Meanwhile you can checkout my furniture biz @ MBMFurniture.Com . It’s a work in progress so all of the links don’t work yet but that’s all part of next weeks preperations!

Its time once again to take a break from poker! Not because things are going poorly but mostly because its starting to get boring. I wanted to write about this so that all of you readers can understand how important it is to strategically take breaks. If you don’t your almost sure to burn out.

Reasons The Reasons You Should take a Break

The first and last thing that tell me its time to take a few weeks away from the table is when I sit down get cards and think man this is going to be a long night! If that ever happens I take a break no matter what. Every time that I break that one rule I run into trouble, without exception! The other time I take breaks is times like this one when I feel like every hour I spend Playing Poker is time away from something more inportant. The third time I take a break is when I’m fired up about something else, Guitar, chess, pool, Websites any thing If I cant put something down I don’t try I drop everything else including poker and do what makes me happy at the time. That is the one thing I have found that makes my life most interesting at all times.

How Long Do You Need?

This question greatly depends on why you took the break it could be a day a month, an hour but the golden rule is you have to be both “Hungry and Patient” before your ready to play again. This is also a good way to prevent laziness ruin your poker fortune. When I take time off I find it’s best to start with absolutely no poker, no poker tv, no poker books, no discusions about poker, Nothing. Then as I get closer to ready I start to read a little maybe play some really small games and I try to mentally prepare for the games. Mental preperation is perhaps my strongest weapon in any game! Everybody comes to the table wanting to win but very few players are acutally prepared to play winning poker.

Back Again

When I get back to the tables I ussualy get back into a stronger rythem than when I left. I old see things clearer lay down good hands easier and take bad beats better. I don’t think their is another secret that has saved me or made me so much money as taking a break! And if I get bcak and the clouds are still there, I take an extra day, because I always want to be there on my own Terms!

P.S. Be sure to checkout Lou’s Blog!!

Pros:

• Playing more than one table can really be a big help with boredom. Sometimes we are all tempted to play hand that  we should playing more than one table can help.
• If your better than your competition More tables really can be more chances to win. That is if your really better than your average opponent.
• The Law of Big Numbers states that even large advantages(AA vs 22) have a high swing probability over a short period of time i.e. a few hands. But if you are playing thousands of hands the odds always win out and 80% of the time Aces win. So if you are out playing the competition More Hands=Less Bad Luck!

Cons:

• More tables=Less Concentration this is an absolute law and all cons about multi tabling are derived from this one! This is especially true if you are new to the game or just slightly better than your competition because when your playing on four tables you might lose all of your edge!
• Small tilts are magnafied. It’s amazing how many times a small bad beat on one table can cause a bad descision on another and that loss can send you spiralling! Even if you are very cool headed the more tables you play the more stress will build!
• You may miss opprotunities on one table because you have to adjust your playing style. I am ussually a loose Agressive player and when I play multiple tables I have to play a whole lot tighter and I miss opprotunites to punish players with mediocre hands. JT etc.
• The short term swings can be crippling If you play multitables you have to have a much bigger bankroll because you can take alot of quick hits to bankroll!
• The Dreaded Pop up causes alot of mis bets! If you are not able to choose the table you are about to act on or if another table becomes active first it will often pull that screen in front of the one you were about to click. I have litterally reraised by accident with a hand that you couldn’t pay me to play ordinarily. One note of caution never play a big game with side tables open to a little game. It would of course suck for a .01/.02 cent game to mess up a final table in a big tournament!

Well thats the first part of this discussion, I will be posting more soon!

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In this example it wasn’t quite so bad because I limped early with them and when a raise and a reraise came afterward I was more than happy to not find out what the raisers had. Now I don’t want you to think that you should always throw your Jacks away in this situation. The truth is this is very much a read play.

The first thing you have to know in this process is what hands most opponents are likely to raise and reraise with. You know this by gaining general experience of how most people at your level of poker play. At most low level tables I think your very justified in calling this reraise because most low level tables have bad players willing to reraise with AJ. If I were playing a bunch of pros I would almost auto fold QQ here unless I have a read that at least on of the two players is full of it.(or If were so big stacked that flopping a Q would win hugh amounts of dough).

The second part is that you should always be watching and noting what opponents have. If you pick out a real tight player and he reraises. You definately need to dump the Jacks. In fact that’s exactly why I folded. The initial raiser pushed All in and the reraiser showed pocket Queens! and I saved myself half of my buy in! Haza!

When you make big laydowns or calls you should constently be watching to see if you were right or wrong. Getting it wrong means you need to readjust your playing strategy getting it right is a good indicator of were you stand. Your reads and abilities mature over time but only if you keep focusing an honing them. Before long you should be able to call specific hands that your opponent has, though only occassionally!

Poker Winnings “We Hope”

So you want to win alot of money at poker? Well I sure as hell do and I can tell you one of the best stratagies to do it to. Cash in on some bonuses! All of these poker sites out there are fighting for your patronage but if you haven’t got a favorite or even if you have you can cash in big on Poker room bonuses. There are hundreds of poker sites out there most of them have good start-up bonuses and some have great rebuy bonuses. In our right hand column we have some of our favorites.

