SmokePoker.com

Author: Andrew

How To Find The Right Poker Room

Articles / Info / Insights / Tips

How To Find The Right Poker Room

So you’ve decided to try out your career in online poker. Before you actually embark on your journey, you should think about where to start it. There are a multitude of online casinos and online poker rooms to choose from. The bad thing is, not all of them are good places to patronize. As with most things in life, there are those that are reliable and there are some that will just scam you. Then there are a lot of online poker rooms which are not really out to scam players, but that are just not quite good enough in...

The Life Of Stu Ungar (Part 3)

Articles / History / Insights / Players / Stories

The Life Of Stu Ungar (Part 3)

Stu Ungar was a gambling prodigy: breaking records, defeating champions, and becoming the best at every card game he ever played. However, his private life was in shambles. His father died when he was a young boy, he grew up mean and tough on the streets, and in 1986, even his marriage to long-time love Madeline crumbled. It was not the end of a string of personal losses and debilitating mistakes. His adopted son committed suicide after a high school prom. His drug problem escalated from “social” drugs to celebrate a big win, to an almost fatal overdose during the...

The Life Of Stu Ungar (Part 2)

Articles / History / Insights / Players / Stories

The Life Of Stu Ungar (Part 2)

Stuey the Kid (also called Stu Ungar) was one of the best poker players in history. However, his interest in poker was actually prompted by his genius in gin rummy. He was so good that casinos banned him from playing, because nobody wanted to join a table where he was seated. This led him to start playing poker. He was an excellent poker player, who dominated the tables and left those older and more experienced than him in a sweat. He enjoyed seeing the panic on their faces – the hope, the sudden realization that they would lose, the desperation....

The Life Of Stu Ungar (Part 1)

Articles / History / Insights / Players / Stories

The Life Of Stu Ungar (Part 1)

He was called “Stuey the Kid”, and was one of the best poker and gin rummy players in history. Unfortunately, his skill at the tables was matched only by a string of poor personal decisions that left him in debt. When he was found dead in 1998, at just 45 years old, he had lost all of the $33 million he had accumulated over the years. Stuart Errol Ungar was born on September 8, 1953. His father, Ido Ungar, was a bookie, and the young Stu learned the game at an age when most boys were playing baseball in their...

Poker – It’s All About The Attitude!

Articles / Insights

Poker – It’s All About The Attitude!

…and learning to adapt to the situation. Those who hold the idea that poker is all about luck could not be more wrong. Neither are those who say that it’s all about skill. Playing poker is a mixture of these two plus the big one – attitude. Ask the experts and they will all tell you one thing – when it’s done and dusted, everything boils down to your attitude. That’s because poker isn’t all about the winning – it’s in how you play your game and enjoy it too. Then again, winning makes it all the more fun, doesn’t...

How To Build Your Own Poker Table

Articles / Info / Tips

How To Build Your Own Poker Table

Earlier on I was talking about different kinds of poker tables. For those of you who are quite handy with a hammer, a saw, nails and that sort of stuff, you’d probably like it better if you had to make your own poker table. This option gives your more control as to exactly how you want your table to look, plus a big plus point to making your own table is the price. You can cut down on a large amount of money if you design your table, purchase the materials needed, and make it yourself. Then, of course, you...

Poker Tables – What Do You Do?

Articles / Info / Tips

Poker Tables – What Do You Do?

So you got yourself a nice set of poker chips. Now what, do you think you’re ready for your home game? Before you can actually start your home game, you need another vital piece of equipment – the poker table. In this respect, you have more flexibility than with the poker chips. In deciding to get a poker table, you have three options – buy one, build one, or make use of any table available. The last option is perhaps the most economically feasible. All you need is to clean up an old table at home, line the top with...

Could You Play Online Poker For A Living?

Articles / Info / Stories / Tips

Could You Play Online Poker For A Living?

If you’re that much of a poker enthusiast, you have to admit it, one of your lifelong dreams is surely to play poker for a living. Come to think of it, almost everyone in this entire world has a similar dream. Find a job that will pay you for doing the thing that you love most and have fun while doing it. It’s not that much different, wanting to play poker for a living. Is it really possible to live off poker, though? More specifically, would it be possible to earn a living playing online poker? If we were to...

Do Online Poker Tells Really Exist?

Articles / Info / Insights / Tips

Do Online Poker Tells Really Exist?

You’ve got the skills, you’ve chosen your poker room, and you’ve got the best attitude ever. Now what? You’re definitely ready to play online poker, but what if the other more experienced players can sense you’re a newbie? In offline poker, “tells” are one of the most important aspects of the game. In this context, a “tell” is any behavior, habit, or physical reaction that may give the other poker players on the table information regarding the hand of that specific player. In a sense, a tell gives indications as to how you must proceed in the game. The question...

The Art Of Bluffing In Poker

Articles / Info / Tips

The Art Of Bluffing In Poker

If there is one thing that the general public knows about poker, it probably is bluffing. Even the uninitiated have heard tales of great bluffing feats to win a game – how a player keeps his emotions in total control, without showing any hint in his body language. Where do you think the widely used expression “poker face” comes from? Yet stop a moment and ask yourself, what do you know about bluffing? Aside from the general idea of misrepresenting yourself (or your hand for that matter), what do you really know about bluffing? What is presented in TV and...

