Party and get a Aston Martin

May 23rd, 2010

This year, the internet gambling site Party Poker wants to transform you from poker player to luxury car driver. They are organising Drive the Dream, a competition set to have its final on the October the 2nd, and in which you can enroll by joining (and winning) one of the daily freerolls that they are organizing.

The freeroll structure is simple, yet tough. Each day there are 9 freerolls: 6 sub-qualifiers where the top 25 players get to enter in the next stage, and 3 where the top 100 get to move on to the next round. This next round is the $5,000 Guaranteed “Drive the Dream” Qualifier, which is scheduled each Saturday at 17:00 (ET). In this tournament, the top 1,000 players split $5,000 between each other, and the top 100 players get to go in the final freeroll before entering the final table at the “Drive the Dream” event. This freeroll is scheduled for the second Sunday of each month at 14:00 ET, and only the winner gets to go to the final table. The top 150 players get to split the $15,000 at stake between them.

At the final table for the “Drive the Dream” event, the prizes are staggering, ranging from $2,000 for the 9th place and slowly going upward, with sports packages, such as the “Ferrari Driving Experience package”, or similar packages from Lamborghini, Porsche or F1 Brazilian or Italian Grand Prix challenges. The winner gets to go home with a brand new Aston Martin DB9.

Click Here to go to Party Poker

So, even if you don’t get to go home with the Aston Martin, get to win one of the other prizes at stake at the final table, you can still be a part of this competition by getting your hands on a piece of the $175,000 cash handed out throughout the summer.

MasterCard Blocks Online Gambling Transactions

April 8th, 2010

The online poker world has taken a huge hit this week, with the revelation that MasterCard are placing a block on all transactions made by card holders who are looking to deposit into online gambling sites.

The move has caused a huge amount of problems for players who are used to funding their accounts directly from their credit card and recently the company moved to prevent such transactions from been completed.

Players and online poker rooms have both been affected by the move, players having to find alternative methods for the funding of their online accounts and online poker rooms seeing a sharp decline in the number of deposits that have been made on their sites.

With sites losing revenue, they are joining the fight of the members, looking to get quick answers as to why the company have moved to put the blockage in place, claiming that a large amount of their depositing players used their credit cards as a form of funding.

The online poker community has been buzzing since the release of this story, many MasterCard holders saying that they are going to find an alternative company to have their card held by.

Its a brave move that the credit company has made, knowing that they could lose a number of customers as people look to transfer their balances to other providers in order to get around the new blockage.

Players are now looking to turn to eWallet accounts in a bid to continue playing at their favorite online poker room but the likes of Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars don’t accept one of the most commonly used companies Paypal.

What are your thoughts on the bold move to ban the transactions?

Are you now limited to which online poker room that you can deposit to?

Gambling History

January 14th, 2010

Gambling is one of the oldest activities known to man. It was even written that Zeus, Hades and Poseidon have decided on which to rule, whether they will own the heaven, hell and sea, through a dice.

But more than what mythology has to say about the important role that gambling has played during the ancient times, historians and anthropologists alike also have their piece. Archeological evidence have shown that the early caveman is a gambler since dice-like objects made from the ankle bone of a sheep or dog dating around 40,000 years was found. They also discovered cave drawings expressing gambling offers.

It was in 2300 BC when a game of chance using tiles was formally invented by no less than the Chinese. This game was also played by the Greek soldiers, although gambling is illegal in Greece, around 1100 years later to amuse them.

It was also in China where cards were first played. Such playing cards were believed to spread during Mameluke empires who are all Muslims. When the idea of playing cards reached the Mediterranean regions, card makers began distinguishing cards with the royalties.  The French then took out one of the men and added a queen card sometime in the 1500s. The playing cards that we are using is a prototype of the “French Pack” of cards and the idea of blackjack and poker gambling started then.

Next to playing cards, Bingo, which is initially known as “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia“, is another crowd favorite. When this game came in America they named it beano and when one of the players accidentally screamed “bingo” instead of “beano”, Edwin S. Lowe, a New York Toy Salesman, decided that “bingo” is a better name. With the help of Columbia University math professor, Carl Leffler, they increased the number of combinations in bingo cards and by 1930 Leffler had invented 6,000 different bingo cards. The game unexpectedly grew and by 1934 it was estimated that ten thousand bingo games were played online every week and more than $89 million dollars are being gambled on bingo each week in North America alone.

