Author: T

Another twist in video poker payouts is a progressive jackpot. These incorporate a progressive meter above a carousel of video poker machines, and a portion of each bet is designated to fund the progressive jackpot that is usually hit on a royal flush.

When a bank of Jacks-or-better machines offers a progressive jackpot, you won’t find 9/6 machines because the top award accounts for a larger percentage of the overall payout percentage. But don’t be fooled by being attracted to a big progressive jackpot when the payoffs for a full house and a flush aren’t at a reasonable level. You’re not getting the best bet unless you play at an 8/5 machine on a regular Jacks-or-better game.

Professional video poker players know that when the progressive meter hits £1,250 on a quarter video poker machine, they have the edge. Often a team of players will occupy every seat on such a carousel until the jackpot is hit.

IGT, the company which developed the Megabucks, Quartermania and Dollars Deluxe linked-slot systems, has had some trouble developing a similar system for video poker. Because the players can actually play for a royal flush when the progressive jackpot reaches. high levels, professional players could actually make it more likely that they’d hit the big jackpot. Requiring the winning hand to be “sequential” – that is lined up from Tento Ace left to right or vice versa – didn’t work, either, because the professional player could alter his style to go for that jackpot as well.

At one point, IGT developed what they called Star Poker. The random number generator added stars to the cards that make up a royal flush, and the players couldn’t predict when or where those stars would appear, so they couldn’t alter their playing style to try to win the progressive jackpot. But because it was so confusing, it wasn’t very popular.

Today, there is a system called Pokermania that designates a particular suit for each machine. For instance, a player sitting at a machine designated for diamonds must hit a sequential royal flush in diamonds to win the progressive jackpot. If he draws a sequential royal flush in hearts, he will get a good payout, but not the progressive. These machines seem to satisfy the player, but are still not as popular as the slot versions of the giant progressive jackpots. And because you’re supposedly playing for the big jackpot, you pay a big price in the full house/flush payout. Rarely will you see a giant linked-progressive jackpot video poker system paying more than six for a full house and five for a flush.

As we’ve seen, since the middle ages, baccarat has been considered the game of the rich. When it was introduced into Las Vegas, casino managers tried to maintain that aura, and succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations. Big gamblers from around the world today visit Las Vegas to experience the game in its most luxurious settings.

Other casinos saw the success with the big gamblers and tried to interest the rank-and-file gambler in the game in order to expand its appeal (and to make more profits, of course). In order to put it within reach of most gamblers, mini-baccarat was invented. It is essentially the same as the big game, but is played at a blackjack-sized table. It’s the generic version of the game, but with all the fabulous and highly enjoyable accoutrements stripped away. Like blackjack, it seats seven players. Each player has three spots, the Banker, Player and Tie bets. The game is conducted by a single dealer. The players do not handle the cards in mini-baccarat.

The dealer draws the cards according to the same rules as the big game. Winning Banker bets are charged the same five per cent commission and the house advantage is the same, as well.

The only difference between the two styles of baccarat is the speed of the game. At the large game, only two, maybe three, hands can be dealt per minute. At mini-baccarat, five, sometimes six, hands can be dealt per minute.

As the tempo of the game increases, the house gets more shots at your money. Even though the house advantage doesn’t change, if there are more decisions per hour, you’re going to lose at a faster pace. But since the minimums are lower, you’ll lose less than at the larger table.
Mini-baccarat is a good way to learn how to play baccarat without losing more than you’d like. It’s also a good game for anyone who wants to play a simple game that requires no playing strategy.

But bear in mind that for all the similarities with the big game, mini-baccarat is not baccarat. The elegance and appeal of the big game is worth spending the extra time and investing the money on. You’ll get the attention normally reserved for the big gamblers, and feel like one, as well.

The most exciting game in the casino or online casino is undoubtedly craps. Most of the shouting and rooting can be traced to the dice games, and for good reason. Craps can be the most favourable game in the casino if you understand how to take advantage of its attractive bets.

Blackjack players approach their game with the studiousness of professors. Roulette players are like cartographers, mapping their way around the multi-numbered layout.
Baccarat players are serious gamblers, with their emotions riding the game’s twists and turns. And slot machine players stare at their machines with a mind-numbing expression,
only breaking their rhythm to celebrate wins.

But over in the corner, you hear some yelling and rooting, it seems like the most exciting place in the entire casino. You see a crowd of people gathered around what appears to be a pit, but is actually a craps game. Craps, or dice, is easily the
casino’s most thrilling game. When the dice are falling the right way, there are few other experiences that rival it.

