Hal Lubarky is a very good poker player, he placed 118th out of 335 players in the World Series of Poker in 2007 with a chip count of over four hundred thousand dollars at the end of it. Hal is special in his poker playing abilities even more so due to the fact that he is is legally blind. A poker enthusiast from a young age Hal found himself struck with a serious eye disease in the late nineties that left him unable to read the cards.
Hal fell into a great depression when he was forced to give up the game he loved but eventually was coaxed into trying an online poker game with a friend over his shoulder reading the cards to him. Soon Hal had discovered a new way to play the game he had loved. Hal progressed to live poker games and finally started entering tournaments. It was a red letter day for Lubarky when the gaming officials finally altered the rules so as to allow handicapped people to play in professional tournaments. To most players at last year’s tournament Hal is an inspiration. Hal is just happy to be able to enjoy his game again.
Five Card Stud is easier than most forms of poker because your opponents only have one face down card. It’s won not by straights or flushes but mostly by high cards and pairs so keep an eye out for those. You should definitely fold if you don’t have a pair in your first three cards or at least a live card that beats everyone else’s hands. Here are some more strategy tips for playing this game both at online casinos and physical gambling arenas.
• Pay attention to the players hands that have folded so you know which cards are out of the deck.
• Pay attention to the players themselves, study their hands, try to predict their moves.
• Don’t get overconfident if you’ve got a high card, it won’t mean anything if put against someone with a stronger pair of cards than you.
• Bluff badly every now and then so you get called on it, people won’t be able to predict when you’re actually bluffing for real and it will make you a harder opponent to beat.
• If your hand (including the facedown card) is beaten by someone else’s face up cards you should fold.
• Trust your instincts.
• And above all don’t play with money you can’t afford to lose.
The last two are good advice to follow both in poker and in real life!
One of the hardest parts of picking up a new game is learning all the technical jargon that goes along with any new game. Luckily for you the online casino Five Card Stud Poker short hand is the same as those found in regular casinos so if you know the terms you’re set. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Five Card Stud here are some new phrases for your vocabulary.
Door Cards – the first face up card dealt in an opening hand.
Low Cards – Cards 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 9
High Cards – Cards 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace
Live Cards – cards which haven’t been dealt yet that the players feel might possibly still be dealt in gameplay.
Dead Cards – cards which have already been dealt.
Fast Play – when the players bet and raise as always and then re-raise multiple times on hands to increase the speed of the game by making as many players drop out as quickly as possible.
Slow Play – when the players only check and call. This is done to keep everyone in the game and to increase the odds of the pot.
Alright so now you know, log onto those casinos and clean up at those poker tables!
5 Card Stud Poker is one of the simplest forms of poker to play, with logical rules and straightforward game play. Each player puts up their ante and then is dealt one card face up and one card face down. The lowest face-up card must put in either half the minimum bet or the full bet to start the game. At this point in the game the cards are ranked according to their face value as well as their suits – Clubs being the lowest with Diamonds and Hearts higher than that and Spades ranking the highest. (After this round cards are only ranked according to face value.) Then in a clockwise direction the other players either call or raise or fold their own hands. Round two begins when the players are dealt another card face up leaving them with three cards total now. The player with the highest card from here on out will be the first person to check or bet. Once all the players have finished calling or betting in a clockwise order once more a fourth card is dealt face up. The minimum bet is doubled in this round.
The fifth and final card is dealt after all the players have finished calling or betting, followed by another round of betting on their hands with the minimum bet doubled. The cards are turned over at this point and the best hand wins the pot. And there you have it now you know how to play Five card stud poker.
Five Card Stud poker is ideal for online casinos as it’s fast (over a hundred hands can be played in an hour!) and easy to grasp the concept of. It’s lost popularity over the years thanks to Texas Hold ‘Em but we foresee a resurgence for this game as online casinos become more established on the internet.
In Seven Card Stud Poker the cards are worth the typical amounts with 1-10 being worth their numerical value and Jack, Queen, King and Ace being high cards. During bring-in bets the suits of the cards also have a value Clubs being the lowest then Diamonds, then Hearts with Spades being the highest.
Seven Card Stud begins with every player placing his or her ante into the pot. The amount of the initial bet will vary depending on the house rules. Each player is then dealt three cards, one face up, two face-down. If you happen to be the player with the lowest ranked face up card you will then be required to place the bring-in bet. Bring-in bet rates are also pre-determined with a minimum and a maximum amount that can be bet. Once this bet has been made everyone else at the table can place their bets.
Once this round of betting is complete a fourth card, is dealt face up. This time around the player with the highest face up card gives the bring-in bet. This player will typically be asked if he or she wants to bet or check while the rest will then be offered the options of folding, betting or raising.
In the third round yet another card is dealt to each person at the table face up. The player with the highest card will take the bring-in bet, the maximum bet is usually raised for this round.
Finally each player is dealt a seventh card this time face down. Everyone can then turn their face down cards over and build the best hands out of the cards they have been dealt. The player with the highest hand wins.
How do you win a multi-table poker tournament? For both online and real time poker games there are many different strategies and most will not work at every game but there are some universal basics that when applied correctly should always help you in bringing home the pot. Having a strategy is definitely a step in the right direction as so many players don’t ever bother to think of a plan so you’ll already be ahead of most of your opponents.
In the first few hands of the poker tournament play only your best cards, this may mean you fold a lot in the early games but this strategy will keep you from being thrown out of the tournament by being overconfident in your hands. Bet low to begin with, you don’t want to run out of cash halfway through the game. Some experts might even suggest only going all in if playing with Aces, Kings or Queens. This is up to you to decide but be very careful in any respect.
