If you have decided to play online poker, one of the things you should consider when joining a site is the poker software and how that software interacts with you. One site in particular gives you more options than others. The Texas Holdem Poker gives you a couple of different ways to get to the excellent bwin poker software when you sign up to join. This may seem like a secondary reason to decide on a site, like bwin, but considering that the bwin poker install will get you off and running quicker, it’s nice to have options. The reason to name bwin over other sites is because of those options. Bwin poker install can be done through a web based browser or by the conventional way of downloading it on to your computer. The bwin poker install done over the web may be the way for you to go. Considering most sites like to bog your computer down with auto-updating software, and give you no alternate other than that, this is a big plus for players that don’t want to devote all that memory to clunky online poker software. Selecting the software, not just how you install it, is also an underrated and underappreciated evaluation of which site to join. For example, bwin poker software is smooth and easy to use. The navigation between the opening lobby and getting you right into cash games or tournaments is seamless. The interface is logically arranged. Considering how awkward it is to find exactly what you are looking for in other sites the difference is notable. You’d think every online poker site would have the intelligence to utilize software like bwin poker software because making it easier for players to jump into a game makes it easier for them to become customers. Oddly, despite that being sound logic, many other sites can’t compare to bwin’s poker software. Not only is the bwin poker install a marked difference, so too, is the bwin poker software. If you owned a brick and mortar casino, typically you want to put it in a place that is as easy to reach as possible. If not, you might spend a great deal of your advertising budget on billboards steering the players to where they can play. This seems self-evident, but online poker sites sometimes have such clunky organization that they in effect do exactly the opposite. It’s to the site and the players advantage to have things logically ordered, or big online billboards to connect the players to the game. The roadmap should make sense and be well marked. The bwin poker software also features an interface that is easy to use and one that is comfortable to play in. To be successful in poker, as in anything in life, it’s important to be focused. Perhaps, in poker especially played in the comfort of your own home, focus is even more important. The bwin poker software does not distract a player rather it makes it easier for a player to obtain that focus and get into the groove. Other sites spend too much time blasting their players with notices that players may not need. Perhaps, it’s because their softwares are so poorly organized they feel the need to link dump in their players’ chatboxes as often as they do. While, that may only be a small distraction, it’s still a distraction from the game at hand. Bwin’s straight forward tables put the focus on what is important for the player and that is winning poker hands. You might point out it’s not an advantage to the player if all the players share the advantage. Not true. Everything moves quicker which is an advantage for a serious poker player. There is less hang-up in software issues so the players all share in the advantages. Also, if the other players are more comfortable playing poker a winning player might get a losing player to play longer then they might on a site that lacks that comfort. These elements of a poker site are easily overlooked but you’d be surprised how much they can help a winning player’s bottom line.

One of the biggest leaps forward that you will make with regards to your poker understanding comes when you stop believing everything that you read or hear. This may sound strange considering the fact that you are reading my article here. During my poker evolutionary journey then I have read more books and articles than I can care to remember. It is only now looking back that I realise that many of them were harmful to my understanding but also my long term earn rate. One such misconception is the ranking of poker hands and their value which has been derived on how often they win at showdown.

The fact of the matter is that when you are playing no limit hold’em and the stacks are deep or very deep then this information is not only useless but it can lead to serious financial harm. Deep stacked no limit hold’em is a totally different scenario and your hands get much of their overall value not from their strength on some hand chart but in how much money they have the capacity to make post flop. This is key and it underlines how implied odds are huge in no limit hold’em.

Let us look at an example here to show you what I mean. Our hero has A-A and this is a hand that many players abuse and it also highlights that the hands that players wait for like aces, kings and queens often lead to their downfall. You have to ask yourself how much value aces can give to you post flop on several streets of betting? It is difficult to make a straight or a flush and there are only two aces left in the deck to give you a set.

However look at a hand like J-9s, this hand can make a flush and numerous straights as well as two pair hands and even trips on boards like 9-9-2 etc. If you get a flush or a straight then these are powerful hands that beat sets, two pairs and big pairs which are all hands that players would maybe go for their entire stack with. I have seen players stack off for 100 big blinds with A-K pre-flop and hands like top pair top kicker post flop. Players also go the whole way on hands like two pair or a low set. So any hand that has straight or flush potential (especially both) is a very good hand in deep stacked no limit hold’em. It is good because it has the capacity to not get you into trouble like the premium hands do but also because it can win you the pot by several different ways.

However the main point is that the hand has straight and flush potential whereas the aces straight and flush potential can only be derived by having a board that has K-Q-J-10 or four cards to a suit. In either example then the action will dry up significantly on boards like that.

My favourite place to play poker is here: https://www.bwin.com/texas-holdem-poker. See you there!

Horse racing along with football are the two biggest betting mediums in the UK at this time and it is hard to see either of them being displaced from being the top two in the future. But in this article I want to relate the techniques that an associate of mine uses to gain an edge over the market. He basically sits and watches race after race either on the Racing UK channel or on “At The Races”.

Having not spoken to him for a while I cannot remember of the top of my head just which types of races he specialises in but I do know one thing, he makes a living and that is more than good enough for him and for me. His method is simple but yet very powerful. He began several years ago and he basically didn’t make any money for the first three months.

In that time, when he wasn’t playing online bingo he slowly but surely began to build up a feel for the horses that ran in a certain class or sector. He got to know how they liked to run, on what conditions they were best suited, what tactics favoured which horse and how certain jockeys liked to ride them. He knew what length lay offs suited which horse and after about a year of doing this, he had an immense dossier on about three hundred horses.

I have sat in his living room and watched him re-run the same race no fewer than twelve times. Each time he noted something different that he had missed the time before. To him, it is more than just a job, it is a hobby, a job and a passion all rolled into one. If you can be passionate about something that also makes you money then you are a very lucky person indeed.

The thing is that my friend does not even view what he does as work and that really is the secret to not only making money in sports betting but also being happy in life. He basically gets this information with the goal of using it in running as he basically forms a tissue of prices in his own mind for what a particular horse should be in running based on how it is running at the moment. I have watched amazed at how he has laid horses as short as 1.03 that have been in the lead in the final furlong and been correct to do so after they have got beaten by a short head or a nose.

He analyses races and then feels how they are going to be run based on the conditions and how the horses like to run. This feel that he has built up has been developed by simple hard work and perseverance. He has given himself the best chance to make money by homing in on certain types of races and getting to know them better than the professional odds compilers and other punters that he is in direct competition with.

He has told me several times how he started out without any intention whatsoever of trying to make money. But his knowledge base became so powerful that he started to perform better than the market and that really does take some doing. What I like about him is that his methods and personal qualities have basically mirrored my own. The only difference is that he does what he does in the field of horse racing and I do what I do in the field of poker.

This article was produced by Carl “The Dean” Sampson