As mentioned previously, craps is not a very popular game in Europe, and particularly the UK. Perhaps that is because, for centuries, all dice games were banned in England because King Charles I was distraught when his soldiers whiled away their time playing these games instead of preparing for battle. Legalized in the 1970s, dice games have never caught on, perhaps because the excitement and enthusiasm generated at the craps table never seemed very “British”. But with the coming liberalization of gaming laws, UK punters would be well advised to reconsider their initial impressions about this exciting and potentially profitable game.

Another way to bet multiple numbers at a craps game is to “place” your bets. These bets can be made at any time. To place a bet, following the come-out roll, you simply tell the dealer you’d like to “place the six” or any of the other place numbers – four, five, six, eight, nine and ten – you’d like to take.

Unlike the come-line bets, the dealer must take the chips from you and place the bets. In no situation should the player ever reach above the come line, which is the unofficial dividing point between the players and the dealers. He places the chips in a corresponding position to your playing position at the table, so he can easily identify which bets belong to which players.

The odds for the place numbers are as follows:

•    For the four and ten, 9-5;

•    For the five and nine, 7-5;

•    For the six and eight, 7-6.

Place and buy bets can only be set up by the dealer. To make this bet, simply tell the dealer you want to “place” a particular number. Place bets are not paid at true odds, while buy bets are because you pay a commission to ‘buy” those bets.

Right now you’re saying “Why should I place on the four or ten at odds of 9-5, when I can bet a come bet, place the odds and get 2-1 ?”

The answer is that on the come line, you’ve got to wait for the number to hit before you can take odds. And you’ll get no odds if you bet the come; your bet will simply be moved to the place bet box number. Then you have to wait for the number to hit a second time before you get a payout.

If you place a number, you get paid the first time it hits. But you suffer by placing your number bets. The casino advantage for the four and ten is a large 6.7 per cent. For the five and nine, the edge is four per cent, and for the six and eight, it’s a more reasonable 1.5 per cent.

It is only advisable to take the six and eight because of the small advantage, as well as the fact that six and eight are the second-most likely combinations to be rolled apart from the seven.

If you do bet these numbers, you must make the exact bets, or you won’t get a full payout. For instance, you must bet £6 to win £7 on the six and eight. For the five and nine, £5 will get you £7, and for the four and ten, £5 will win £9. If you’re betting higher, bet in multiples of those amounts. Anything less, and the house will further expand its advantage.

Place bets can be taken down at any time. Simply ask the dealer to “Take me down” and you’ll get all your bets back. Place bets are also “off’ or “not working” on the come-out roll.

Because the table layout has multiple areas in which to place bets, and the amount and payout of those bets vary, modem players have abandoned craps to concentrate on simpler, less confusing games. But those players are missing out on one of the last bastions of true gambling.
 
The activity at a craps game is very confusing to a novice. Players throw chips to the dealer yelling what seems to be a secret code, such as “Give me a hard eight for five,” “C and E for a deuce!” “I’ll take a two-way.”

It’s easy to see why observers are mystified by this repartee, but many of these bets are ones that the knowledgeable craps player will not make. Many people play craps but very few play it skillfully, and there lies the difference in a game that wins a great deal of money for the house but, at the same time, treats the intelligent player very well.

To understand why the house makes so much money at the craps table, you first have to understand the maths. There are only so many ways to roll specific numbers on the two dice you use in craps. For instance, there is only one way to roll the two or 12. The true odds of that occurring are 35-1. But the casino does not payoff your bet at the correct ratio; for the two (or 12), you only get 30-1. That gives the casino a rather hefty house advantage of nearly 14 per cent on that bet. So you see, when the house takes such a big percentage of what you’re supposed to get on that bet, the intelligent craps player will avoid those bets.

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Another way of getting the true odds is to “”buy”” the numbers. When you buy the numbers, the house charges a five per cent commission. But since most casinos only deal with £1 chips as the lowest denomination, and the house will charge you a minimum of £1 no matter how small your bet is, you should be betting at least £20 on each number, since £1 is five per cent of £20. So if you want to buy the five, for example, you’d give the dealer £21. The dealer will place £20 on the number, and put £1 into the bank.

The rationale for buying numbers is that you get the true payout, which lowers the house advantage, but not  sufficiently to make it a good bet. The true odds payouts are as follows:

•    For the four and ten, 2-1;
•    For the five and nine, 3-2;
•    For the six and eight, 6-5.

Because you pay the one per cent commission, or “”vig”” and get paid at the true odds, the house has the same advantage for all the numbers, 4.76 per cent.

So you can see, it’s more advantageous to place the six and eight, and the five and nine, because the house advantage for those bets when they are placed is less than the buy option. Only the four and ten is a better “”buy””, if you’ll excuse the expression.