Once you’re all warmed up and you’ve got a better idea of what your fellow players are like you can get a little more comfortable and open up your betting. Bet higher, take a few risks and hopefully start raking in the chips.
Don’t bet against the ‘big dogs’ on the playing field though, the ones with the largest stacks of chips as you can tell at this point that these are the people who really know what they’re doing and will be able to smell a bluff a mile away. Be careful in all your choices after all we want to see this right through to the end.
Assuming you make it all the way to the final table, we know now you’ve got the focus and the discipline to beat the other players at the table as you’ve outlasted all the others. At this point you don’t want to get over confident though, focus your attention on taking out the players with the smaller stacks of chips. Stay aggressive however you don’t want your opponents to pressure you into folding early. You want to put the pressure on your opponents as most rounds are won by the aggressor at this point.
When playing Poker and Blackjack it’s important for a player to be able to decide logically whether to hit or to stand. Some players may rely solely on gut instinct and their luck might be so that they are always right however knowing when to stand logically means you actually will always make the right decision.
For Poker being able to read the other players, being able to guess what cards they hold and what their next likely move is, is key to knowing what you should do. Standing in cases like these can also be beneficial as if you hold a weak hand but stand on it, it may make other players think your hand is a strong one if you’re willing to stand on it and they may in turn make mistakes. This is a bluff that works well and often.
In Blackjack the best way to know when to stand is to count the cards in the deck, keep an idea of what sorts of cards have been all played out. If the higher cards have mostly been dealt out and the majority of the cards in the deck should be low cards then this is a time for hitting but if the reverse is true and there are mostly high cards left in the un-dealt deck and you have a mid-level hand then you should stand and hope that the dealer hits and busts his hand.
Always think about what you’re doing and how your next move will appear to the other players and what consequences this may have later on in the game whether you’re playing online or at a land based casino. This is true strategy and is important to learn both in cards and in life.
Kenny Rogers says you gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away but he forgot the most important part of poker - knowing when to bluff! Now bluffing may not be the most universal skill as it’s not useful in a lot of gambling games besides poker and brag and a lot of people are actually horrible at it because they’re just unable to tell a believable lie. However most people can be taught to be reasonably good at bluffing, especially when playing with people who don’t know them well.
The first step to bluffing then is actually to develop a poker face, the idea is to keep your fellow players always guessing as to what kind of hand you might have. If you’re always fake frowning when you have a good hand and smiling when you have a bad hand they’re going to pick up on that. So you want to remain as neutral as possible regardless of the type of hand you have. Once you’ve developed your ‘poker’ or neutral face you want to become aware of any ‘tells’ you may have, like one gambler I know habitually scratched the left side of his nose when he had a good hand, tapping your fingers on the table when you have a bad hand etcetera. These are all ‘tells’ that you need to get rid of before you can bluff successfully.
Bluffing is tantamount in situations where you may have a hand that most likely isn’t a winning hand but you need the other players at the table to believe it is. You want them to think your hand is so great they have no choice but to fold. However if you do this every round and keep showing average or even bad hands then someone’s going to call your bluff for sure. You need to bluff sparingly so that people don’t pick up on the fact that you’re bluffing. You want to bluff subtly so people don’t realize you’re faking them out. So don’t all of a sudden start smiling over how great your cards are, you want to maybe grin a little and then stop, say something really positive unrelated to your hand like you’re all of a sudden in a good mood. But remember whatever you do has to be something you might normally do otherwise people will get suspicious and think you’re bluffing.
Of course the ideal time to bluff is when you’ve read your fellow players body language and know that they have bad hands so be sure to pay attention to their tells also. Knowing when to bluff and how to decipher body language is useful both in real time poker and poker via webcam.
In gambling, as in most areas in life, if you have an idea of what the people around you are thinking you’re more likely to come out on top in any given situation. If you can make an educated guess as to what an opponent is likely to do then you’re can think of ways to counter their move. This is where learning to read body language comes in.
Being able to read body language of course comes in handiest in multiplayer card games like poker. Your body language reading skills here can be the difference between taking the pot or walking away with an empty wallet.
For example most people when they are lying find it hard to look others in the eye, while others may find themselves giving more detail to a story than necessary. The legs are the farthest away from the brain and thus are hardest to control unconsciously, someone with fidgety feet could be expressing nervousness, stress or general discomfort.
On the reverse you also need to be aware of your own body movements and the tells you may be giving away. A good way to become aware of this is to play in a room with a mirror so you can observe yourself or play with a friend who will afterwards tell you what they’ve observed about your tells. The term ‘Poker face’ comes from players of this game who always maintain a blank expression that tells their opponents nothing about the hand of cards they have been dealt. All poker players strive to perfect this sort of face.
If you wish to project confidence holding your head level both horizontally and vertically is a good way to start. Be sure not to cross your arms over your chest as this shows nervousness or can come across as protecting yourself. However if you wish to put up a false front then you can of course reverse all these positions to trick your opponents into thinking your hand is worse than it is. However be aware that this can become a tell on its own if used too frequently.
You ever wonder what the odds are on your hand when you’ve got two pair or when you hit a royal flush or when your hand is so crappy you might as well flush it down the toilet? Well there’s a really useful poker odds caclulator found here http://www.cardplayer.com/tools_tips where you can find out your odds for ‘regular’ poker, Texas Hold Em and Omaha style poker with a few clicks of your mouse.