Tournament Poker Basics and Advanced Strategies (cont)

Articles / Insights

Tournament Poker Basics and Advanced Strategies (cont)

Another advanced strategy that most experienced tournament participants understand is the gap concept. The basic principle with this strategy is that it usually takes a much stronger hand to call a raise than it does to make the initial raise. This adage holds true no matter what kind of poker game the player is participating in. But it is more important in a poker tournament because of the closed nature of the games – you obviously cannot pull out more money and use it if you lose all of your chips (especially if the rebuy period is over). Poker tournaments...

Raising Your Expectations In Poker

Articles / Info

Raising Your Expectations In Poker

Without our being conscious of it, many of us tend to define our hands by what we think our opponents’ cards are. You can see this from the betting process, particularly the raises and reraises. Here’s one example… Let’s say you’re in one of the last positions. You have kings, and you reraised a very strong player seated to your right. The flop was Ac-Kh-4s. He responded with another bet, which you raised. Aaah, here’s where your mind starts thinking really quickly. He decides to reraise. Now, he’s done this before, and you think you know the way he plays....

Understanding Video Poker Machines

Articles / Info

Understanding Video Poker Machines

Gambling and card games may be one of the oldest pastimes in human history, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be touched by technology in some way. In fact, technology is changing the face of gambling and of casinos even as we speak. More and more aspects of gambling are being reimagined with various gizmos and equipment as well as with new machines that offer a fresher experience for old time gaming favorites. For example, there is a growing trend to incorporate electronic forms of casino staples like slots, blackjack and even poker. Video poker in fact made its initial...

Understanding the Net Present Value in Poker

Articles / Insights / Tips

Understanding the Net Present Value in Poker

It may come as a surprise but many poker concepts can actually be learned by studying other disciplines. For example, there are so many parallelisms between poker concepts and business. Various companies must make crucial decisions based on the net present value of money. In the simplest terms, this means that you would assign a discount rate that is based on a particular market factor in order to arrive at the net present value of money that you are going to spend or receive in the future. For example, if there is a choice between spending $10,000 three years from...

Ricky Jay Plays Poker – a Poker DVD!

Articles / Insights / News

Ricky Jay Plays Poker – a Poker DVD!

Have you ever thought about what kind of music you like listening to when playing poker? For that matter, have you ever associated poker with music? To be honest, I’ve never thought about this before until I came across an album about poker. You got that right, someone came up with an album with songs all about poker! The album Ricky Jay Plays Poker is comprised of various artists and offers listeners a chockfull of poker tunes. What do we mean by poker tunes? Well poker tunes are basically songs that talk about anything related to our favorite card game....

The Pre-Flop Re-Steal – No Limit Texas Holdem

Articles / Info

The Pre-Flop Re-Steal – No Limit Texas Holdem

I suppose there is a library of advice that can be offered in regards to every poker play; however, stealing the blinds is a necessity in tournament play if you hope to build your stack towards the leader, and maintain a workable stack as the blinds increase and players decrease. The pre-flop re-steal is simply a re-raise based on an initial raise that someone has bet in an effort to steal the blinds. So if you were thinking it had something to do with robbing a bank with gymnastic ability the day after someone else robbed it, you’ve come to...

Women and Poker – Some Interesting Stats

Articles / Insights / News

Women and Poker – Some Interesting Stats

We have to admit it, poker is generally seen as a man’s game. Yet as other things change in our society, so does this general perception. I came across this really interesting article which talked about a study that was done on the subject. Let me share it with you… A new study by eCOGRA, an online gaming industry standards authority, finds that more women are playing online poker than ever. Nearly 30% of all participants in this extensive study examining player behavior are female, up from 15% in 2004. An international gaming company states that the trend is also...

Is Poker a Sport, or Not?

Articles / Info / Insights

Is Poker a Sport, or Not?

While the argument of whether poker is a game of chance or skill has been debated for as long as one can remember, it is not quite everyday that you will hear people debating whether poker is a sport or not. I came across a British guy’s perspective on this topic. Let’s follow his series of articles on whether or not poker is a sport. Here is what he has to say about it: I have stumbled across many dictionary type definitions of sport, some of which I could have used because they would clearly define poker as a sport,...

How To Play Chinese Poker

Articles / Info / Insights / Tips

How To Play Chinese Poker

It seems that there is an emerging (though quite not prominent yet) poker variant in existence today. According to Nicole Gordon of PokerNews, well known names in poker have shown quite a propensity for this type of poker. What am I talking about? Chinese poker, or 13 Card poker as it is also known, seems to be catching poker greats in its lure. Stories are rampant wherein poker greats play the main role. Each story varies but the end result is the same – poker players love 13 card poker and spending a lot of money on it. So what...

I Bet My Wife in a Poker Game and Lost!

Articles / Info / Stories

I Bet My Wife in a Poker Game and Lost!

I’m sure you’ll have heard poker stories like this before… A gambler is so much into a game but ends up having a bad streak. He loses his cool and is desperate to make a comeback, convinced that the next hand will be THE hand to make him. So there he is, with no more money to put on the table. What does he do? He bets something else of value. Remember the latest James Bond flick, which I actually labeled a poker movie in an article just recently? Remember that poker game between that Greek guy and Agent 007?...