Texas Holdem Poker

	Ladbrokes Poker Room Details:
	Country of Origin	:	United Kingdom
	License	:	Gibraltar
	Year of Foundation	:	2004
	Software	:	Microgaming
	Currencies Used	:	EUR, GBP, USD
	Audited By	:	PWC
	Language	:	English
	Accepts USA Players	:	No
	Bonus	:	100% Up To $500

Ladbrokes Poker Room Review

Overview:

Ladbrokes is a well-known name in the bookmaking history of the UK. Now it has unfurled its wings to the world of online gaming as well. Ladbrokes Poker is one of the outcomes of this decision, having established not long ago in 2004. This online poker room has a lot to offer its players in forms of games that include not only poker but casino games as well. Apart from this there are different promotions, a generous bonus for a first time deposit and plenty of tournaments, which are the most popular at Ladbrokes Poker. There is a lot of money to be made at Ladbrokes Poker, as the games played are quite loose. So, anyone looking to earning a living can make a good start here.

Software:

Ladbrokes is now using the customized Microgaming software after having removed their own patented software. This has improved the traffic considerably. The software offers good 3-D graphics that provides a realistic feel to the games. The ‘My Lobby’ option is very convenient, as it gives you access to all the games through a neatly and clearly laid out list that separates the cash games from the tournaments besides which the limit versions are also listed for quick access to the games of your choice.

All table statistics, hand history, calendar and other useful features are also offered. Also available is a chat facility that enables players to interact with one another as well as the staff if they require any kind of support.

Games:

The games offered include the all-time favorite Texas Holdem in fixed limit, no limit and pot limit versions with most of the action taking place at the fixed limit tables. Omaha is the next most played game while the other available games include 5 Card Stud, 5 Card Draw and 7 Card Stud. Real money games are offered in full-ring, short-handed and heads-up versions.

The most popular games at Ladbrokes Poker are the tournaments that take place every fifteen minutes and are available throughout the day. The most amazing varieties can be seen at the sit and go tournaments that are offered in full ring and shorthanded versions in both single as well as multi table tournaments. Apart from these, several other tournaments are offered such as the jackpot tournaments, satellites and guaranteed tournaments. You can make your way to larger world tournaments through the satellite tournaments. Buy-ins to tournaments can begin as low as $2 and can go up as high as $300.

Player Traffic:

Peak time traffic at Ladbrokes falls around 1,500 players at the cash tables. This traffic is generally around European peak time, as US players are no longer allowed to wager at Ladbrokes Poker. The highest amount of traffic can be sighted at the middle stake Holdem levels.

Bonus and Promotions:

Players are offered a 100% up to $500 welcome bonus along with a first-time deposit. The bonus amount can be received when you wager 30 times the bonus amount within 30 days. Players are given Player Points for every raked hand that they play and they can redeem these points for the bonus and for buy-ins to tournaments. Promotional offers include the exciting leaderboard rake race that rewards up to $1,000,000 to the top players of the month. Apart from this there are daily free rolls of $25,000, guaranteed tournaments and sit and go jackpots.

Methods of Payment:

Deposit options include VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Switch, Solo, Delta, Bank Transfers and check while withdrawal options include VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Wire Transfer and check.

Customer Support:

The efficient staff at Ladbrokes Poker is available around the clock via telephone if there is some immediate query that you need to have answered or else they can also be contacted through the equally quick email service, as you can get a response to your mail within 24 hours. Besides these two support forms, you can also browse through the FAQ section where you are likely to find answers to most of the simple queries.

	Basic Details
	Country of Origin	:	Gibraltar
	License	:	Gibraltar
	Year of Foundation	:	2002
	Software	:	iPoker Network
	Size	:	11.9 MB
	Audited By	:	PWC
	Language	:	English, French, Italian, Spanish
	Accepts USA Players	:	No
	Bonus	:	$600

William Hill Poker Review

William Hill Poker comes from the William Hill group, a renowned bookmaker in the UK. They have been in the gambling business for years now and offer Sports betting, casino games and poker games. They are one of the leading gambling providers in Europe who have been providing excellent offline services and now have an equally good reputation for online services too.

