Mastering Poker: Is it Worth the Effort?

• Author: Thomas Kearns
• Filed under: Casinos
• Date: Mar 2,2011

Anyone can learn poker rules quickly enough, online access and interface are easy, and there really is no reason not to try. Online poker is vastly successful. There isn’t a gambling site online which does not offer poker games. A dedicated player becomes part of a community, acquires friends, and perhaps even his livelihood.

Nearly all poker games are available for free download. Safe practice for the novice is offered. You may adjust difficulty as you try your hand against p.c. opponents so as to easily experience successive winning. The pleasure of addiction can be felt coursing through your veins.

All online games are played with you cozily in front of your computer. You don’t have to worry about minimalizing your body language or reading the faces and posture of some ten human opponents, each with his or her make up, ticks, and poker-face tricks. But despite this fact, the mild fun of perfecting your strategy against software is rather like doing your best at tennis against a wall or shooting up cardboard targets – it is not really comparable to live action. Technically, there may not be much similarity between a gun fight and a game of poker, and you can depend on a professional not to have a sawed-off shotgun pointed at you at the other end of the table, unless you are shooting a Robert Rodriguez movie. But the parallel is warranted since both gun fights and poker for real (as opposed to virtual) money involve a constant sense of danger.

For this reason the games against human opponents are not merely fun, but eerily fun. It is this kind of fun that makes addiction of the most powerful kind. Someone may wonder whether poker is anything more than a game of patience, these people may have never handled anything more dangerous than a game of Spider Solitaire. Besides skill, chance or luck it is important that this is the essence of the game. Pervaded by danger is a live poker session without the possibility to reset only to Fold.

Many people are turned off by precisely this. While betting on the value of their hands make some people feel irresistibly “alive”. The money, time, and energy to spend are musts but these are controllable factors. You must be willing to make the effort to learn strategy. A player who doesn’t will lose and grow tired of trying if he only approaches the game simply in the crude hope for a few quick wins. Sour is the taste of danger and one wishes to rinse it out as fast as possible.

To the real player danger is delicious. That’s why he is at the table/computer. The player knows his stuff and his bluff, knows what is practically within his power, and does not indulge vain fantasies. He or she is there for the chance just as the rock climber is there for the sheer height. One must learn to hear the music of chance in the game; then, even an unlucky session will have been worth the effort.

The author of this article plays online poker and gets Rakeback at True Poker where they offer the highest True Poker Rakeback.

A Detailed Review of True Poker

• Author: David Patron
• Filed under: Casinos
• Date: Jan 2,2011

You probably haven’t heard of True Poker yet, but you will. The site is just getting off the ground, but it offers some nice perks to keep the players that have found it coming back for more. True Poker is owned by a Costa Rican based team whose members put together their love of technology with gaming to bring to the tables a nice and easy poker experience. The concentration is on creating a realistic experience with a basic, simple layout.

The set up and registration for the software is a piece of cake and the application has a nice, unusual feature in that the top half is devoted to the virtual casino and the bottom to the game tabs. You can’t miss the chat area, it is readily visible and the navigation throughout the site is smooth and speedy. Because the site is such a baby, the cash games and tournaments are also in their infancy, but growing.

When you visit the site you will find about 25 tables going with 500 players. Hold Em and Omaha are the only cash games so don’t expect the rare and esoteric variants at True Poker. You will find, however, scads of tournaments and sit-n-gos to suit your fancy and even a multi-level heads up tournament tab that you don’t run into on very many sites. True Poker pays much heed to its players suggestions for improvement and when all of them are put into place, the site is sure to rival the big guns.

As a new online site, True Poker has put most of its resources into its VIP program where players play 2,000 raked hands to be entitled to generous bonuses, and from there the only way to go is up. There are a plethora of valuable bonuses for both cash games and tournaments. Don’t overlook the many freerolls that are offered along with that worthy VIP program. Traffic is sure to flow heartily at True Poker in the future. In the meantime, you may find it difficult to find enough games to play to make it to that VIP status. But keep trying, your time will come.

The player base is small which means the support is large, personal and always available. There are nine ways a player can deposit and cash out and both can be done any time, giving player’s unusual control over their funds. You will surely like the host in the lobby and visit him often to pose your questions and receive immediate answers.