It was also in Italy where the first known Casino, the Casinò di Venezia was established. The Americans also had their own version of casinos known as saloons which can be found in New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco. More than gambling, it was also here were people meet, talk and gain acquaintances and friendship.

During the time casinos were banned, people find sports betting as another interesting form of recreation. Sports have always been fascinating for people so whether it is horse race, cockfight or bare-knuckle brawl, people want to experience the rush and be part of the thrill thus the risk of betting a part of their livelihood to it. They do is not only for profit but also for amusement and leisure.
Read the latest gambling news at Gambling Tabloid.

How to bluff in poker

January 11th, 2010

Knowing when and how to try and bluff someone out of a pot is essential to making money in poker gambling on a long term.  
Although bluffing too often, too aggressively, or at the wrong time is an easy way to destroy your chip stack, if you never bluff, and your opponents become aware of it, you put yourself at several disadvantages.  
The first big disadvantage of only playing your cards is that you won’t get paid off on your good hands.  
If your opponents know that your bets always means you have the goods, why would they call ?  
Another big disadvantage is that not bluffing takes away a lot of the value of drawing hands.  
If you are good at reading the other players then bluffing can give a lot of value to a wide range of hands.  
For instance, if you are drawing at a straight, which misses, but a possible flush hits the board, and you know your opponent likely has a pair, the bluff situation adds a lot of value to your straight draw in poker gambling.

So what can you do to get the most possible value out of your bluffs?  
Here are some tips to help you successfully pull off your bluffs when in poker gambling.

1) Bluff when scare cards come out – Always try to identify the range of hands your opponent could have.  
Then try and put yourself and their shoes and see what they might think you have, or would be worried that you have.  
If you have been playing the hand passively, i.e. calling, that often signals that you have a drawing hand. 
So when a card comes out that completes the draw try and take advantage of it with a bluff.  
This is most effective when a third flush card comes out.  
The flush is visible and worrisome.  
Cards that complete straight draws are often less obvious and less intimidating.

2) Bluff when there are few opponents -  Simple odds dictate that the more people are in a pot, the more likely someone has something decent. 
Additionally, the more players there are in a pot the more chips are in that pot. 
That gives the other poker gambling players a lot more potential value to call you down. 
The best times to bluff are against one or two other players, especially if you have late position.  
They show weakness, you show strength, and they fold thinking they made a good play.  
If you are up against many opponents when you play online poker, oftentimes one of the later position players will call after it has been folded around to him in order to “keep you honest”

3) Don’t bluff if you have recently lost a big pot or shown a bluff – Most of your poker gambling opponents will have a very short memory of your past actions. 
Whatever you have done in the past round or two of play is how they what they will associate with you. 
Even if you have been playing tight and winning for the post hour, if you lose a big pot people will peg you as a player who doesn’t have the goods.  
If you have been caught bluffing or have recently shown a bluff, people will know that you are capable of bluffing and will likely call you down.

4) Don’t bluff newbies or other bad players – A big problem with bluffing in poker gambling is that it only works if they other card player is thinking about the range of hands you could have. 
New players, and many loose players, are only looking at their cards.  
They don’t look at the board and consider what ways they could be beat. 
They will often call an otherwise solid bluff because they didn’t realize that they were in a potentially dangerous position.  
If you have seen another player lose at the showdown time and again you know you shouldn’t bluff them. 
The best players to bluff are those you have seen fold on the flop or on the turn in previous hands.

5) Pay attention to your position – In few areas is position more important for bluffing in online poker gambling
Late position bluffs are much more effective than early position bluffs. 
If your opponents have checked in front of you they have already demonstrated weakness. 
Sure, they could be planning on check raising you, but ideally you have tried to identify players with a habit of check raising and know which ones to watch out for.  Opponents behind you, on the other hand, could have just hit their dream card. 
If you are playing at a live game of poker gambling you might be able to use their body language to figure that out, but in an online game you generally have only their betting habits to go by.  
If you decide to try to bluff from early position, plan on bluffing more frequently on the turn and the river. 
Early position bluffs on the flop leave you with too little information to understand if you can win the hand by feigning strength.

Bluffing is far from a science, it is an art that the best poker players have mastered.  
The best poker players do get caught in bluffs, but more often than not they correctly identify the best bluffing situations in poker gambling and take money from their less skilled opponents. 
Following the bluffing tips outlined above should help you be more successful in your bluffs when you play online poker gambling.