Poker enthusiasts can find some wonderful games and promotions at William Hill Poker. The variety of promotions and the cash rewards attract a lot of traffic to the site. Peak hour traffic can go up to 2000 players playing ring games with Texas Holdem being the most sought after game.

Software

William Hill Poker switched over to the iPoker Network early this year becoming a part of one of the largest gaming network across the globe. It uses the PlayTech software to run its games. The software is simple and can be managed trouble-free. The graphics may not be one of the best in the industry but the picture and sound are sharp and clear besides which the software has scope for customisation.

The lobby displays the player stats including the hands being played, average pot size, number of players at the tables, flop percentages among others. You can even compare your own play with the table statistics helping you analyse your game and improvise for the future.

Also offered is a multi-table playing option, however you cannot adjust the size of the tables. The software is available in both the downloadable as well as in the browser-playing mode.

Games

William Hill Poker offers a commendable range of games that include Limit, No Limit and Pot Limit Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo and Five Card Stud. Tournaments also have a variety that include sit and go tournaments, multi-table tournaments, single table tournaments, freeroll tournaments, guaranteed tournaments and satellite tournaments that come with attractive cash prizes.

You can avail yourself of some of the exciting promotions that take place each day which include daily freerolls. Also available is a bad beat jackpot of £150 besides other jackpots. The top player in the month long tournaments also gets rewarded with a huge cash prize.

Players can also accumulate William Hill Loyalty Points that can be exchanged for cash or an entry to a live tournament.

Deposit and Withdrawal Options

William Hill Poker offers a number of deposit options that include VISA, PayPal, Moneybookers, Neteller, Bank Wire and others.

Withdrawals can be done via Neteller, Cheques, FirePay, Citadel etc.

Customer Support Customer Support is available via a live chat facility, telephone and email services, 24 hours a day seven days a week.

William Hill Poker offers poker games that suit a variety of players and is a good website to enjoy poker games that are not only exciting but rewarding as well. The luring promotions attract a huge amount of traffic to its poker tables making the games thrilling to both novices and experienced players alike.

Regardless of the type of poker that you are playing, be it tournament or cash, betting for information is extremely important in NL Hold’em. There are plenty of players that simply will not do this and it is more than likely the reason that they are not very successful at the game of hold’em. At times, you have to be willing to lose money to win money. Only the great players grasp this concept and use it to their advantage.

The problem with a lot of amateur card players is that they are scared to put money into the pot without the best hand. Once the flop has hit, you don’t necessarily have to have the best hand to hit. By merely checking it down, you find out nothing and invite everyone to beat you. In order to be a great tournament player , you are going to need to fire, even if you don’t have the best.

As an example, assume that you have been deal Q9s on the BB and someone in late position has doubled the blinds. Both you and the small blind make the call for the hand to be three handed. The flop comes out Ad9h2c. You have a rainbow flop and you have hit middle pair with a decent kicker. The small blind checks and you fire a $400 bet into a $600 pot. The initial raiser calls and the SB folds. What does his call tell you?

Since there is no flush draw or straight draw, you have no worries there. Since he raised in late position, he more than likely has an A, but it Is probably pretty weak or he would have come over top of you. He could also be sitting on a pocket pair like JJ or 1010. The only other real alternative is that he is setting you up for a re-raise on the turn. So now the turn card is dealt and it is a 6s. There is still no draw on the board unless he was going after a runner-runner pre-flop. With $1,400 in the pot, you fire a $1,000 bet.

This bet is going to give you a very good idea of where he stands. If he is setting you up, he will come over the top of your, but in most cases, if he only has a weak A he will just call or fold here. If he calls, you are going to have to make a decision on the river as to how you want to approach the hand. For this example, let’s assume he calls.

By just calling, he has more or less told you what his hand is. There is no draw so that is not even a question. His weak raise prior to the flop would indicate a mid pair or a weak A. You can still possibly be the winner here, but it is unlikely. Depending upon the type of player you are up against, you may have to back off at this point and take the loss if he makes a big bet on the river. Again, this is why it is so important to pay attention during the course of the tournament.

If he has shown a tendency to fold on the river with a weak hand, you can fire at the pot and hope he doesn’t come over top of you. If he is a calling station, you have no shot of chasing him out so check it down and hope he does the same. Your betting told you what he had, now it is up to you to make the right move.