The company is small but dedicated to its customers. True Poker offers 24-hour support by email and phone, you should know, though, that some of those phone calls may have a long distance charge attached. True Poker is proud to partner with TrueCashier, Ltd., making it even more obvious that the company brings the highest standards of fair gaming and ethics to the online poker world as well as to its players.

If it’s a new, friendly and different online gaming experience you are looking for, you really won’t do any better than True Poker. Come in and enjoy some basic poker and more pampering than you ever hoped for online.

For more poker room reviews like this one please check out reviews like our Paradise Poker Review, NoiQ Poker Review, or any of the other poker room reviews at Rakeback Solution.

A Look At Online Poker Room Power Poker

• Author: David Patron
• Filed under: Casinos
• Date: Nov 16,2010

Power Poker has a claim that no other online poker site can make in its sponsorship of the online poker great Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, one the most successful high stakes poker players in the world. Ziigmund was nominated for The 2009 Internet Player of the Year at the ninth annual European Poker Player Awards and is the shining star of Power Poker.

The Power group includes other partners, PoweVegas and PowerPartners, successful gaming sites in their own right. The website is owned and operated by CN Payment Services and IP Holdings of Curacao. The company’s gaming license is granted by the Government of the Netherlands Antilles and is licensed in itself by Cyberluck Curacao N.V. It features a lightning bolt as its logo to symbolize the energy that exists so palpably at this fun site.

The Cake network has issued the software so it will be very easy for most online players to get around. While the platform may be familiar, Power Poker has added some specialties of its very own to make it unique. The software is done in blues which is very calming and visually appealing and the layout is simple and direct to make navigation smooth and intuitive. This company is all about poker so the games are easy to find and easy to play. A nifty feature is the time tracking menus which shows players the length of time they have played plus reminders each time they log into their account.

Whenever a player buys chips at the cashier, requests more chips while at a game and upon entering a tournament. an online clock becomes visible. On the homepage, there is a list of all the current promotions and tournaments highlighted so you won’t miss anything. All the while you are playing, you will be able to see in the corner of the screen, pop up news items to keep you abreast of tournament action and the latest news. With this direct, simple application layout, ring games and tournaments are very easy to locate.

The ring games available for play at Power Poker are Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo, seven card stud and seven card hi-lo. Betting begins at $.02/.04 and rises to a ripe $500/1,000. You can also join one of the many play money games to hone your skills for that big match without losing your money in the process. One unusual feature here is the game filter at the bottom right of your screen that lets you sift through the nine max, six max, and heads up games. Any time you visit Power Poker, you will encounter 7,500 jolly players sitting around 1,000 tables with quite a bit of movement over to the tournament section and back again to the tables.

Some of the highest tournament payouts online can be found here with stakes as high as 5,000. For those of you feeling the budget pinch, the buy ins begin at a measly 10 cents. There is a “My Tournament” area and a button there to be employed by any player to keep on top of everything they have entered. Like the sweet game filter, there is also a tournament filter that is a nifty way to sort through contests swiftly and simply to find the one that suits you. A new and popular tournament innovation is the synchronized breaks development. All of this activity means lots of rewards for the players loyal efforts.

Power Poker is a qualifier for both the Irish Open and Aussie Millions to give you a start on seeing just how rewarding playing here can be. There are satellites here and also all the goodies the Cake Network is famous for in the gold chips, gold stacks, gold cards and gold lotteries. The object is for the player to collect as much of the gold as he possibly can and trade it in for handsome cash and prize rewards. The VIP Club is the premier promotion at Power Poker. You can actually get a personal VIP manager to stay with you in most of your online gaming and keep you on track to always deal sagely with your points and your cash. Whether you are a high or low roller, you will always be supported and secure while gaming on Power Poker.

Support is by email and is prompt to the point that some responses come back within minutes. The company is solidly behind responsible gaming and teams up with The National Council on Problem Gaming, GamCare UK, Gamblers Anonymous UK and Gamblers Anonymous USA to ensure their customers are adequately knowledgeable about online poker and have the resources available to call upon should they go astray. Power Poker cares deeply about their player’s welfare and goes to all ends to educate them and provide the means to keep them safe.

Log on, take a look at that lightening bolt and charge! And, should you meet up with Ziigmund, tell him I said hello.

For more poker room reviews like this one please check out reviews like our Poker Nordica Review, Poker Heaven Review, or any of the other poker room reviews at Rakeback Solution.