aggressively – it shows you mean business.  Go all-in if you are sure you can win a hand – your opponents probably will back down in most cases.  It’s definitely one of the best ways to improve your overall chances of winning and adding to that short stack of yours.

Time is NOT in Your Hands

The last thing you need to remember is that you don’t have all the time in the world to build your chip stack up.  You are limited when it comes to time as you short stack won’t last long in the game of poker.  Therefore, when an opportunity arises, you take it – no matter what, no questions asked and no looking back.  It may be a risk but what do you have to lose?  If you keep playing, your stack is going to continue to diminish and after a while, you’ll be left without nothing wishing you had jumped on that chance.

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Hence it follows that a sound knowledge of the game and the tips and tricks of the game not to mention a decent knowledge of its history and origin will certainly help you to play better and also assists in boosting your confidence level.

Although Poker is essentially quite easy to learn, unless you are heading for the World series there’s the risk of online gaming during the early stages that will cause you to lose some money that will be more than negligible. The strategies of winning are another kettle of fish. Developing proficient strategies will prove to you and determine your strength in making money. Therefore it is essential that a good mentor is found, one from who you can learn the finer points by following their strategies, mimicking and watching their every move.
These mentors can achieve this by pointing out select players in the past who have achieved great wealth through playing poker. These subtle hints cannot be gained by reading material alone but by experience and observation of former styles of play.

If you are a newcomer to the world of gambling, would you know how to find a reliable person to teach you all the tricks and strategies of the game? You need to identify an university that’s on line. There are sites that will give you the answers to what resources are available and the numerous ways of sourcing answers to avail yourself of the art of maximizing winnings and reducing the risk of losing hands in the quickest possible manner. The game of poker is worth the trouble of learning just as in any other endeavor. Much practice spent over a good period of time will reward you in quickly learning the finer points of the game. Therefore it is worth the while to spend time in getting a good grounding by means of a formal training.

Being a professional at the game will definitely require a whole lot of practice, just as in any other undertaking. Proficient online winners at poker spend much more time than you can imagine practicing the art of being successful. Much study along with practice is required if you aim to excel in and master the game.

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When playing online poker we have the benefit of clever poker software to help us see these trends, but I am purist who believes the true poker player does not use such pieces of software that could become a crutch. I prefer to spot things myself as this indicates true progress in my poker game. The use of software is not nearly as satisfying.

Much of this two part feature will help the live poker player as well as the online poker player. Remember that bwin.com, my favourite poker site, offers you the opportunity to win satellite poker tournaments to gain seats to many large poker tournaments that offer huge prize money for those players good enough to excel in them. Much of what we discuss can also be used in online poker, particularly the classifying of opponents betting patterns.

Tight or Loose, Passive or Aggressive?

The first classification you should make is the overall style your opponents use. A poker player who plays tight plays few hands, usually in position and you can guess that the hands he does choose to play are probably the high pairs like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, and TT down to 66. The other hands that are likely holdings are AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and QJ. Really tight players may not play anything lower than 88 or KQ. Loose players will visibly play a lot more hands and be constantly involved in pots. This suggests their range is significantly wider than the tight player and a very loose player could literally have any two cards. Whilst this makes them vulnerable to stronger hole cards, they can catch concealed monsters so these players are by no means weak if they know what they are doing.

Passive or aggressive play links in with their overall tight or loose style. A tight player must put their chips into the pot aggressively to make up for the blinds they lose and the multiple hands they fold due to their tightness. Aggressive players raise and bet three quarters to a full pot most of the time so it is expensive in terms of chips to contest a pot against them. This forces opponents to make a decision early on how they wish to proceed in the hand. Think of Tom “durrrr” Dwan in cash games, he builds the pot and makes his opponents uneasy about playing against him because they know a bit pot is coming.

If you spot a player that is playing tightly but then passively when they enter a pot this suggests they are “scared money” and not willing to gamble enough to accumulate chips. An aggressive style against this player should pay dividends. Watch the hands revealed at showdown because sometimes a tight player is not passive, but playing trappy and slow playing strong hands. This is also a beatable style because when they are betting strongly it is with either a marginal hand or a bluff. I used to unwittingly use this style and wonder why I did not get action on the hands I checked in rather than bet. It was because the opponents knew I was strong, because otherwise I would be betting!

We have much more to discuss in this article. Please click on Part 2 for the next section of this feature.