The dealer places a small plastic “”buy”” disc on top of any buy bet to indicate how the bet should be paid.

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Many a wise man or woman have said that Poker is an easy game, it’s gets kind of annoying to hear doesn’t it after the 10th+ deposit into your poker account.

Well I’m hear to tell you that in its core Poker is actually fairly simple but specifically Texas Hold’em. What I’ll show you in this article is a very simple points system which will ensure that you play a nice and tight game of Texas Hold’em. Please bare in mind that this strategy is intended for fairly low stakes ring games i.e NOT for tournaments although it could easily be adapted to fit almost any Poker variant.

It works by assigning points to the various cards in a deck as follows:

• Ace – 16 points
• King – 14 points
• Queen – 13 points
• Jack – 12 points
• 10 – 11 points
• All the other cards are given a points value corresponding to their number, i.e 5 is 5 points etc.
• If your two "hole" cards are of the same suit then that is an extra 4 points to your total.
• Additionally you get awarded an extra 10 points for any pair so 2 Kings would give you 38 points (14×2 + 10).
• If the two cards are one after the other, e.g 7,8 then give yourself 3 extra points.
• If seperated by 2, e.g 8,10 then add an extra 2 points to the total
• And if the two cards are separated by 3 then you can give yourself 1 point.

The next thing to understand is your position on the poker table, for the sake of this strategy I will assume you are playing on a longhand table which means there are 10 players in total, as opposed to shorthand with 6 people. This table of 10 players can be split into three zones, or positions. The first three seats to the left of the "Big Blind" form the Early position, the next three seats are in the middle position and the other 4 seats are referred to as the late position.

The strategy is as simple as this: For you to play your hand you need to have a certain number of points, these are as follows:

The points totals above assume that no one has raised the big blind, if they have then you should always assume they have good cards, it is a very dangerous strategy to think someone is bluffing and play your weakish hand against what you think might be their weak hand! In any case this strategy says that for you to play against someone who has raised then you would need an extra 4 points in each position, i.e 34 in Early, 31 in Middle and 29 in late positions.

If you follow this strategy on beginner to intermediate tables then it will give you a good start and over time you can start to add more sophistication to your play like trying to trap other players and occasionally trying a bluff but stick to this system until you are comfortable and winning money rather than constantly giving it to the other players.

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DOUBLE YOUR MONEY
Some video-poker machines have an option that allows you to risk the winnings on a hand for a chance at doubling your money. While many players believe that this is simply another ploy by the casino to take your remaining stake, it’s actually one of the best bets in the casino. It’s exactly 50–50 that you will be able to double your money. No house edge; no tricks. So what’s the catch?

You may double as many times as you wish, and because the odds are even, you’ll eventually lose. It’s a risk the casino is willing to take, but by examining the law of diminishing returns, it’s one that will be risky for the player.

While each decision is exactly 50–50, the odds of winning more than one in a row decrease sharply. After the first hand, you’re not gambling on the individual hands, you’re gambling on the sequence, and that is stacked heavily in the casino’s favour.

 

DOUBLE YOUR RISKS
From the Double Your Risk chart, above, you can see that the chances of winning your double diminish the more times you attempt to buck the odds against the sequential wins. The odds against winning ten in a row before you begin to double is less than one tenth of one per cent. Not very good odds, although the odds against winning any individual double down is 50–50.

Some players will try to suggest that the machine “”knows”” when you are doubling a high win. That’s nonsense. You can see that the casino wants you to try to double as many times as possible, but there is no need to rig the machines. You’re already bucking some pretty big odds for more than two in a row. The casino is very happy to offer you 50–50 odds on each bet. Try it at your own risk.

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The other popular wild-card video-poker game is Deuces Wild. Because it has four wild cards, it complicates the strategy that is necessary to succeed at the machines. Just as in other varieties of video poker, it’s important to note the pay table on Deuces Wild. But it’s not as easy as with Jacks-or-better. Casino executives have discovered several different ways to alter the pay tables that will alter the payout percentages.

DEUCES WILD PAYOUT PERCENTAGES
The pay tables above are just three examples of Deuces Wild games available today. The small variations in the pay table are the reason for the variation in payout percentage for expert play.

WORKING THE DEUCES
The object of Deuces Wild, obviously, is to obtain the wild cards to get those valuable hands. But what does it mean when you start off the hand with Deuces? Even in the highest paying version of Deuces Wild – at 100.6 per cent you will receive No Deuce hands 66 per cent of the time, which means that 80 per cent of your hands will be losers. Another 14 per cent will be the minimum three-of-a-kind winner, which is actually just a tie. So if you don’t get a Deuce before the draw, you will actually win only six per cent of the time.