But as you may have realized there are some serious draw backs to bonus chasing if you don’t have a little discipline!

 The number one mistake I see when people are following bonuses is that some people inately change the way they play just to cash out the bonus. I have seen good solid players play so poorly to try and cash out a bonus that they lost 2-3 timesa the amount that the bonus paid!

Lesson1: Don’t play to long.

Playing too long to cash out a bonus is the first step toward losing it. I have personally lost many pots and many hours of sleep trying to get that last hundred “Poker Player Points” only to regreat it the next morning.

The Second Problem I see is players playing games other than their specialty to clear bonuses. I don’t know how many times friends and relatives have complained about OH8 only to play it time and again to cash out a bonus! The third problem people run into is changing their style to cash a bonus. I have even seen friends raise a pot just to make it qualify for a FPP! On other occassions I have seen friends fold good hand after good hand trying to wait out the bonus, Honestly thats insane, common in poker players but insane in the real world!

So how do you make bonuses work for you?Simple, PLay your ussual high level of Poker and pretend they don’t Even Exist! I’ve seen many, mediocre players make decent profits this way. Think how Much more Money  you can make off of bonuses if your a good player!

For more info on poker Bonuses check out our poker bonus Page. We are going to keep working on it and adding more reviews for more sites!

Final Thoughts: Sites vary greatly in both the size of a bonus and the ease of clearence so please use our bonus page and find theright fit for you. If you playing 1cent/2cent give up the $600 deposit to full tilt you’ll never cash it, no completely! Please comment on this post and this page if you have any info into good bonuses we’d love to hear them!

Can You Win alot of money in poker without ever bluffing. Probably, In fact thats the easiest way to win in cash games especially in the ultra loose cash games online. Still, If you can’t make a bluff at the right time your just throwing away money that you could be raking in.

So I’m going to give you a good Crash Course in Bluffing Starting with The Semi Bluff.

Now by definition a semi Bluff is a Bluff that accompanies either a draw or when you supect that you may have a tied hand or a slighlty better hand.

To Clarify this I’m going to review a hand I played last night on Full Tilt Poker. I limped in with AK and a fairly strong/Tight player raises. I fear a coin flop so I didn’t want to risk gambling so I flat call. The flop is all low cards so I check call and I start to get the feeling that he’s got a medium pair or AK/AJ. The Turn comes a queen which is the perfect card for me. If he did have AK /JJ/TT or AJ the queen hurts him quite a bit if He has AQ or KQ I believe I would pick up a change in his betting pattern. He bets out again just under a potsize bet and I immediately RRs a little more than the size of the pot. He thought about it and folded and I dragged in a big pot!

The Key parts of this hand are:

1.  I had played for a long time with this  player prior to trying this move.
2. He was a good player. A bad player would have probably called me with JJ or even 88 and I would have had to catch an A or K.
3. I was very confident of my read. If I only had an inkling of what he had this would be  losing play in the long run.
4. The part that is least apparent is that every move I made in the hand has a mathematical element behind it. That is to say if you are going to make a bluff like this you need to be picking up this hand at least 2 out of every 3 times you try it. If there not folding at least that often your doing something wrong. That may mean your not cut out for big bluffs still you can uses smaller high percentage bluffs when the timing is right.

If you’ve never had a Royal Flush you might just be dreaming of the day when your time is coming. Truth be told the better your hand the worse the payout, ussually! Thats of course bcause when hands like this happens the board just scares the shit out of any player worth his salt.  You bet hard and they think twice about mixing it up., even if their holding strong hands themselves. This is my sixth Royal Flush and I think I won a grand total of nine cents on this one. Still being the sixth it is a testament to just how much poker hands I have played as you on average get one once in every 589,000 hands.

The Other Royal Flushes were all for the most part uneventful as well. I got one while vacationing in Atlantic City. It was conviently enough one week after they ended a get a Royal Flush Jackpot.  In at least 2 everyone folded and one my very first royal flush I trashed the competition who called an all in. Unfortunately, I was at a play money table I had Just been Busted from the real one.

The second and best time I got a Royal (only 2 days after my first royal) I was playing in a homegame tournament and turned my straight +flush redraw. When the river hit my chair cracked under my weight and I went sprawling to the floor without seeing the card. That card musta hit you hard the dealler joked and I brushed myself off and slowly rose to see the Ace of Diamonds that Gives me the Royal. “Yeah , Terry hit me right between the eyes” I’m all in. We all laughed and my opponent called. The pot I dragged was more than half the chips on the table. I won the tournament along with $300 I got a good story and that’s Probably woth more than anything!

So Remember No matter how you play your hands take away this, The Joy of Playing (Poker ) will outlast any gain you could ever hope to get. And always rember a good story will last you long after your winnings are spent!