By Malcolm Clarke

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After broadly classifying your opponent’s style you need to drill further into discovering how they play. You need a good memory because in a tournament you will meet many players if you do well and cash games can see a high turnover of players. You need to learn how every opponent plays strong hands like two pair or better, how they play dangerous boards and to what extent their perception of hand values change, how they play draws, how they exercise pot control and whether they can make a value bet on the river and whether they overbet pots as bluffs or value raises. Aren’t you pleased poker is such an easy game?

The way to analyse these things is by closely following the action and before you make a bet against these players always ask yourself the following questions.

• Is my opponent good enough to understand exactly what he is doing?
• What does he think about how I am playing?
• What was the outcome of a hand played in a similar way to this in the past? Is he/she repeating for the same outcome? If not, does that suggest a bluff?
• From what I calculate their style to be, is there an opportunity for me to win the pot outright?

Stop for a moment. All of these questions cloud the key concept of poker that you must be aware of throughout each and every hand you play, your own hand strength. It would be very easy for me (and I have done this many times) to work out a player could be on a bluff or is playing passively and who should think I am tight, and then make an ill-timed bluff with such a weak hand it was not worth it. Sometimes you know the opponent is bluffing but you must nevertheless live to fight another day.

Therefore, there is one last point to remember when considering the above questions and that is,

• Does my own hand strength allow me to engage in this situation or is it simply too weak?

Creative plays are fine and it is always good to read your opponents and understand what sort of hand you are going to engage in, but do not be afraid to impose your own style on the hand. ABC Poker is a powerful style in its own right. Sometimes it is best not to get too engrossed in the technical poker concepts we have discussed and bet because you want to build a pot because you think you are ahead! Many amateur players bet because they have a good hand not realising more complex ideas that support their decision. My poker game has shown much improvement recently when I went back to basics and stopped paralysing my mind with analysis.

There is a balance between using the ideas above and your fundamental understanding of poker to decide what to do in a hand. I completely believe that being able to rationalise your thinking using the ideas listed above and in Part 1 will become very helpful for those inevitable tough decisions we all face in our poker games. That is when extra knowledge is helpful and in today’s modern online and live poker environment there is really no excuse for not learning and studying as much about poker as you can.

Hopefully the discussion here has helped you as much as it has helped me to write it! Good luck on the poker tables.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Such is the respect given to Jennifer in the poker world she was asked by Doyle Brunson to write the chapter on Limit Hold’em when he was collating information for Super System 2, the sequel to his best-selling Super System book released in the 1970’s. Jennifer has gone on the record to say she was surprised at this request but was honoured to oblige. Many readers have said this particular chapter in the book is very useful and among the highlights of the poker book. Most of the high stakes professionals say that Jennifer is the best female player of all time.

Primarily a cash game player who admits to enduring swings of over $1 million in one day playing high stakes poker Jennifer has also manufactured a good reputation as a poker tournament specialist with over $2 million in live cashes in tournaments all around the world. She is the only woman to have won 2 WSOP bracelets in open events and these wins were in 2000, where she won the $5,000 No Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw event for $146,250 and in 2002 where she won the $5,000 Limit Hold’em even for $212,440. One bizarre quirk in her poker tournament record is that Jennifer has never cashed in the main event of the WSOP.

When Andy Beal decided to challenge the entire poker playing community at stakes of $100,000 – $200,000 poker professionals were forced to pool their resources to challenge the banking king in 2006. Jennifer was part of “The Corporation” of poker players who played Andy and subsequently beat him for over $10 million. Andy has not returned to challenge the poker players since that time. Jennifer played well throughout but it was Phil Ivey who overturned a $10.6 million deficit to Beal into a $6 million overall win.

You would be wrong, however, to dismiss Jennifer as a lucky poker player who has led a charmed life. She has had more than her share of problems and has had to bounce back from numerous health difficulties including organ failure. In 2004 she was forced to take a year off from poker when she suffered from kidney failure. Her niece donated a kidney to Jennifer that saved her life and she fortunately made a full recovery. During her time off she founded Creating Organ Donation Awareness (CODA) and she is also an active fundraiser for the NSPCA. She has raised well over $1 million for charitable causes she supports.

Jennifer is involved with Full Tilt Poker but is one of the less high-profile members of the team. She continues to play high stakes cash games and according to reports, continues to be profitable in the highest stakes cash games. She regular appears on TV shows like Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

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The poker room and sportsbook bwin.com offer a variety of freeroll poker tournaments that can both offer you the chance to win money for nothing and also familiarise yourself with their unique dark brand of table design, which I find very easy on the eye (and you will appreciate this after a long spell at the online poker tables).