When you get one Deuce in the initial hand – only 30 per cent of the time – 45 per cent of your hands will be losers, and another 38 per cent will get the three-of-a-kind push, leaving only 17 per cent that will actually win. Another nine per cent will be near-minimum winners as straights and flushes. Two Deuces in the initial hand – dealt only four per cent of the time – means that you must take every advantage of this hand, despite the fact that 70 per cent of these hands will wind up being flushes or lower. About one in four will end up as four-of-a-kind, and one in 98 will wind up as five-of-a-kind.

 

DEUCES STRATEGY
The following strategy is a little more complicated than the other two versions covered in this article. Some basic rules are not to play any machine that does not pay 5-1 for four-of-a-kind. And most important of all, even if you’ve got a shot at a natural royal, do not discard any Deuce!

1 Stand with any natural winning hand, except for a natural straight flush starting with Nine. Discard the Nine and go for the royal.
2 Draw one card to a straight flush.
3 Draw one card to a royal flush.
4 Draw two cards to a royal flush.
5 With two pair, discard one pair and draw three cards.
6 Draw one card to a flush.
7 Draw one card to a straight.
8 Draw two cards to a straight flush.
9 Draw three cards to a Queen-Jack, Ten-Jack, or Jack-Ten suited.
10 Draw two cards to a suited Six-Seven and a Deuce.
11 Draw one card to a three-card royal and one Deuce.
12 Draw one card to a four-card straight with one Deuce.
13 Stand on any winning hand with one Deuce. Break up a flush, straight or three-of-a-kind for any four-card royal flush, or four-card straight flush.
14 Draw one card to a suited Six-Seven or better with two Deuces.
15 Draw one card to a four-card royal with two Deuces.
16 Draw one card to four-of-a-killd with two Deuces.
17 Stand on five 10s or better with three Deuces.
18 Stand on royal flush with three Deuces.
19 Stand on five-of-a-killd with four Deuces.
20 All other hands discard everything but Deuces.

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“Building a poker bankroll
Many people consider that investing serious money into something that is a mere hobby for them doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and they’re probably right. On top of that, recreational poker players never really get around to fully understanding the nature of the game and the way it’s supposed to work, and thus they’ll find it extremely difficult to turn it into a lucrative deal. I’ve heard people say you should never risk more money on poker than you can afford to take to the back of your garden and burn. That is just baloney. Every investment needs an initial push to get rolling, and online poker – for a player who knows how he’s supposed to milk it – works the same way.
Anyway, it would appear that nowadays one can start a lucrative poker career without making any sort of investment at all.
The online poker industry is so competitive nowadays that poker rooms would do just about anything to acquire new, active players. So much so, that some of these poker rooms will give players free real money upfront, with almost no strings attached (I said "almost" because you will have to fulfill the turnover requirements on your free money before cash-out). All you need to do is sign up to the poker room in question, and usually insert some sort of bonus ode which will automatically transfer the money into your real money account. After that, you can hit the real-money tables and start a-playing as if it were your own money. As soon as you’ve fulfilled the play-through requirement(s) you may cash out.
Don’t expect anything resembling a healthy bankroll though. These bonuses are not meant to make you rich, but rather to provide a start in online poker for those who may feel shy and not willing to risk anything. The free bankroll will usually be made up of a few tens of dollars, which will only really represent a potent bankroll in some of the lowest limits/stakes games (remember, you have to have about 300BBs in your bankroll a the limit you play at to be properly bankrolled).
That fact that it is indeed possible to start a real bankroll using a few of these free bucks has been proven by many, the mot notorious such experiment being that if Chris Ferguson who built up a $10,000 bankroll out of nothing on Full Tilt Poker without taking advantage of the Full Tilt rakeback deal either.
Certainly, you’ll need some very healthy skills and almost endless patience to come anywhere near his performance, but it is indeed possible in theory.
Despite that, playing on a free bankroll will present you with a series of drawbacks which will hit you pretty hard, especially if you’re a rookie. Being under-bankrolled can very well curve the efforts of a professional player, let alone a rookie. Also, the deal that you get with your free bankroll will usually deprive you of some of the best bonuses and recurring-edge offers (rakeback) that the poker room features for its paying customers.
Thus the rake will hit you much harder, and your "bankroll" will offer you last protection. As they say, looking a gift horse in the mouth though is not something reasonable to do, so you’ll have to make do with what you get.
When playing on a free bankroll, it makes a lot of sense to start out with STTs (Single Table Tournaments). These offer you much increased odds compared to cash games, and they protect your bankroll by completely eliminating the "being under-bankrolled" issue, and taking some of the bite out of the rake.
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