There isn’t a poker player alive that participates in tournament poker that has not found themselves card dead in the early stages of a tournament. You go in with a plan that you are going to double up early on that one big hand, but it never seems to come. The next thing you know you are looking down at less than 1,000 in chips and you start to wonder how much longer you can wait.

When you make your move is going to depend on how fast the levels are and how many sets of blinds that you have left. While a lot of players will get concerned when they get below a certain level, it is not about how big your stack in as much as it is how effective that stack is going to be when you push it in the middle of the table.

For example, if you are down to 1,000 in chips and the blinds are only at 50/100, you still have 2 rounds before you need to get into panic mode. The reason is that you can still make a significant raise by pushing all in with 700 chips that will make someone think twice before calling you. However, once the blinds get to a point that your stack will only represent a standard 3x or 4x the bb raise, you need to be concerned. In fact, you need to make sure that you never allow it to get to that point.

While the saying ‘a chip and a chair’ sounds great, you are going to need some unbelievable luck in order to make that work. By staying aggressive with a stack that still represents a significant raise, you are fighting off those that will call you just for the sake of eliminating a player.

Another factor in this is going to be your position. You need to get those chips in the middle against players that have to worry about losing the amount of chips that you have remaining. Pushing them in there against someone that has a monster stack is only inviting a call. While this is great when you are sitting on AA or KK, you want to avoid giving the big stack at the table the opportunity to tangle with you.

Finally, it all comes down to your cards, or should I say card. Remember, you are looking to make a move against players that cannot afford to take the hit and when you are in position. Whether you like it or not, you are often going to have to get those chips in there on the strength of only one card in your hand. If you are not sitting on a pocket pair, you MUST be looking down at an Ace or King.

Being short stacked is never an enviable position, but you have to get those chips in there when they can do the most good. With any luck, you will be able to scoop up some blinds and manage to hang around until you see a good hand, but don’t wait too long. Once you get in the danger zone of 6-10x the big blind, you are going to have to take your chances when a decent hand comes around. Otherwise, you are doomed to seeing your last couple of chips go into the middle on the blinds where you have no choice in making a stand.

PokerTracker, Sit N Go Power Tools, Sit N Go Shark, do any of these names sound familiar to you? If they don’t, you are probably making more deposits than withdrawals into your poker account. In this day of poker, if you do not have at least one of the many forms of poker tracking software that are on the market, you are merely begging to have your cash taken by players that are willing to out the $100 or so to know every last detail of how you play the game.

Check out the poker forums online and read about how people get called down by the same players time and again with nothing and they end up losing all kinds of hands on a bluff. Do you think that is merely coincidence? Is it a conspiracy? No, more than likely the other players have poker software that tells them that they do this all the time and are taking a shot against a very loose aggressive player.

While the software is generally sold on the basis that you can data mine information on other players, there are also other benefits to consider. First and foremost, you can get add ons to the software that will not only enable you to store all of their information, but you can also have it up on your screen in real time to help you make decisions against the player your are up against.

By using this software, you are able to track every move that you would consider to be important during the course of the hand. How much money they win or lose overall. How many times they follow up a pre-flop raise with a continuation bet. How often they call down to the river and win. Their win percentage when they check raise on the river. You don’t think this kind of stuff is useful regardless of the level that you play at?

In addition to mining other player’s information, you are also getting all of your data stored. You can tell when you are falling into a pattern during an individual session and you are also able to start to analyze your play offline. This is where the software really helps your game.

Imagine having a frustrating session and losing a small mint. Your mind is not clear and your probably forget the hands as soon as you shut down your system for the day. Once you get off of tilt, you can go back and use the video playback feature and see where you made your mistakes. You may not like what you see sometimes, but it will make you a better player.

Of course there is the question of the money. Your argument is that you only buy in for $50 at a time and play micro-limits. You see no use in spending a $100 on software at that level. Then ask yourself how many deposits you have made and how much if ever you have withdrawn. Also ask yourself how many other micro players have the same attitude. That software will pay for itself if you use it right regardless of the level of player you are. This can end up being the best investment you ever made in poker.