Before you sign into the poker client and create your account it is worth looking at the brands that bwin.com sponsor. It is a list of some of the biggest sports teams and brands in the world. Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and MotoGP are just some of the names supported by bwin.com. Do you think that an unscrupulous business could afford to support these large brands and be their principle sponsors? Of course not and this amazing list of sponsors shows us that bwin.com the real deal and a big player in the world of online gaming.

The good people are bwin.com want you to enjoy your online poker experience. They understand that some people can get addicted and they care about their customers. There is a dedicated section on the bwin.com website that researches gambling behaviour and reports on their findings. They offer detailed information on the tell tale signs to look out for in both yourself and family or friends. There is the option to limit what you can bet or deposit and, if necessary, a self-exclusion facility. Their commitment to customers means that bwin.com has information from the Harvard medical school and the United Nations World Health Organization to help identify potential gambling problems for customers with concerns. Of course only some poker players have problems and many players who read our articles and play on the site enjoy a sensible relationship with online poker.

There are over 30,000 bets in over 90 sports each and every day offered by bwin.com in 22 different languages. Their customer base is estimated to be over 20 million customers, or should we say 20 million customers that trust bwin.com to deliver a great online poker and online sports betting experience. There is no reason for bwin.com to cheat their customers in the way other online poker rooms have done because they are fortunate enough to be an established business at the top of their market. There is far more to gain by being reputable and trustworthy when you are the size of bwin.com and much more to lose by acting improperly. Their customer service and quick depositing and withdrawal procedures gives real peace of mind.

You can see that I am a big fan of the whole gaming experience you can enjoy at bwin.com but you should try it out for yourself. There is still time to qualify for the WSOP Main Event at bwin.com in their satellite program and compete for large bonus prizes in their tournament leagues. They are so confident that you will love their poker software that they allow you to demo the poker client without downloading it to your computer! What other site does that?

Visit bwin.com today and join with millions of other users who trust and enjoy betting on sports and poker at their site.

By Malcolm Clarke

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A player on the site posted a video of the security flaw on YouTube. For those of you who missed this video follow this link to view it. The vulnerability apparently relates to either unsecured wireless networks, cracked wireless networks or hard wired connections to the Internet where your password is known. The data packets sent to through the networked are intercepted by the hacker and decoded. After decoding a special program identifies the cards and they are visible to the player on the poker table unbeknownst to the rest of the table. The speed of the program allows an almost instant revealing of the hole cards. Knowledge of your hole cards would see opponents make perfect decisions on your hands and you would be unable to avoid losing to the cheaters.

The Cereus network is said to have been informed of this encryption issue and are seeking to resolve this as soon as possible. The vulnerability is not isolated to the online poker hole cards however. A cyber attacker could use this method to obtain your personal information via obtaining your password and they could hack into your account and lose all of your bankroll deliberately. This has happened before when an AOL mail vulnerability caused many players, including online superstar Pearljammer to suffer a loss of bankroll in this way. Due to the difficulty of catching the perpetrators due to the anonymity of the Internet this type of crime puts players particularly at risk and any vulnerability which accentuates these risks mark a serious online poker security risk.

Whilst it is recommended that players do not play on unsecured wireless networks because data packets sent from any website can be intercepted and maliciously decoded, there must also now be a serious consideration made whether playing at this network is sensible. The XOR-based encoding used by Cereus is notoriously vulnerable to hackers yet this network preferred this method to the more secure SSL encryptions. It is clear from watching the video that while most people would not have the knowledge to get as far as decoding hands the mere fact it can be done is a fatal flaw for the cereus network software. There is no suggestion at the moment that this security flaw was known by Cereus.

Players concerned about their online poker security should forward any queries to their poker room but rest assured that with the exception of these two poker rooms and their network there have been few instances where vulnerability has been exposed. It is clear that people like the makers of the video are constantly testing the security of different poker sites looking for exploitable flaws and the fact no such vulnerability has been reported on a site like bwin.com where I play a lot of my poker speaks volumes for their ability to securely encrypt their poker software.

Security for players is paramount; therefore my recommendation for downloading the poker client offered by bwin.com might be the solution you are looking for if you are currently uncertain about where to play poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

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